What I Expect from Icecrown Citadel
First off — I apologize for the lack of posting. I haven’t really been too busy (I have been rocking some good grades out at school and doing OK at work), its just that, I have really only been logging into WoW to raid a little ToC, maybe a little Ony, then I’m offline. There just really aren’t many ‘moonkin-related’ topics that I’d like to find myself blogging about. Really.
Really quick, however — I’d like to throw a shoutout to a recently new Moonkin blogger — Quith of Quiths-Quips.com. Stop by, show him some love, subscribe to his feed — you guys know the drill. Just don’t overload his blog because its on my server! 
Anyways, back on topic. ToC raiding has really been kind of a drag. I feel I may have touched on this in another post or comment here (or maybe even on my Twitter), but honestly, the same bosses, the same drops, 4 times a week, is overkill. Funny enough, one thing I didn’t realize is that if you do 10man ToC heroic, and have over 45 attempts left when upon completion, you get like four pieces T9, i245. So while at first, I was initially hesitant to switch to 4pc T9, I am considering it now, due to things like a) Tired of using T8, b) High gear score increases my epeen, c) Larger Starfire crits are cooler, d) No more worry about being increasingly near to the soft crit cap during a Lunar Eclipse, etc. Sure, my DPS may go down, but it will also make swapping to T10 easier to do.
What are you guys expecting to experience in ICC?
I really want some of the raiding experience that BC offered, during T6 content. I know that those days can never be brought back — I’m sure Blizzard is determined in keeping 10m/25m versions and even Heroic/Regular versions of the same dungeons available — I understand their point, but I don’t necessarily agree that everyone should be able to see the same content. From a business perspective, its a smart move: Create one set of boss mechanics, and scale down damage and certain mechanics and create 4 instances. Genius.
Why did I like BC so much? As much as most of us don’t like to admit it, a large portion of WoW players play WoW for some sense of pride, or something. I remember feeling ‘cool’ (as ‘cool’ as one can feel in an MMO) when raiding Black Temple or SWP. Not many of my friends could raid T6, and they would whisper me whenever they saw me in there. There was also a different feeling for progression — I remember working on Reliquary of Souls for weeks. At the time, I was in a 3x/week raiding guild, and it took us forever to down RoS. While Ulduar had a little bit of that feeling with bosses like Mimiron/Yogg/hardmodes, the feeling of downing something new in Ulduar25 is really minimalized when you have already downed that, and 5 other hardmodes in Ulduar10.
Maybe I’m weird, who knows. All I know is that I’m expecting Blizz to make ICC interesting. I haven’t had a chance to step into the PTR, and part of me likes that. I want awesome loot, interesting mechanics, fun trash, challenging things. I really don’t want to have to run the same dungeon four times a week, and know that if I choose not to run ToC10/10H/25/25H each week, I will be behind my guildies in some way, or missed out an opportunity to get loot. Part of me wants to go back to raid a little bit of Ulduar, but when ToC25 Heroic gear is so superior to Ulduar 25 (even hardmode) loot, who wants to go back there?
I think I’ve begun to ramble and I really should get back to doing some work — but let me know what you think. Is there anything you guys are expecting from ICC? On a side note, I heard the new LFG is pretty badass — can’t wait till I get a chance to try it out. Also – let me know if there is anything you guys want me to blog about, as I’m still running low on ideas 
Adios,
Ballerkin
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!12 Comments
Loading ...
Apology accepted.
Seriously, though, I'm on the same page as you right now. I log in 2-3 times a week for raid, 25-man only (we're not on heroic yet), both ToC and Ulduar. It sucks, it's not fun, and, really, the only reason I'm still doing it is because my guild is relying on me. Fail.
I'm not as optimistic as you about Icecrown though. I wish I could be, but I'm not. There's no way it will be anywhere near as hard as BT or SWP, and there's no way progression will EVER mean us much now as it did before Wrath (and before the attunements were taken away in TBC).
I have come to *hate* the normal/heroic versions of ToC, to the point where doing the same in Icecrown will probably cause me to stop raiding and to stop playing. (And that's not even getting into Cataclysm.) I liked the idea of HMs in Ulduar unlocking additional content and additional loot, but having a mirror image of the same instances is just lame.
