I love Mists of PandariaFollow

Despite all my hating, all the Kung Fu Panda jokes, pokemon & farmville quips and my general propensity for ********* MoP is exactly what I want from an expansion.

Healing feels right, the raid content is solid, lots of rep to grind, 5 mans were simple but there were some solid fights & they fleshed out the lore. People hate on the dailies but I love my Tiller quests. My first Sha of Anger kill was world boss zerg fest, so much more fun than Archavon. Heck, even the leveling was decent.

Haha I think im enjoying it more than id like to admit as well and im not even 90 yet....its almost overwhelming all the activity you find yourself wanting to do....level this prof level that one level up your pets for battles get your monk up in levels while grinding to 90 on your main and run some random dungeons(which have been fun) just not enough time in the day :(

*looks out window* No, the sky isn't on fire so this can't be the apocalypse.

No whiskey or cooling of hell involved.

I am really impressed with the extra content that they put in the game, and it really was the feature that I found myself being the most critical about in the lead up to release. The Tillers especially, I haven't let myself be hooked by Pet Battles yet, but I see it happening. People ***** about the dailies, but I think Lore from Tankspot had it right when he broke it down as to how many you need per week. Of course I say that and I still don't have the rep to use my valour :P

Then there is healing, which feels right after being broken for two expansions. WotLK was a spam fest and there are three fights where I can remember mana counting, Thorim HM, when we got a world 100 kill, our Tribute to Dedicated Insanity Run & killing Lich King HM 25 while he was still current. Then Cata where it wasn't as much a mana issue as it was MY CAST BAR IS MOVING SLOWER THAN OLD PEOPLE F*CKING. I love the encounter mechanics in Cata, but hated healing.

Elegon, I was having to burn my aura to help the transition into P3/P1, the final phase I was having figure out how I was going use CD's to keep the raid up and myself alive. On a normal mode, normally we just walk in and steamroll normal even when undergeared. Will of the Emperor, seeing Tanks having to figure out a movement fight for what seems like the first time since Infernals on Illidan was a blast & spending the final 50% of the fight bouncing between 10 to 30% mana was bringing me back to some TBC fights.

I am sure the honeymoon phase will wear off, but with Cata I found myself trying to like it but hating it. With MoP I was trying to hate it but ended up loving it.

Edited, Oct 28th 2012 7:37am by bodhisattva

Speaking of Lore, I wonder what he thinks of that daily marmot stomping quest :)

I have to agree. I was thoroughly done with Cata the moment I was grinding PvP gear.

Blizzard actually made the starting blue craftable gear accessible and cheap to make; pieces go for 300-500g on my server, and it really helped since I was a couple of weeks behind in terms of gear.

I still need a decent weapon, but I can definitely hold my own in PvP until then since I'm already at ~52% resil and ~25% power.

I haven't tried Silvershard Mines yet, but the Temple is a pretty great BG; the map is designed with a lot of LOS, but also with a gigantic area with no LOS whatsoever to get the maximum points.

I haven't had a chance to get into PvE yet, but it's definitely on my radar.

Not only is it accessible and cheap to make (though you need Spirits of Harmony if you want to make them yourself), these also work in PvE too, due to PvP stats being off-budget. 450 is enough for Heroic Dungeons.

No more are you Qing up for Normals with green quested crap until you can do Heroics; you can just get your full set of Contender's and be ready to go.

Also, I hated some of the materials required in Cataclysm to make the armor. Elementium Bars? That's not too bad. 10 freaking volatile fire per piece of plate armor? Eh, okay... so the alchemists get to bend me over, again.

Leather? Yup, 10 volatiles. The alchemists have fun with me again.

Mail? OMG WHAT IS THIS!? 10 Dragonscales per!? When there's only ONE place in the entire game to get dragonscales at any decent rate!? Arrrrrrrrgh. Oh, and I STILL need 10 volatiles per.

Cloth? GAAAAAAH...... not only do I need 10 volatiles per, but I also need two and a half stacks of a cloth that has a ridiculously rare drop rate.

I hated how you had to have 2-3 alchemists in Cata to get anything done, otherwise you get bent over at the AH. And even then you had to wait several days before you had enough volatiles transmuted to be able to make anything.

So now in MoP, once you get past the annoying "Need 8 whole spirits" part, you can make good level 90 armor to start with. And if they do the same thing they did in Cataclysm; when Season 13 comes out, those recipes should auto-update to the new season which means you make even better armor with those same patterns (in Cataclysm, it started out 339, then changed to 358 and then ended at 377 IIRC).

Never thought I'd say this, but I agree with Bodhi and Theo. There is so much to do this expac. I have completely fallen for Battle Pets to the point where all I did this weekend was level my priest and collect new battle pets.

I love the new Temple BG but Silvershard Mines is terrible.

I'll chip in on Galleon at least, since I got in on this beastie the other day.

Word chipped in on trade chat, raid forming, random invites to those responding and folks start drifting to VEB (Halfhill). I guess due to the ship name reference I thought this mob would be elsewhere (lol).

Horde had already engaged him, down to 60% (of 320 million health) by the time I got there. And it was a complete frenzy of Horde, Galleon's adds/minions (4 million health each ... for trash, lol), and the dozens of alliance watching the show. Due to Galleon's size, it was awesome and horrific at the same time as even flying you could get hit by ranged attacks or his stomp attack. Horde were slowly wiping, in part to some of them foolishly being pvp flagged (PvE server) and getting picked off, along with the "long" graveyard run (from Pang's Stead as I discovered).

After Horde finally wiped and yelling for any alliance to leave him alone, he reset by disappearing and respawning a minute later. My raid group got the tag, as there were 2 or 3 alliance raid groups there at that point, with moaners galore that they "got screwed" by the tag (qq). Afterward I heard that someone from my raid group dropped, made a new raid group, and this extended the mob tag to the new raid group. Cool beans.

Watching any video of this fight will give some idea of how massive, frenzied, and extra laggy this encounter can be but it's fun as hell.

Good job quoting his link.

Except that all of my transmutes were being dumped into making my own armor, for quite a long while lol.

And I'll admit, I'm cheap when it comes to buying anything. The prices I'll balk at are prices other people pay while barely flinching. *shrugs* I'm a cheapskate. And yes, I feel that 10-20g per volatile is "bending me over". 100-200g to make my own piece of armor? Eh, no.

Weeeelllll, like I said, I'm a cheapskate.

lol.

Heck, when I got my first level 90, I knew I needed Contender's armor, but when I saw the 500-800g per, I was like "um, no..."

So, I camped the AH until I found 90-150g pieces and it took 3-4 days but I outfitted my character with those.

Now my blacksmith can make them for free, a couple weeks later.