Okay, so, they weren't lying. The patch was released at full force, and somehow I kept having to fight against what I call the "Lag Monster" For the last two nights, Monday and Tuesday, I kept getting lag problems and disconnections, and it was worse Tuesday night. I can probably blame the networks for this one. I mean, a patch comes out, everyone hears about it, and every single player decides to play again, and this causes an overload.
Then again is could have been the addons. I've tried updating my own as often as I could, and yet while I played I still got DC'ed. I kept trying things until I turned them all off, or just called it a night. I hate having to do that, but I did anyway. Even Warcraft advises you to take things in moderation, and everyone is on a 4.3 high right now. So yeah, the server crashed for a few seconds each time. My advice, turn off addons, don't download anything else, and quit watching porn while you raid the new instance, please? Thank you very much ^_^
And now, to one note I found most interesting, as a Boomkin. I know I don't have to tell you that I use two specs when I play my druid - bear and moonkin. I didn't play the bear form yesterday because I was unfamiliar with the new instances and didn't want to go barging in unless I had a seasoned (or not) tank to lead the way. No way was I gonna lead the way into a dark pit not knowing if I was going the right way, you know? So yeah, I'm staying in my boom-chicken form, especially since she'd very highly geared and capable of getting through Firelands up to the last boss... I just haven't killed Ragnaros yet. :/ bummer, huh?
Anyway, yesterday afternoon, I went with some guildies, and they were okay with me not tanking this time around, and we got another tank, a bear tank ironically, and got through all three of the new dungeons easily, since we weer in top gear for raiding at the moment (not heroic raid gear mind you, but high enough so we didn't struggle). I think the most fun we had was the story line of the dungeons. Poking fun at certain characters we saw in them, laughing as a worgen and human player got turned into night elves for one - similar to the Escape From Durnhold Dungeon where you're given a human illusion (if you weren't one) and are sent back in time to save Thrall. And other things as well. One quest giver, for some odd reason, would not stop moving, and I had to be on my mount and continuously move along with him to keep the quest window open and secide which item I wanted for my reward. Tedious nonetheless, but definitely hilarious. You know when that baker in Ironforge will stop walking when you want to buy some bread or sell something to her? Well this guy... just...would...not....STOP! I hope Blizzard knows about this, and if it is a bug, I hope they clear it up, but in the meanwhile, have fun chasing him down and /bonk him for me if you would!
Speaking of quest rewards, for us casters anyway, there are two new rings that are top of the line at the moment for non-raiders. These are only available via quests at the moment and you get them in the dungeons, so yeah, dungeon quests. Get in a group via the dungeon finger, pick up any and all quests you can get, do them, and get your rewards! The first I'll mention is "Signet of the Twilight Prophet" - which is rewarded when you complete a quest called... "The Twilight Prophet". Hmm. How ironic. So if you're a spell caster and you happen to get this quest, you know you're about to get one of the top rings in the game.
The next ring is "Ring of the Loyal Companion" - which shall be rewarded to you from the quest "To Wyrmrest!"
Now these two quests, to wyrmrest and the twilight prophet are both in the third new instance, and in order to get to them, you'd have to get through the first one and then the second one in order... you know, for story line flavor. So in the instance "Hour of Twilight" (and no, we do not SPARKLE!), You're sent to present-day Dragonblight, and now not many undead scourge are out there. Since there is a jailor of the damned on the throne, let's assume all the zombies are either sleeping or playing canasta together. Either way, they're gone - but now the Twilight's hammer is among us, and they are gonna try and stop you and Thrall from reaching the temple. Amazingly, Thrall doesn't remember you from the Durnholde mission, but for him that was years ago, so oh well. Rather than catch up on good times, let's move on and get that Dragon Soul to the temple!
Now the quest "To Wyrmrest" is a given. You talk to Thrall and get the quest and you just have to complete the dungeon really - make sure he get's to wyrmrest temple alive! The other could be tricky. I managed to find a missive in the pockets of a member of the Twilight's hammer while running through the instance, and it started the quest "the twilight prophet". Turns out some leader in the area knows that Thrall is near and has sent orders to the others to stop him at any cost. So during your quest you make it to the temple and Archbishop Benedictus leads you inside and sets up a light barrier to keep the enemy at bay... actually he's the boss fight and he's just trapped you in there with him. He's the twilight prophet! So when you kill him, the quest is complete and you can turn in both quests to Thrall, who graciously stands still, much to my liking.
My thoughts are, if you can complete these dungeons, then you'd have the absolute best caster rings in the game. Best in slots anyway? How do I know this? From Mr Robot. It's a website you can go to and have your character's gear evaluated. It will know your spec and talents, and will advise you on how to optimize your gear. What enchants you need, what gems, etc. Even better, you can check and see what upgrades would suit your toon best!
So far, from what I can see, the only two rings you can get that would be an upgrade to the rings you get from these dungeon quests would be The Infernal Signet of the Avengers, and the Quicksilver Signet of the Avengers. Both of these "Avenger" rings are only available to people who are exaulted with the Avenger of Hyjal, and the only way to increase your reputation with them is to raid in the Firelands instance.
Let's do some math then...Now up until you hit honored, you can easily get rep from killing the small trash and large trash mobs. Small would be things like the pack of dogs and the scorpions I assume, aslo little spiders. Large trash mobs would be... well, like those giant walking fire behemoths things. Whan most people did was they'd rep-farm by killing as many mobs as they could without killing a boss, then go outside, reset the instance, and kill the mobs again and again. But at one point, the mobs stop giving you experience, so now you have to kill the bosses, and once dead, then you are saved to the instance, which resets every week on Tuesday. So four bosses in the instance give you 250 reputation for killing them, so that would be 1000 rep. Not bad, if you can manage it. That would be from killing Beth'tilac, Shannox, Alysrazor and Lord Rhyolith.
Then if you killed Baleroc, Majordomo Staghelm and Ragnaros then you could net yourself 400 rep points for killing them... 400 x 3 = 1200... so if you could clear the whole instance, that'd be 2200 reputation. And that's assuming you CAN kill all the bosses in one week. Once you've downed them the first time, it's easy on every next attempt.
If you've just hit honored, then the only way to increase you rep is to kill the bosses in the Firelands raid... 2200 rep, if you can kill them all on normal mode at that... hmm...Let's see... the points to level up Honored to Revered is 12,000... and to get from Revered to Exaulted, you'd need 21,000... so that's 33,000 reputation points you'd need!
If you were to clear the entire instance and get all 2,200 reputation points during the experience, and you start out at honored rep... then it would take you 15 weeks to get to exaulted! That's a good three, maybe four months worth of raiding.
If you're a serious raider, and you can get your reputation up to exaulted with the Avengers of Hyjal, then by all means get the top two best rings in the game at this time! But if you can't wait, get the quests done in the new dungeons. You won't regret it... only takes a few dungeons to do it, and it won't take three months to get it. ;-)
So in conclusion, I'd say the new dungeons are pretty nice, the loot is excellent, and I'm looking forward to the fair for once. Darkmoon Faire has been revamped, but instead of stopping outside of town like a roaming carnival, they have found a permanent spot to set up their tents and things. Not only that but it's bigger and better than ever. I guess they figured they can net in a bigger profit by cutting out the travel expenses and revamping their tents and what they have to offer. What I'm hoping for is that from now on, the Darkmoon Faire is going to continuously have new things with every future expansion that comes out, and that it's not just about the darkmoon cards that I;m talking about here!
See you at the Carnival!
--OWL
