Are you ready to conquer the grind and revel in the leveled-up thrills of World of Warcraft's Cataclysm expansion? Strap in as we embark on an epic quest through Azeroth, where the leveling grind isn't just a hurdle—it's a rite of passage. Join me as I share the electrifying experience of discovering class-specific abilities and the sheer satisfaction of progress. But when the grind feels too daunting, should you opt for Blizzard's level boosts? We're breaking down the why behind the fast pass, exploring how it fits into the grand tapestry of the game without unraveling the core experience. Whether you're a WoW veteran or a newcomer eager to jump into the fray, this episode is your compass to navigating the grind with zeal!
Dive headfirst into the tumultuous seas of WoW PvP, where the treasure chest of loot drops is as random as it is coveted. I'll regale you with tales of my chase for that elusive weapon and dissect why the Retail version might just be the haven for those who'd rather not spend countless hours on the grind. But that's just the beginning—we're also scaling the steep XP curve and tackling the ever-present question of class balance, where warriors and mages lock horns in a battle for supremacy. As we dissect talent tree evolutions and the complexities they bring, get ready for a no-holds-barred discussion that will arm you with the strategies you need to claim victory in Azeroth's never-ending power struggle.
Hope you all enjoy and hope you relate to any of these stories. And I will speak to you all in the next episode!
Are you ready to conquer the grind and revel in the leveled-up thrills of World of Warcraft's Cataclysm expansion? Strap in as we embark on an epic quest through Azeroth, where the leveling grind isn't just a hurdle—it's a rite of passage. Join me as I share the electrifying experience of discovering class-specific abilities and the sheer satisfaction of progress. But when the grind feels too daunting, should you opt for Blizzard's level boosts? We're breaking down the why behind the fast pass, exploring how it fits into the grand tapestry of the game without unraveling the core experience. Whether you're a WoW veteran or a newcomer eager to jump into the fray, this episode is your compass to navigating the grind with zeal!
Dive headfirst into the tumultuous seas of WoW PvP, where the treasure chest of loot drops is as random as it is coveted. I'll regale you with tales of my chase for that elusive weapon and dissect why the Retail version might just be the haven for those who'd rather not spend countless hours on the grind. But that's just the beginning—we're also scaling the steep XP curve and tackling the ever-present question of class balance, where warriors and mages lock horns in a battle for supremacy. As we dissect talent tree evolutions and the complexities they bring, get ready for a no-holds-barred discussion that will arm you with the strategies you need to claim victory in Azeroth's never-ending power struggle.
Hope you all enjoy and hope you relate to any of these stories. And I will speak to you all in the next episode!
Thank you, hello and welcome to the Pig and Whistle Tales from Azeroth. As always here at the Pig and Whistle Inn in Stormwind, I go through a variety of subjects with regards to World of Warcraft. If you've grab a bottle or a pint, sit back and enjoy this midweek episode. We'll be looking over, uh, the forums. We're going to be looking at sort of cataclysm. We're going to be looking at pvp. We're going to be looking at a few other bits and bobs, but essentially we will start off with cataclysm. It is just released. It's been out for two days now as of when this is coming out, this episode. So yeah, it's been out for a couple days and you know my first thoughts on it are it's actually really really good.
Speaker 1:
I've enjoyed my leveling experience. I've enjoyed my questing. I think the quests are very good. I think the uh classes themselves are actually still very good. I think mr pandaria is the height of um class sort of fantasy and uniqueness, and that's very much due to priest getting void, shift druids getting symbiosis, warriors getting stuff like avatar you know all of that stuff. You get really big cooldowns. You get very unique cooldowns. Shift Druids getting Symbiosis Warriors getting stuff like Avatar you know all of that stuff, you get really big cooldowns, you get very unique cooldowns and I think that it is very good. But at the same time, I think that Cataclysm does have its highs and low points. So on the forums I've found one post that says I've had a hard time believing the average player enjoys these grinds.
