[WoW]Wotlk:Raid instances to have 10 and 25 man versions, Death Knight starts at 55

[Cad]

BRD would have been a lot better if you didn't run it a few times at 55-57 and then most of the loot was crap so nobody wanted to do it. Why didn't they just make BRD a level 60 instance with amazing loot to suit it's epic feel? Instead you got UTTER TRASH the whole way through, with one or two overpowered drops (hand of justice) that were 2% drops or some such nonsense.

[Chrisb3]

Originally Posted by Dumar

you are an absolute fucking retard. brd is the ONE dungeon in wow that stands above ALL the others. it's the pinnacle of wow design that hasn't (and won't be by looking at tbc) been matched.

No it fucking isn't.

The loot is bad, it's a lv58 instance at the end but starts at lv52. There is a gradual progression of mob levels though the instance which means that only the last few bosses drop the 'good' loot. Thing is you could have gone to Sunken Temple for a nice loot filled lv50 instance, or Stratholme for lv60.

The wing setup is bad. To get at the higher level part, you have to fight tons of lower level trash. This is bad because the entire place is stuffed full of trash anyway. Also you need to exploit if you want to start at the MC entrance and just do the high level bit.
Again compare this to Stratholme which has two easy to reach wings with alternate routes and that middle bit you don't goto much linking it all together.

Alliance is forced to endlessly kill shitty trash mobs in an escort quest to get attuned to Onyxia. Horde players never go. Pinnacle of dungeon design is only done once by half of the players? I never did BRD on my first (horde) character, after getting attuned on my first alliance character I never wanted to see that shithole again.

Now it looks and feels nice and epic I agree, but if all the shortcuts are exploits likley to get you killed, and no one goes to the damned place unless forced, and there is no point going there anyway... it isn't the pinnacle of anything.

[Zehn - Vhex]

The layout is what I was more inspired by. Strath/Scholo both got revamped gear/mob density wise and turned into pure awesome. BRD didn't get retuned until well after people stopped giving a shit about it.

Barrow Downs is great because it's very atmospheric, very spidery. The problem is that the rest of LOTRO sucks so what's the fucking point? Plus with only two real bosses in there you could quite easily skip most of the content it had to offer. There's a 'hidden' passage near the entrance iirc that leads to nowhere. If they had done a lyceum style event where spiders constnatly waved over you until you fought your way up that tunnel and killed some sort of spider queen? Fucking epic. Instead it's just wasted space.

So yeah...

Someone briefly mentioned it in another thread. It's not like we can't have the best of all worlds though. Having your quick modular Scarlet Monastary instances are fine if done in moderation. When 90% of your dungeons are that way though...fail.

Old Hillsbrad is my favorite TBC 5-man. Followed by Hellfire Ramparts. All the others are pretty bland and boring. They could have done so much more with Black Morass too.

Anyways...

I cannot wait for the CoT:Strath instance. I've spent so much fucking time in there. All I have to say is there better be a dropped epic mount off the end boss for me to spend months not getting all over again.

[Malakriss]

BRD Loots you remember
Barman Shanker
Boreal Mantle
Burst of Knowledge
Cape of the Fire Salamander (Fire Resist Cloak)
Emperor's Seal of ...
Flameweave Cuffs (Fire Resist Bracers)
Hand of Justice
Ironfoe
Naglering
Pyric Caduceus
Savage Gladiator Chain
Second wind

Then Black Blood of the Tormented + Burning Essences for the Libram runs, etc

[FoghornDeadhorn]

Originally Posted by Chrisb3

No it fucking isn't.

The loot is bad, it's a lv58 instance at the end but starts at lv52. There is a gradual progression of mob levels though the instance which means that only the last few bosses drop the 'good' loot. Thing is you could have gone to Sunken Temple for a nice loot filled lv50 instance, or Stratholme for lv60.

The wing setup is bad. To get at the higher level part, you have to fight tons of lower level trash. This is bad because the entire place is stuffed full of trash anyway. Also you need to exploit if you want to start at the MC entrance and just do the high level bit.
Again compare this to Stratholme which has two easy to reach wings with alternate routes and that middle bit you don't goto much linking it all together.

Alliance is forced to endlessly kill shitty trash mobs in an escort quest to get attuned to Onyxia. Horde players never go. Pinnacle of dungeon design is only done once by half of the players? I never did BRD on my first (horde) character, after getting attuned on my first alliance character I never wanted to see that shithole again.

Now it looks and feels nice and epic I agree, but if all the shortcuts are exploits likley to get you killed, and no one goes to the damned place unless forced, and there is no point going there anyway... it isn't the pinnacle of anything.

You seriously have no goddamned idea what you are talking about, do you? Did you start playing in late '06 or something?

[Twobit Whore]

Originally Posted by Malakriss

BRD Loots you remember
Barman Shanker
Boreal Mantle
Burst of Knowledge
Cape of the Fire Salamander (Fire Resist Cloak)
Emperor's Seal of ...
Flameweave Cuffs (Fire Resist Bracers)
Hand of Justice
Ironfoe
Naglering
Pyric Caduceus
Savage Gladiator Chain
Second wind

Then Black Blood of the Tormented + Burning Essences for the Libram runs, etc

Didn't Fiery Enchant drop there too?

[owakefka]

They should just make it so if you have a level 70 or higher that all alts can be made at 55.

And I don't understand why they focus so much on diversity for Northrend, Velious was perfectly fine being snowy all over, it added to the immersion more then anything.

[Zehn - Vhex]

Originally Posted by Chrisb3

No it fucking isn't.

The loot is bad, it's a lv58 instance at the end but starts at lv52. There is a gradual progression of mob levels though the instance which means that only the last few bosses drop the 'good' loot. Thing is you could have gone to Sunken Temple for a nice loot filled lv50 instance, or Stratholme for lv60.

