Posts with tag binding

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Looky, Mom, we're all original: we didn't call this post "Home is where the hearth is" (but only because that title was already taken). And speaking of being trite, hearthstones may seem like a rather mundane matter -- not exactly high-value gaming strategy, eh? -- yet seasoned players manage to accumulate a little hearthing savvy that makes life in Azeroth (and the Outland and Northrend) a little more convenient.

Hearthstones link you to an inn in a location of your choosing, allowing you to transport ("hearth") back there once every 30 minutes. Prior to Patch 3.1, when you could only use your hearthstone once per hour, choosing where to bind and how to most efficiently order your errands and quests called for more than an insignificant amount of thought. The lower cooldown time today makes planning simpler, but there are still a few points worth knowing to help tune up your efficiency and dial down your travel time.

As you will have noticed by now if you've entered an instance in progress since patch 3.1, Blizzard's new binding notification system is in effect. Whenever you join an instance in which bosses have already been killed, you get a warning that staying in there will bind you to that instance -- thus hopefully preventing you from accidentally sticking to an instance you don't like.

However, as a few players have noted, there's still some functionality missing there. While the notification will tell you that bosses have been killed, it won't yet tell you which ones, so a malicious or confused guild could invite you a Naxx in which only one wing has been downed, when really all they've got left is Sapphiron and KT (or no bosses at all, if they really wanted to ruin your week). Fortunately, Zarhym agrees, and says that discussion about adding a little bit to the notification is incoming. It seems a little bit weird to just have a list of killed bosses on your screen when you first walk into the instance, but maybe they could add some sort of "boss tracker" to the instance maps, where you could see at a glance what was going on in any instance you join.

As a few other people say in the thread, most of you may never have seen this notification pop up -- if you only join instances where nothing is killed yet, you'll never see it. But for those of us who take boss kills where we can get them (in PuGs and guild runs where an opening appears), it's a nice feature to have.

Thanks, Medros!

Well duh, it's in your bags, of course. But more importantly: where's it set?

We've covered this one before, but that was before we had a whole other continent full of inns and towns to bind ourselves to. While I used to be bound to Grom'Gol, I went ahead and switched my stone to Thrallmar (right across from Honor Hold for you Alliance) for easy access, as well as a quick exit back into Outland after I finish training (since there's no trainers in Outland).

But as soon as I hit 62 or so, I figure I'll have outgrown the good ol' HP (Hellfire Peninsula, to those of you still in Azeroth). So where to? If you've made your way into the mid 60s, where's your stone set? And if you beta players have insights for us too, have at it.

[ Thanks, Tim, for the suggestion! ]