Speaker 1:
Now, some grinds in World of Warcraft are very good and are needed to be there. These grinds can include a legendary quest line which make them so unique, such as Atiesh or Shadowmourne, anything like that. These are grinds and these are grinds that have a really big payoff at the end of it, because you get multiple different things. You obviously have the questing grind, you have reputation grinds, you have many different sort of grinds in the game and this is what this person had to say about it. Let's be honest. Honest. If the leveling grind was a fun, blit was fun blizzard wouldn't be able to sell level boosts for the cost of a new expansion. It was like we're getting punished because blizzard only cares about these or those profits and couldn't care less about the player experience. I don't mind the grind on my first character, but after that I would just really rather have a quick leveling experience so I can try out all the classes instead of being forced to choose what class I want to commit to.
Speaker 1:
Okay, it's kind of a fair point, but at the same time, you have heirlooms that are in wrath of the lich king classic. You have multiple ways of leveling. Looking for group dungeon is very good. You can passively level via uh mining, herbing stuff like that now, because you get uh xp while doing these. Uh, uh, what are they? Professions?
Speaker 1:
Now, the character boosts are there for people who want to jump back into classic, say wrath of the lich king, cataclysm, whatever you know expansion it would have been, and they don't have a character at that like max level currently. So if you have a, let's say, level 35, yeah, and it's wrath of the lich king, so level 80 is your maximum and cataclysm is coming out. Would you rather want to jump straight back into cataclysm? Or look at your main menu, see a level 35 as your highest character and think, oh, my god, I've still got to go through all of like or most of classic leveling and then outlands leveling. Still, it's not going to be enjoyable, is it? That's not a fun thought. You want to be like? Okay, I can jump straight into kata like content. I don't really have to do any of the old world content, which is really good, so I might buy the boost. That's what the boost is there for. People use it to uh, level up other alt characters, which, by all means, if they want to buy the boost and use it for that purpose, they are more than welcome to it and I think that's completely down to them.
Speaker 1:
I have no problem with the boost. I think that it is very much. If you want, it is there, but it doesn't bother me in the slightest. I'm not bothered by it. I don't see it on my screen ever. To be honest, you don't load up the main menu and see this giant buy a wow boost now. No, I think you do whenever they implement it into the game. But I don't think that it's. It's super rare that you would ever see that on the main menu screen. Uh, in my honest opinion. So I don't think it's that big of a deal.
Speaker 1:
I think that people need to get over their weird obsession with the level boost. I get that it is a money grab thing from Blizzard, but if people just didn't buy it and, let's face it, they put it into the game because people are going to buy it. There is a market for it, so why would you not market it in your own game when other people like use third-party websites to market it and get the same sort of value from it? Because people on third-party websites sell boosts, sell gold, all of that, so why wouldn't, why shouldn't, blizzard for their own game? That's kind of what you know it comes down to, and if we as a player base didn't buy any of it from third party or even blizzard themselves, they wouldn't put it in the game. So there is obviously an audience for it and I think people just need to accept it that these boosts are always going to be there and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:
Now one person down here um a couple of the replies to it is I enjoy the grind, leveling of WoW. It could always be worse. It could always be like playing OSRS. I'm not sure. I'm not sure what that is actually. I'm trying to rattle my brain for it, but I can't think of what that is. I think having a decent grind in Wo wow is good because it gives you something to push for, but I don't think you want to make the grind too tough to do or too easy to do, because too easy means that the reward for it is null and void, really, and too tough will drive people away from your game a lot more. So I think you always want to lean on the side of easier, but you want to have a couple of these grinds be super, super tough for players who want to commit to that. Uh, I've enjoyed my really long swim so far.
Speaker 1:
Throw in rdf to spice it up. I've been getting lucky and get honest, bruised with loot. The needs were needs. Like me, I needed a dungeon weapon that dropped. I want it and that was, and it was fit in point five seconds. Well, the rest of which the mobs and vendor sales I greeted.
Speaker 1:
I don't get this. This is a completely random post. Yeah, this one's completely honest. This is a completely random post. Yeah, this one's completely honest. But what this does get me onto is people complain about the grind of stuff, that, and people say that you know there's no grinding in Retail WoW anymore, and that gets me thinking why not just go and play Retail WoW? If you aren't a fan of grinding your way through World of Warcraft, why not go play Retail WoW? There are some grinds in there, but at the same time, there's a lot more sort of streamlined like levelling process and it's very, very efficient and quick.