We'll see what happens when Icecrown comes out, but I'm not holding my breath for anything exciting. I wonder what I'll do with all that free time…
I am just hoping for an interesting time, with interesting and fun bosses, trash that needs CC, and actual THOUGHT required to run the thing.
I dont want it to be easily puggable straight away. I want PUGs to fail in the butt hole. I want the guild to be the way to raid again. I want the hard modes to be hard.
I also want it to have a replayability factor. Raiding is repetetive, I really hope they factor that into their design of the instance. I can see that they are thinking about it with rolling back the heroic instance into one ID again (A good move imo, even though I thought seperating it out would be a good idea in the first place, I was VERY wrong on that score) Not 100% sure about the menu idea. I quite like pressing the big red button to engage hardmode….
I was optimistic today, but I agree with you on — I think its nearly impossible to expect Blizzard to make content difficult such as BT/SWP. Oh well
I 100% prefer hardmodes in the same instance and only by activating — it seems lazy of Blizz to stop using creating mechanics to engage hardmodes and simply have one switch to activate all hardmodes at the same time.
LAME
what I hope for in ICC is challenges that have not been seen, hardmodes that make you think oh shit when you see them, (like earth, wind and fire achievement, or herald of the titans).
The new need before greed system sucks -.-
I think this because you will only be able to need on your major armor class, for druids that's leather. But this doesn't count for raids, and before you raid on 80, some items you will have in your gear are cloth (i need better gear for healing, but same goes for moonkin), this also counts for low-level instances, and because im lvling ele shaman, they will rly have to improve the loot so that it fits, or I won't be able to continue that. I know that this problem i not only for these classes, one example is pala healers, I know of some that use a few SP mail items, etc.
summary:
better gear is needed if the new system will function, at least on those items where preraid BiS means cloth (for druids).
From my understanding, Blizz even admitted that rushed to push ToC out and released it too soon. It was a good idea to try, but I really don't think it played out well.
I don't think this is as big of an issue as you think it is, for two reasons:
1) It only applies to cross-server PuGs. That means you can still get a group together on your server and not be subject to those restrictions.
2) Blizzard has been getting better with their itemisation of leather. If that trend continues, we'll hopefully be seeing leather that is on-par with cloth in terms of itemisation.
It is going to be a problem for other classes too, as you mentioned. The thing to remember at lower levels is that you're going to be replacing your items quickly, so hopefully it doesn't end up being a huge deal for you.
What they *really* need to do is just say: okay, all healer gear is going to be cloth, all caster DPS gear is going to be cloth, all agility (rogues, druids, hunters, shamans) gear is going to be leather, all strength (shamans, warriors, paladins, DKs) gear is going to be mail, and all tank gear is going to be plate. There, problem solved.
so here's a topic and i have this issue alot. For the life of me, I can't stop pulling threat. If you have any ideas on how to fix that please let me know. If you want to check my gear and such just wow-heroes me Grimsdel (Black Dragonflight). I think I've tried everything. The last time i backed off my dps when this happened I was told to pick up dps and I was like we'll if you want me to pull aggro and wipe the raid sure! Well thanks!
Step 1: Make sure you have Nature's Reach.
Step 2: Tell your paladins to macro their Hand of Salvation to you.
Step 3: Ask your hunters and rogues to Misdirect and Tricks of the Trade more often.
Step 4: Tell your tanks to learn how to play.
Step 5: Find tanks who know how to play.
It could just be that your tanks are undergeared. This actually happened to me… a brought a bunch of my friends from my old guild over to my new one (it was more like a merger, but yeah) and all of us were pulling aggro at some point or another. If your tanks' gear is as good as yours, they really need to learn how to play.
Grimsdel — Your aggro issues will 100% be resolved when you pick up Nature's Reach. Drop 1 point from Moonglow, and 1 from Owlkin Frenzy, or Improved Moonfire (its only useful if you have 2pc T9), etc. And put 2/2 Nature's Reach.
It's a must have for any boomkin. Moonkins running with tanks of equal gear should have no issues with aggro — I can't pull in guild runs no matter how hard I try. PuGs, however, are a different story.
Ballerkin
k thanks you two!
didn't know about 1), ty for the info.