Were BoA's really that good of an idea?

[Deleted]

Yeah, I'll actually have to dust off the skills that were standard procedure back in vanilla/TBC days, it seems. I might even have to mark targets

It's nice that threat generation is still stupidly high. I don't expect maintaining aggro will be too hard as long as I poke them with a thunderclap every now and then, especially once Deep Wounds is unlocked. Does seem like this is going to make Shockwave mandatory for dungeons, though, since its uptime is much higher than Dragon Roar.

Dragon Roar also doesn't stun for nearly as long which is the lovely thing about Shockwave.

Aye, in terms of threat it's usually enough to cast Thunderclap at them and you'll hold their attention long enough for them to die.

Dungeons that are extra dangerous that I can remember at the top of my head is the second Strathholme (the one with the Ziggurats), extremely crowded with mobs, the Ghouls hit really hard and they can both root and silence your healer. The first pull after the second gate (before you've dealt with any of the bosses) is the most dangerous pull because there's sooo many mobs.

Dire Maul, all of them really, especially the Ogres with two handed axes, think they are called reavers or something. One of the bosses is extra hilarious, he aoe fears the group, summons 2 or more reavers whilst hitting you in your back for a lot of damage... Don't think we ever killed that boss without anyone dying.

Hellfire Ramparts, especially the first pulls, they hit really hard, they have kidney shot stuns and disarm, be careful...

Mana tombs and similar dungeons, they have mind control, silence the healer, easy to overpull. Also they spawn ghosts that hit for 90 % of the healer's health per hit and are impossible to taunt or otherwise gain threat on...

[Marquize]

BoA is an abreviation for bind on account, which is said in the tooltip, the tooltip oddly doesn't say heirloom, BoA is a class of item, heirloom is the :"color / quality of the items name" green/blue/purple etc.
but heh either is accurate.

No, Heirloom are the items that scale with level, BoA can reffer to anything bound to account

[Deleted]

I've saved him multiple times with roots, slows and thunderstorm whist he runs for it.

problem nowadays is most of ppl you dungeon with lfd doesn't have the knowledge of the class they play to use all of their skill, and the fact that dungeoning was too easy didn't teach them anything at all about it, just spamm ur best hitting spell = u win. Now if you don't pull carefully as tank, heal using all of your spell as healer, learn to cc/interrupt mobs as dps, levelling with dungeon will be full of wipefest...
btw i approve it if it will teach ppl how to use their class, as long as ppl want to learn, that's it.

As for heirlooms: i have full set of everything with mop enchant and it makes the difference when you want to level another toon on another server, if only for the boost in xp it gives.

PS: sorry, really sorry, for my bad english.

[Rixis]

But, there is no such phrase, "Bind on Account."

There is: "Bind on Pickup." Meaning, bind on pickup event.

There is: "Bind on Equip." Meaning, bind on 'equip' event.

There is not: "Bind on Account." Because there is no 'account' event.

I don't know what you people are talking about. There is no "BoA." There is only something that a small number of inattentive people inappropriately call "BoA" which is in fact something else, called either "Bind to (battle.net) account," or "heirloom."

Patch 3.0.2, when Bound to Account was first implemented was released in October 2008.

Battle.net WoW merger was available from April 2009

Battle.net WoW merger was mandatory in November 2009 (announcement made in october 2009)

The reason they are called bind to account is because they originally were bound to account, not bound to battle.net account, as battle.net accounts did not exist at the time.

The acronym has stuck since then.

- - - Updated - - -

Let's have a link

http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/...radeitem_5.jpg - image of heirlooms where it clearly says "Binds to Account"

[endersblade]

Patch 3.0.2, when Bound to Account was first implemented was released in October 2008.

Battle.net WoW merger was available from April 2009

Battle.net WoW merger was mandatory in November 2009 (announcement made in october 2009)

The reason they are called bind to account is because they originally were bound to account, not bound to battle.net account, as battle.net accounts did not exist at the time.

The acronym has stuck since then.

