The Daily Quest: 4.3 impressions and more
by Anne Stickney 
Dec 2nd 2011 at 1:00PM
WoW Insider's on a Daily Quest to bring you interesting, informative, and entertaining
WoW-related links from around the blogosphere.
One of the highlights of the new 5-man heroics was hearing Illidan affirm the fact that yes, I was prepared. It was a nice little wink back to the Burning Crusade trailer, and it made a heroic that was already wildly entertaining even more fun.
So how are you liking the new patch? We dug up a few posts from around the blogosphere with some first impressions of the patch, the raid, and more.
Is there a story out there we ought to link or a blog we should be following? Just leave us a comment, and you may see it here tomorrow! Be sure to check out our WoW Resources Guide for more WoW-related sites.
WoW-related links from around the blogosphere.
One of the highlights of the new 5-man heroics was hearing Illidan affirm the fact that yes, I was prepared. It was a nice little wink back to the Burning Crusade trailer, and it made a heroic that was already wildly entertaining even more fun.
So how are you liking the new patch? We dug up a few posts from around the blogosphere with some first impressions of the patch, the raid, and more.
- Priest With A Cause shares some first impressions of the new heroics, void storage, and transmogrification.
- The Grumpy Elf is actually not grumpy at all about the new Raid Finder feature.
- Cannot Be Tamed has a first look at the Dragon Soul from a healing druid's perspective.
- Big Bear Butt did not have everything go as he expected.
Is there a story out there we ought to link or a blog we should be following? Just leave us a comment, and you may see it here tomorrow! Be sure to check out our WoW Resources Guide for more WoW-related sites.
Filed under: The Daily Quest
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Blain Dec 2nd 2011 1:23PM
My impressions. Love it all except the fact it seems we have went from a CC nature in 5 mans back to a Wrath AoE fest. Maybe its just the gear. Maybe they listened to the complaints of the masses on the Trolls being too "hard". These new 5 mans just seem too "easy".
Blain Dec 2nd 2011 1:49PM
I forgot something. Capping Valor on Patch Day Sucks !
Al Dec 2nd 2011 2:32PM
I think they re-realised Trash is boring - so there's much less of it, but it'll kill you if the group isn't on the ball.
Granted, I went in with people who hadn't farmed the PTR, but the Dungeon Learning Curve was noticeably there.
Legs Dec 2nd 2011 1:26PM
I hope everyone enjoyed the "Raiders Only" week of LFR. It took my PuG just barely over an hour to down the first 4 (2 total wipes). I agree with Grumpy Elf that this honeymoon can't last, as the unwashed masses will soon be standing in fire while pumping out sub 5k DPS.
That said, there will likely remain a good period of Raiders queuing as well to get their tier tokens, so my guess is that it will be a slow degradation rather than a fast drop in quality, and hopefully that slow drop in Raider attendance will be offset by the fight mechanics piercing through the think skull of the n00bs.
(Did that sound snobby? Probably ;))
Matt P Dec 2nd 2011 1:39PM
Eh, not everyone who isn't at 372 yet will be terrible. If someone is completely horrendous, the rest of the group won't have a problem kicking them, most likely.
Legs Dec 2nd 2011 1:48PM
@Matt P
Yeah I figured my post sounded pretty pessimistic/jerkish, and of course you're right that there are capable non-raiders out there (I know several in my guild).
I'm actually pretty optimistic about this feature going forward: at first glance the difficulty seems to be about on par with the new heroics, so I think people of most skill levels will be able to learn the encounter reasonably quickly. The fact that many raiders will be sure to run it once a week at least will mean that there should almost always be a decent number of people who know what they're doing, so hopefully when a new person goes in the first few times there are lots of people doing the right thing and they can just do the same as the rest...
Pam Dec 2nd 2011 1:35PM
I know a lot of people do not agree, however, I must say that I am happier than I thought I would be with 4.3.
Each time a patch dropped, I felt like I had to be on my main non-stop. My poor alts would get so neglected for at least 2 months, until I felt my main had it all. By then I was burned out of the VP runs that they stayed neglected.
This time, however, I can take a couple of hours for LFR on my alt, and not feel guilty for not being on my main the whole time.
Esp with this being the last patch of the xpac. I need those guys geared up for leveling next xpac.
Marcblack Dec 2nd 2011 1:42PM
Guess the new 5 man are rich on lore and poor on fights (both trash and bosses). I don't know, feels like I'm in WotLK dungeons again, pulling everything, AoEing them all and getting purples at the end. After months running the same 2 dungeons over and over I expected something more challenging just for a change.
