new to WoW

[Tacks]

RFC? WC? What are those and what's so special about them?

They are instances.

[Zanchief]

Thats the one.

Good times.

You forgot the best part. Him rolling on the Dagger from the piggie cause he was so pissed at me.

[Insanityfair]

RFC? WC? What are those and what's so special about them?

They are elite instances.


(Taxx ninja'd the answer, bah)

[Lyion]

RFC = Ragefire Chasm
WC = Wailing Caverns

Acronyms abound in WOW>

[Tacks]

Thats the one.

Good times.

You forgot the best part. Him rolling on the Dagger from the piggie cause he was so pissed at me.

ROFL totally forgot about that.

[Martrae]

Instances have the 'ph4t l3wtz' I take it?

[Zanchief]

Instances have the 'ph4t l3wtz' I take it?

Something like that.

[Arlos]

They're also a lot of fun to do in a group. Far better than dungeons in EQ ever were, pretty much, because you don't spend your entire time in them sitting in one spot while one person goes out over and over again and brings back one of the same 10-20 mobs in neat chunks for you to kill. There is random world-drop loot that's as good as some of the boss drops, but it's rare as all hell, getting blues off of instance bosses is far more reliable. Also, there's usually a LOT of quests that require going into the instances to complete.

There's very few instances I don't like, either. I can't speak to RFC at all, I haven't ever done it, even on my L18 shaman alt (finding groups for it without friends of that level is tough.) Some are obviously better than others, but none are flat-out awful. Well, OK, the Stockades (alliance dungeon in Stormwind for the L20ish range) blows, but since it has no boss drops, people go just to get quests done and never go back, so no big deal. Most dungeons are definitely worth doing, and they have them for all level ranges pretty much, once you hit the teens.

Check out: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/bas ... geons.html for info on level ranges. Leaving aside the endgame single/small raid instances which everyone does repeatedly once they hit 55-60 (Dire Maul, Blackrock Spire, Blackrock Depths, Stratholme & Scholomance), the most popular ones for the alliance are: Deadmines, Gnomeregan, Scarlet Monastary (MEGA popular), Uldaman (end boss is VERY well done), and Mauradon. Some people do Sunken Temple a fair bit too, but it's not as popular.

-Arlos

[xaoshaen]

I'm not a big fan of Uldaman. The combination of its layout and its mob range is asinine. If the common population of mobs is challenging, the boss will be nigh-impossible. If you're capable of taking on the boss mob, the horde of trash mobs between either entrance and the boss present a mind-numbing chore, not a challenge.

Taken independantly both sections are fairly well designed, but in conjunction it can be either tedious or frustrating depending which end of the spectrum you're on (particularly when you have to go back three times for one quest).

Conversely, Scarlet Monastery is great. It has four different levels of difficulty, requiring some linearity in completion, but once you've done the easy bits, you have immediate access to the more challenging content. Most of the other instances in the game are of a failry consistent difficulty, and I would whole-heartedly agree that they're much more fun than the EQ dungeons.

[Maeya]

I was pissed that they put the Enchanter trainer in Uldaman. What is that crap? Since that character, the rest of mine have been gatherers, but I am not aware of any other tradeskills that you need to go partway through an instance to get to your trainer?

[xaoshaen]

I was pissed that they put the Enchanter trainer in Uldaman. What is that crap? Since that character, the rest of mine have been gatherers, but I am not aware of any other tradeskills that you need to go partway through an instance to get to your trainer?

It could be much, much worse. Pity the Smiths amongst us. I'd much rather run a 40-ish instance than have to mine that much Mithril, let alone the Dark Iron.

[Zanchief]

I never maxed my smithing. Just isn't worth the effort.

Compare the ease you get LW supplies to what 12 thorium bars for a combine on a green recipe for every lvl past 285.

not to mention the metric ton of mithril you need to mine just to get your skill past 225.

I think I'll pass.

[Tacks]

It all depends if you're looking towards end-game or not. Smithing is far and away the best end-game tradeskill.

[xaoshaen]

Yeah, gathering enough mithril to skillup engineering was enough of a pain in the ass for me. Heh, remember Vonk bitching about having to compete for cloth for Tailoring?