- - - Updated - - -

Let's have a link

http://static.mmo-champion.com/mmoc/...radeitem_5.jpg - image of heirlooms where it clearly says "Binds to Account"

This is correct, but for fuck's sake people, you are arguing semantics. The gear is commonly referred to as BoA, Bind on Account. Get the fuck over it. It is also equally known as heirloom gear, but most people just type BoA. I can't believe how silly you're making yourself look, Didacticus. I have never seen anyone refer to it as anything else but BoA or heirlooms (although I did have a friend call it relic gear, used to drive me crazy lol), but again, BoA is commonly typed as it's shorter (or BOA, boa, etc).

[ACES]

Heirlooms are so easy to get, there is pretty much no excuse for not having at least a few if you've played through the game on one character and are starting an alt.

[Deleted]

Dungeons that are extra dangerous that I can remember at the top of my head is the second Strathholme (the one with the Ziggurats), extremely crowded with mobs, the Ghouls hit really hard and they can both root and silence your healer. The first pull after the second gate (before you've dealt with any of the bosses) is the most dangerous pull because there's sooo many mobs.

Dire Maul, all of them really, especially the Ogres with two handed axes, think they are called reavers or something. One of the bosses is extra hilarious, he aoe fears the group, summons 2 or more reavers whilst hitting you in your back for a lot of damage... Don't think we ever killed that boss without anyone dying.

Hellfire Ramparts, especially the first pulls, they hit really hard, they have kidney shot stuns and disarm, be careful...

Mana tombs and similar dungeons, they have mind control, silence the healer, easy to overpull. Also they spawn ghosts that hit for 90 % of the healer's health per hit and are impossible to taunt or otherwise gain threat on...

I am quite happy to hear this. I remember those mobs from the BC era, and dealing with them was what made doing heroics fun as a tank. The problem is that since then levelling dungeons were so horribly nerfed, they became trivial. People just have to change their mindset, appreciating that dungeons will require some thought and decent play, and not merely be mindless runs for fast XP.

Or more realistically, Blizzard will just nerf them back to pre-6.0 difficulty.

[Sidewalker]

I think you're asking a bigger question than you may realize. Let's say you have a lazy coworker - do you change the job description to fit them? Work with them? Fire them? If you're in a dungeon and the heals sucks, vote to kick - it's the best you can do. Other than that, you're kind of screaming in the rain.

That being said, I think you touch upon a facet of the game, but I wouldn't call it a downright problem. Sure, it sucks to not get heals when you need them, but that just means you need to alter your playing style to not need them. And don't say that's not possible, because I have multiple 90's and I've found how to do it with each toon. I don't raid with each of course, but for a 5 man dungeon, it's entirely possible.

[fwc577]

I will never forget while leveling my monk, I joined a random dungeon as a DPS and when I joined, the healer started bitching after 2 minutes because the tank wasn't "full loom" and she wasn't healing this shit. Then she left. I was like, uh....

New healer joined and we completed the dungeon without a problem.

[Sumatran]

More like even full heirloom tanks sometimes get almost insta gibbed and the blame usually lands on the healer. Your attitude shows that quite clearly. So if you mess up and die with your horrid gear it's "the healer not wanting to heal". Because of such statements alone I wouldn't want to have you in my group.

This. Tanks are getting trucked now, in all levels. They don't realize that since the change, tanks are getting hit a LOT harder, because they were nerfed to shit. So they keep pulling mega packs, and even fully heirloomed flash heals cant keep them up.

Sadly it is never anyone's own fault for anything, its always somebody else, so this is just how its going to be now. You think there was a lack of healers before... just wait.

And yes, I quit healing on my 72 pally, and he is ret now. Ill wait the extra 10 mins per dungeon just to not get yelled at.

[Eroginous]

I started a new guy on a completely new server for the hell of it, and I swear it's like healers in dungeons don't want to actually heal. I'll get complaints about the fact that I only have ~700 HP at level 15-16 and therefore have to actually get healed in fights, because healers are so used to people kitted out in full BoAs with like 1500+ HP at the same level (mostly due to enchants.)