This weekend I'm going to try Raid Finder. My friend told me it's the same lootfest, but I'm not sure.
dkswanson Dec 2nd 2011 1:47PM
Carried a 7K Hunter and an 8K DK through Well of Eternity without a single problem. This is on my 3rd alt DK.
These new instances are too easy, faceroll easy. 95% of the fight mechanics can simply be ignored and only a whole group of idiots could not be able to complete these with more than a few wipes.
I don't care about the gear being easy to get. But these new heroics are tuned like normals. The 346 heroics were ten times as hard as these 378s are.
Honestly these instances should be called normals and drop 365 gear.
I think the encounters are great, the art is great, the story is great, the gear is great.
It's just too easy. And I'm not a raider. I've never downed a boss in firelands. But I can sleepwalk through these new 5 mans while carrying 2 terribads and that is just really disappointing. The mechanics are interesting and cool and well done, but they are trivial and can be flat out ignored most of the time. They are way undertuned for a "HEROIC".
My favorite achievement I've ever done was Glory of the Cataclysm hero in the 346s. Those were very challenging in the 325/333/346 combo gear we had a month in to Cataclysm. That was great stuff!
This stuff is for kindergartners.
Tri Dec 2nd 2011 2:15PM
I feel like such a noob.. I'm a healer in ilvl 376ish gear, and I found them (well, the first two, at least) pretty difficult.. maybe it's because I haven't been playing outside of raids for a while (was so bored of the zuls) so having to suddenly be solo healer was a bit harder than I was used to :P
Al Dec 2nd 2011 9:27PM
"Terribad"? No offense, but I can't bring myself to care about your opinion.
skullbits Dec 3rd 2011 4:59AM
i agree with you dksanson im a shammy healer that hasnt downed a single firelands boss, did the troll instances like 3-4times and was mostly in pvp gear, yet i didnt have. problem healing most encounters plus for some reason i have full mana on most end boss fights. i think thr fact that i get mana back from the water shield and that i can reapply it as much as i want makes me not worry about running out of mana. at the moment i find the encounters interesting but since most can be done twice as fast as any of the other 85 dungeons i have a feeling that people will get tierd of them very quickly
Blayze Dec 2nd 2011 2:15PM
I can see the cracks. Not in the patch--mechanically, 4.3's fantastic--but in the story.
http://tankoutofwater.blogspot.com/2011/12/43-and-recent-issues-tinfoil-hat.html
Rem Dec 2nd 2011 2:16PM
I just started playing WoW this year (February! Gave myself a week of vacation to try out the trial) and before this patch dropped, I did a grand total of two heroics.
These were the Stonecore and Deadmines and I have to say, after doing those (especially after the two and a half hour slog of a wipefest Deadmines became), I didn't want to do heroics ever again. I'd never done heroics before (Cata baby, as it were), never raided, and I don't consider myself the most on-spot or amazing of players. I try to keep up to date on JP gear and I always have food and pots, I read the guides, watch videos, all of that, but it felt to me like heroics and, of course, raiding were just out of my league. I'd never been good enough to do them regularly and the raiding guilds willing and able to give a spot to a middling player were going to be few to none.
So I like these heroics. I like their length and their difficulty, because it feels like this level of the game is finally accessible to me. I've actually gotten gear instead of spending hours only to have no upgrades drop and to lose the roll on the Chaos Orb; I've actually finished them and provided meaningful dps. I adore the scenery and the lore (hard to compare it to old storylines and expansions when I was never here to experience them when they were relevant) and I'm more than thrilled with the opportunity to actually see it all. I'll be able to get into a raid, even!
If Blizzard was making these changes to the difficulty and progression of content to help bring a wider and newer player base into heroics and raiding, in my case, it certainly worked. There's more to the game now for me than there was before and who knows? If I keep at it maybe someday I'll get to a point where I can do the real hard modes; this will and has helped pave the way.
Sinister Dec 2nd 2011 2:27PM
Most of cata heroics were difficult and annoying , so as a healer being nerfed at the start , i didnt do any raiding in cata at all .. I was pissed and stopped playing my priest all together at one point . With 4.3 i decided to give it another shot , at least to see the new 5 mans . At this point im glad blizz didnt make them long and drawn out , and im also glad i was able to heal thru them with all 346 gear on , ok i have 2 pcs of 359s , my bad , but the point is that im almost all 378 now with a 394 peice i got by capping valor , so maybe now ill try doing those raids ive been missing out on .. I dont want to still be doing cata raids when MoP drops , so imo considering how hard most of this xpac has been , im glad they toned it down in 4.3 .. I wish blizz would stop listening to the knuckleheads that complain about stuff being easy , and start listening to the players that are telling you they are having fun with where things are , at the end of the day having fun is why we are still wow players is it not?