[xaoshaen]

It all depends if you're looking towards end-game or not. Smithing is far and away the best end-game tradeskill.

Dunno, Alchemy and Engineering are both excellent in the end game. Both give you capabilities that can't be replaced by drops.

[Tacks]

I'm still engineering, it's only helpful for me personally in pvp otherwise it's basically useless unless i want to make a core marksmans rifle or a drillborer disk, i kinda wish i was a smith at times. OMGZ KEZZ BRING YOUR REPAIR BOT TONIGHT PLZ~

[Tacks]

Yes Alchemy is very nice, my alt is an alchemist...theres always plenty of them around though.

[xaoshaen]

I'm still engineering, it's only helpful for me personally in pvp otherwise it's basically useless unless i want to make a core marksmans rifle or a drillborer disk, i kinda wish i was a smith at times. OMGZ KEZZ BRING YOUR REPAIR BOT TONIGHT PLZ~

Yeah, that's true, although there were items I still found useful for personal convenience (much love for the deepdive helmet!). I spent a lot of time PvPing, so engineering was great.

[Arlos]

As a Paladin, I kinda wish I'd gone engineering over Smithing, if only for the ranged damage items you can make.

I can concur wholeheartedly with the shitfest that is Thorium Brotherhood faction, however. You effectively need to hit revered in order to make the best armor stuff. Base turnin value for Dark Iron ore is 50 faction per stack. It takes 12000 faction to go from honored to revered. Humans, with their 10% faction bonus, have it a little bit easier, but still, do you have any idea how long it takes to farm > 200 STACKS of dark iron ore?

Yes, I know you can turn in core leather and the 2 types of Cores that randomly drop in Molten Core. However, all 3 items are in very short supply and are heavily used in making the items you are working thorium brotherhood to get the patterns for. As a result, at least in my guild, they're not passed out for factioning.

-Arlos

[Zanchief]

Yes Alchemy is very nice, my alt is an alchemist...theres always plenty of them around though.

The reason there aren't many smiths is because they noobed every other trade skill BUT smithing.

When I was a LW in beta the drop rate on Turtle scales scorpid scales and dragon scales was about 5%. Now it's about 70%, with higher lvl mobs dropping stacks for 2.

Still just as many of those fucking thorium veins. And I know for a fact that skillups in engineering are much better than smithing on thorium.

[xaoshaen]

Yes Alchemy is very nice, my alt is an alchemist...theres always plenty of them around though.

The reason there aren't many smiths is because they noobed every other trade skill BUT smithing.

When I was a LW in beta the drop rate on Turtle scales scorpid scales and dragon scales was about 5%. Now it's about 70%, with higher lvl mobs dropping stacks for 2.

Still just as many of those fucking thorium veins. And I know for a fact that skillups in engineering are much better than smithing on thorium.

Of course, the tradeoff for Leatherworking is that it's, you know, almost completely fucking useless in the end. Not a bad skill to have early on, but I always wound up just selling the leather for cash.

[Tacks]

do you have any idea how long it takes to farm > 200 STACKS of dark iron ore?

Make friends with a rogue. I could get 200 stacks of DI from molten core in a week if I wanted to, it's just mind-numbingly boring. I'm guessing I probably gave our raid leader about that many stacks of DI over the past 2 months though.

[Insanityfair]

OMGZ, KEZZ TONIGHT BRING A REPAIR BOT PRZ~

Oh...wait.....


Xaoshaen is right though, LW seems to be pretty useless. Most that I know do it just to sell Devilsaur leather or some shat. I still do engineering because I like making bombs...that's what got me through Uldaman half the time, few times even duo'd in upper 40's...no ae'er, no problem, I have dense dynamite!

[Zanchief]

Xaoshaen is right though, LW seems to be pretty useless.

You mock Zanchief's profession? Oh you engineers and your iron rings think you're so damn smart.

You do have iron rings in the US right?

[The Kizzy]

Remember that time in WC and the guide at the very end got stuck trying to kill one of those invincible snakes and we had to call a GM? That was fun.