The wing setup is bad. To get at the higher level part, you have to fight tons of lower level trash. This is bad because the entire place is stuffed full of trash anyway. Also you need to exploit if you want to start at the MC entrance and just do the high level bit.
Again compare this to Stratholme which has two easy to reach wings with alternate routes and that middle bit you don't goto much linking it all together.

Alliance is forced to endlessly kill shitty trash mobs in an escort quest to get attuned to Onyxia. Horde players never go. Pinnacle of dungeon design is only done once by half of the players? I never did BRD on my first (horde) character, after getting attuned on my first alliance character I never wanted to see that shithole again.

Now it looks and feels nice and epic I agree, but if all the shortcuts are exploits likley to get you killed, and no one goes to the damned place unless forced, and there is no point going there anyway... it isn't the pinnacle of anything.

While you are retarded, you do have a point.

For three primary reasons...

1) Strath has two entrances. If they had added a second entrance to BRD that dropped you in near General Angerforge, we wouldn't have had as much of an issue. You're supposed to go through the gate to the left to get to the "high level part" of BRD which confused most people.

And along similar lines...

2) Strath ended when you reached the peak of either 'wing.' BRD however wrapped around in on itself such that when you finished the lower level part you were right at the start of the higher level part and thus felt obliged to complete the zone otherwise you were 'wasting' half the dungeon. If the cathedral in Strath had wrapped around and a backdoor popped you out right at the entrance to dead side, we'd have seen a similar response to it.

And finally...

3) This is the part they did get right in TBC. They eliminated 90% of the trash. What you probably don't remember is original Strath/Scholo which had like 3x the trash and on top of that pathing issues galore. They stripped a shitload of it out. Like I said earlier, the biggest problem I have with BRD is if you don't include revamped bosses and loot structures, you have to clear something like 30~40 packs of mobs to get to the first loot dropping boss, and he dropped crap for 6 out of 9 classes.

Blizzard has taken leaps and bounds forward in encounter design and trash-to-boss ratio's. (back to back bosses = $$). However, their zone layouts have suffered.

The detention block in BRD alone is like 3 instances in TBC yet it had 0 'real' loot dropping bosses at the time (minus the rare spawn). Nowadays it has 3 loot dropping mobs. It should have like 5 for the amount of trash you'd have to plow through to do a 'complete' clear.

[Froofy-D]

Originally Posted by Twobit Whore

Didn't Fiery Enchant drop there too?

Yes, and it still has value in BC since it is popular for low level BG twinks.

Anyway, complaining about "lore in MMOGs" is pretty retarded since they are 100% static worlds where every day is Groundhog Day and everything respawns. It isn't too much different from complaining about "plot in pornos", neither genre lends itself to plot/lore.

[Ellsworth]

Originally Posted by Rezz

Goddamn, that 10/25 man thing is the best idea to come from blizzard regarding WoW.. since release.

I hope they are instancing the starter quest areas for death knights, because a thousand DKs opening day might get a little scary. And that's being conservative to the extreme.

Strange, I'm really in no hurry to play that class. doesn't even sound fun to me. Everyone else wants to play one?

I just want my shadow priest to have viable raid damage.

Shadow priests are a liability on Brutalis.

[Zehn - Vhex]

Originally Posted by Ellsworth

Strange, I'm really in no hurry to play that class. doesn't even sound fun to me. Everyone else wants to play one?

I just want my shadow priest to have viable raid damage.

Shadow priests are a liability on Brutalis.

Not entirely. They make for excellent meteor slash healers while putting out appreciable damage. We usually have 1 or 2 on our Brut kills and they put out around 1200~1500 dps iirc from our last wws.

I wouldn't bring five, but you put one in a group with 3 hunters and a shaman or something and enjoy the boosted dps from hunters that don't go oom + don't require healing on slashes.

Though I do agree that Mind Flay needs better scaling.

[kudos]

I'm kind of pissed they made a whole Northrend expansion and then decided they didn't want snow everywhere. From pics I've seen I'm very underwhelmed.

[Gaereth]

So the DK's 'taunt' makes the person that it is targeted on focus on them for a short time AND pulls them to them.

How many years have they said that warrior taunt would never get the ability to be used in pvp?? That they didn't want any more ways to disrupt a persons play??

[Neph]

Originally Posted by Gaereth

So the DK's 'taunt' makes the person that it is targeted on focus on them for a short time AND pulls them to them.

How many years have they said that warrior taunt would never get the ability to be used in pvp?? That they didn't want any more ways to disrupt a persons play??

They never said that they aren't going to change taunt in pvp. They haven't even revealed any of the other class changes yet. Stop crying before you know the whole story. Unless you're being sarcastic, that is.

[spronk]

brd was the bomb if you were geared well or playing with a good group. I used to solo that shit all the time for librams and shards. Plus it was like a little GTA world, tons of routes and tons of destinations.

It sucked balls though if your gear was terribad or, god forbid, you ever tried to pug it. The one time I tried to pug it with an alt the group spent 15 minutes arguing whether or not to go kill that giant rock elemental guy for a quest, and promptly wiping 4-5 times on the way to him before disbanding.

gnomeregan, BRD, sunken temple, maraudon, etc were fun instances for me but I think its a valid argument to say for the majority of WoW players, they prefer stuff like SM/ZG and all of the TBC 5 mans. Old Hillsbrad or Hyjal give the illusion of openness but really they are more or less the same, 1-path instances you can finish in under an hour.

The only way I see a return to big, sprawling, gigantic 5 man instances is if they ever implement ones that have raid lockout timers and are insanely hard, then it would make more sense (do it in more than 1 day, drop raid-level loot, respawns tied to bosses, etc).