Hugh @ MMO Melting Pot Dec 2nd 2011 2:27PM
We've been rounding up blogs talking about the new raid specifically - some very interesting comments!
http://www.mmomeltingpot.com/2011/12/patch-4-3-dragon-soul-impressions/ and http://www.mmomeltingpot.com/2011/12/is-dragon-souls-difficulty-going-to-be-a-killer-problem/
ios.deals Dec 2nd 2011 2:41PM
I play WoW only since end of August, so recently I had plenty of noob moments. To pick the epic - besides the little like (hey, using shift or alt while viewing a gear item is so much easier to compare the items etc.), my biggest noob moment was when I visited AH while levelling my first alt at level 40. For the second time. And that was my first ragequit. I was so pissed at myself, I didn't log on for 2 days after.
I spent the first month on trial account, and during that time I visited Auction House only once - in Darnassus. Hey, I can view the auctions, I can't use it. And anyway, nothing special there (I was level 14 Draenei Hunter at that time).
Never ever I visited AH again until few weeks later - until recently, I was a loner - besides few random players, I met while on quests - and that was the trigger which brought me to buy the battle chest - meeting fellow players in the quiet places of Azeroth, one or two quick greetings "Hey, are you doin the quest XY? yeah, let's do it together" - so for me WoW was my fortress of solitude. Except Darnassus (I don't like Exodar very much) I didn't even know about Ironforge or SW until my late 30's levels,
rarely I joined random dungeon, or a BG, but most of the time, I was travelling through Kalimdor on my own, enjoying the quiet time. Didn't have to talk to anyone - as oppose to my IRL where as a manager of IT department - I am always in a meeting or on the phone. And then I reached level 40. And didn't have the 40g to buy my 100% riding. I had 20g, overall not more than 50g earned - 30g spent on vendor armor and other items. One of the few wow friends offered to just give me the 20g I was short, saying "it's really nothing", but I didn't accept. At the time, 20g was a HUGE amount of gold for me. I didn't do dailies - why you ask? I didn't know about them.
I had mining and skinnin as profesions - my rough estimate is I vendored, for few golds, around 2000g worth of ores and leathers comparing to selling it in AH.
And then the same friend (Hey Neread of Dentarg, didn't see you for a few months!) brought me to Ironforge. And then to SW. (another noob moment - for 2 days I though SW is just downtown of Ironforge (since it was connected with subway).
And I visited AH in dwarwen. The inn in Dwarven is my home since that day and I always feel uncomfortable to log off from the gime for longer time and not heartstone to Dwarven beforehand).
And I just was curious - is the AH still the lame place without any items usable for me?
And I saw the prices of leather. And of ores and bars. That day, I made my first 100g. In a week I made my first 1000. Then I made it to steady income of 300 a day. Then 500. And so on..
Even today I am angry at myself for the lost days of grinding few silvers and being HAPPY having 20g..
Matthew Dec 2nd 2011 3:38PM
I enjoyed the instances. They're well done and all that.
I am NOT a hard core person - take that in stride: they seem too easy to heal.
the Zul's were much harder.
Granted, we still wipe, but not cuz I go OOM.
I think I like that.
Some amusement for you guys: I turned off the names of NPC's the other day. Well, silly me, I thought that the Nelves in ZIn-Ashari were statues or friendly. hehe. Looks like turning it on to see the red was important.
Philster043 Dec 2nd 2011 6:04PM
I like healing the new 5-mans. They had a nice combination of lore, medium-level challenges, and they weren't too frustrating when somebody makes a small mistake. The troll dungeons and some of the original Cata dungeons, by comparison, didn't feel like fun to do because you had so much pressure put on you or your teammates (usually strangers) to not make a mistake.
But my main complaint is that they all felt a bit too short. Might have been a good idea for WoW to throw in that one more "enter freely and of your will" super-hard dungeon like Halls of Reflection had been to the WotLK crowd. I think maybe Hour of Twilight should've been a little more challenging in that sense... and included Deathwing somewhere just as HoR did with the Lich King. Missed a good opportunity to have a good ol' run-for-your-life scenario from Deathwing's flames. We're all going to be facerolling all the way til MoP's release now, it feels like...
StClair Dec 2nd 2011 10:15PM
(re: article image)
So, five years later, when we can pretty much solo the dude, we are - finally - prepared?
:)