Speaker 1:
Now, the grinds that I'm talking about is there's one that has been currently released with the latest patch and it is for Taven and what you need is this one achievement and this achievement. You need eight achievements in it and these achievements obviously have achievements in that. So in total, you're doing god knows 50 achievements, something around that. Now, these achievements are not easy. You're going over the entire dragon isles, doing different reputations, doing different bits and bobs, doing different events and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:
I have started this um grind and this grind I'm I feel like I'm very close to completing it, but every time I look at it I'm like, oh god, I still have this much stuff to do and that amount of stuff will take me weeks to do so. There is a big grind to get this tavern mount. Now, I started with very little done within you know, dragon Isles as a whole, because once I hit max level, I'm locked in for PvP. I want my gear, I want to just do arenas, you know all of that stuff, but I'm locked in essentially. I started this a couple of weeks ago and it is a very long grind. It will take you a substantial amount of time. So you do have grinds in Retail WoW, but if it's a leveling grind that you don't like, then go and play Retail, because it isn't that bad retail leveling. It really isn't In any MMO, though.
Speaker 1:
You will have that grind, that leveling grind, and there will be a certain point where it feels like you're hitting a brick wall, or more so than others, and when you get to in cataclysm. Level 80 to 82 is really easy. You level so fast. It's ridiculous. When you get to 83 to 85, that's the brick wall. You need millions of xp. So, to put it into perspective level 83 to 84 you need 5 million xp, something around that, and then you need 10 million for level 84 to 85. So it's double. It's double and it takes forever. It's about five hours worth of questing dungeons. You know all of that stuff and that's doing a relatively fast pace, but also a very casual fast pace, if that makes sense, um. So yeah, there's obviously going to be that grind and people know that there's going to be this grind in. It's absolutely ridiculous. Um, but yeah, I, I just People need to get over it and accept that there will be grinds in WoW and especially leveling. There's always going to be some sort of grind when you're leveling a character in World of Warcraft. Next one I wanted to look at was this one To play versus mages with war is a pain in the.
Speaker 1:
This one to play versus mages with war is a pain in the, and obviously they're just cutting out any sort of um rude words is the best way to put it. Super easy, fix. So remove the talent that resets shimmer after alter time. That's just too much. And for other mage haters, I welcome you to give me more ideas for mages thinking about to comment under my post. You are welcome to. But to be honest, I don't give a about your opinion because we all know it's going to be biased. This has to be a bait, like um forum post because he's talking about. It's going to be biased if mages post under this he's talking about this as a warrior like. Obviously his post is biased as well. Now the problem with this is um, alter time can be purged. Alter time has a certain amount of time that you can use and you only have a certain amount of time that you can use and you only have a certain amount of blink charges. These blink charges have the same cooldown, I think, maybe even less than charge a warrior's charge ability, and even then a warrior has heroic leap as well to get back on track to the war or to the mage. So you actually have more kind of mobility, um, although mages do a displacement actually, but you're on par with the mobility. I like this comment, though. Blast wave needs to die too.
Speaker 1:
No idea why everyone has a knockback now, but of all classes, mage, lol. No, do people not realize that mage was the og class that had a knockback? The only knockback in the game back in classic world of warcraft 2004 was blast wave from a mage, from a fire mage. It was the only one in the game, so it's the original knockback, which is like hilarious. Um, I I just don't get it. I don't get where people come from with these like takes. It's absolutely ridiculous.
Speaker 1:
Um, this person says every speck is a pain, uh, to fight because you all got single, uh, single ability. We all got every single ability possible with the rework of talent trees. Just using warrior is as simple as just using warrior as an example. Uh, here, don't get mad. Warrior people double charge. Shockwave storm bolt used to have to choose, now you get all three.
Speaker 1:
This is very true. Um, game got super bloated, super fast and sometimes less is more. Yes, but at the same time, demon hunters are running rampant right now and they have some of the least amount abilities in the game. Um, you could do with giving demon hunters more abilities to make their damage a bit more. You know, setup based, or at least like you have to press a few more buttons in order to do your damage, rather than just blade dance, essence break, blade dance again, you know kind of thing. Um, whereas for mage boomy it's a more set up your damage kind of deal. Um, same with warlock, and you know you need to find the right opportunities. Um, all of these bits and bobs. But I just I think some people's takes on pvp sort of balancing definitely are not biased, right, this warrior is definitely not biased and wants to balance the game around the game as a whole, right, definitely not around warriors. Hmm, yeah, seems weird. Um, I mean, yeah, I don't know, some people's takes are absolutely fried in my opinion, and there's not much you can do to help them out.
Speaker 1:
The last one I did want to go over is this one. I think this one is very cool, and I do like to do these, uh, small forum posts as well. Where to start help? I haven't pvp'd in a while. I do miss it, though, and after watching the awc I'm thinking of diving back in. Here's where I need help.
Speaker 1:
What to play? I like my shaman, I like healing, also pauses for applause, um, but I know Shaman Button Bloat is a thing, especially in PvP. I could maybe do a Priest Healing, though, or Druid, okay. So what you want to play is very much down to you. Pick what you want to enjoy, and then you can learn based off of that. Don't pick the meta stuff, don't pick anything like that. Play what you enjoy. That's what will get you back into PvP. As for Shaman Button Bloat, yes, I think this is the well Resto Shamans I think have the most abilities in the game at the moment, or PvP anyway. So I do understand that kind of problem.
Speaker 1:
You can get around this with sort of help-harm macros. These are where, like you, put riptide and flame shock on the same macro, and if you are hovering over a target um, an enemy, sorry, I should say it will put a flame shock on them, whereas if you're hovering over a ally, it will put riptide on them. Very useful, uh, I got it from a friend who gave or like who plays shaman, and uh, essentially it's changed, like the amount of buttons that I've had to have on my action bar. It's really, really useful. Um, but yes, play what you want if you're looking to get into pvp or back into pvp, as that will help you. You know, enjoy your time in it.
Speaker 1:
Gearing for starting out, I think all I would do is buy the full gear at the auction house and then grind battlegrounds, then start in arena, if my nerves can handle it and considering I survived, the toxicity of battlegrounds battlegrounds are actually a big problem toxicity wise, but that's a discussion for another day. Um, yeah, I think gearing is very, very simple. You can, if you don't have any honor at all, you can definitely start off in um auction house pvp gear. It's item level 502 or something and battleground gear is 515. Um, but you know, just buy the gear off the auction house if you've got some gold. If not, you can honestly go into battlegrounds. Um, in pve gear, whatever gear you have, you obviously are going to be as competitive yourself, but you get enough honor to get pieces, like a few pieces, after each battleground if you win and stuff like that. So it's really not that bad gearing up now. It's not like Shadowlands at all. It's very easy to gear, so it shouldn't hold you back. That really DH I do have a DH. I can maybe just use that instead of healing and get a higher rating, faster Guidance tips, advice Again play the DH if you enjoy it, but if you don't enjoy the class that you play, then it's best just to not play it.
Speaker 1:
Also, if you are to go on to the sort of flavor of the month class, as it's referred to as this, uh, being you know the best class that is currently in the game, or like in the most compositions, you know whatever's being played the most, that kind of thing, and then it goes out of favor in the meta.
Speaker 1:
You either have to carry on playing that spec because you're the most comfortable on it now, but you don't enjoy it. So therefore you won't enjoy your time PvPing, or you go onto say Shaman for this, this example, and you enjoy your time in pvp and you still, even if it gets nerfed, buffed, whatever it is, you still learn on that class what other abilities interact with each other, how to play around certain things. So if a boomkin uses ink on, what do you do? You press grounding totem and you dispel the stellar flare off your teammate. You know that kind of deal. That way you've got the grounding total uh totem to protect your teammate while you're dispelling, so to protect that global. And then while you're dispelling, you know the boomkin doesn't get as much astral power, so we can't use more star surges. You know that kind of thing.
Speaker 1:
It it all adds up and the knowledge that you would get from constantly playing one class, rather than dipping into, like the flavor of the month class is probably more impactful in the long run, which is the most important thing. But please play what you want. That I cannot stress that enough. That is the most important thing here and I think that if you do anything else, make it that essentially. But that is where I will end it for this episode. Thank you all very much for listening. Do check out all of the socials down below constant stuff happening over there. But thank you all very much once again and go with valor friend, goodbye. Do do Thank you.