I think dungeon difficulty is fine, but it's a little ridiculous how pissed healers seem to get that they actually have to press buttons instead of autopilot through dungeons... even though dungeons aren't terribly difficult to do to begin with.

Makes me wonder if BoA's were really the best thing Blizzard could've done. I feel like just having some sort of cheap or renewable XP booster would've been a better bet.

That, or maybe give tanks more tools to reduce damage taken with earlier in the game. Paladins have nothing but Word of Glory (which heals for, like... 100 with 3 HP), Warriors only get Defensive Stance and Shield Block (neither of which make a huge difference because most hits are fairly small to begin with), etc. But then again, healers have plenty of tools at that early level as long as the tank isn't pulling too much to handle, they just seem to not want to actually use it. At that level you can spam the hell out of your heals and pretty much never go OOM, but they seem to think that an occasional Holy Shock or Penance every 10-15 sec counts as "healing."

BoAs were a good idea on paper. Players having gear that scales with them as they level alts, making it easier to stay relevant to the content, is not a bad thing. The negative side effects of BoAs are that they are BiS for most slots until level 60ish, when gear finally starts picking up extra stats and itemization. Blizzard really needed to go back through and tune all the existing dungeon and quest drops to match the itemization of BoAs, lessening the impact of them on players who don't have access.

Your issue amounts to a quality of life thing, where Blizzard has a responsibility to develop better low level content, but chooses not to.

[Count Zero]

I have to admit, I did really love my initial 1-70 leveling experience when I started in BC.

But that's just not where the times are at anymore. I actually have been considering looking into a diff game I can have that kind of experience with again, tho ... but I may have actually moved on myself, also.

[Cows For Life]

Yeah, I'll actually have to dust off the skills that were standard procedure back in vanilla/TBC days, it seems. I might even have to mark targets

It's nice that threat generation is still stupidly high. I don't expect maintaining aggro will be too hard as long as I poke them with a thunderclap every now and then, especially once Deep Wounds is unlocked. Does seem like this is going to make Shockwave mandatory for dungeons, though, since its uptime is much higher than Dragon Roar.

Bull. I never had to run from every trash pack in vanilla, nor did most classes have stuns or CC available to stop mobs, in vanilla.

[Nissl]

I've leveled a tank without any heirlooms several times, and never had any complaints. Usually I chain dungeons so I'm in nearly full dungeon blues though.

Problematic mobs/packs should be reported. Right after 6.0 almost all the low-level stuff was way overtuned, and I strongly doubt that they fixed all of it correctly. Which brings me to my other point, people shouldn't comment on the current state of low-level grouping unless they have tried it since 6.0. Generally we're back to pulling one pack at a time, and if something goes wrong like adds from a pat halfway through, the tank (and healer, I presume) better blow a few CDs. That's what they're there for. It's still easier than vanilla/TBC, I think, but definitely more demanding than the ridiculous AoE fest I saw when I resubbed in early MoP.

As far as spamming healing, I also think they screwed up some ability balance at low levels. For example my super-nerfed Shield Slam feels useless at low levels atm, while it's a core part of the rotation at 90. I think healers need to identify the spells that aren't viable/competitive at these levels.

[laughtrey]

Acting like people who don't have a full kit of BoA's are somehow inconveniencing others is absolutely asinine.

If 4/5 of the people are wearing heirlooms, and the 5th person doesn't have them, they're totally in the right to kick them if they want someone with heirlooms.

Get a guild, get a group that wants to deal with your shit. You can be dumb and level slower all you want on your own time, LFD is total democracy. If they don't want your crappy tank, they don't need to deal with it.

And don't try to act like having heirlooms with the weapon isn't a huge boon compared to someone who doesn't, you'd have to be quite the idiot to think they don't make leveling a shit ton faster.

they actually have to press buttons instead of autopilot through dungeons... even though dungeons aren't terribly difficult to do to begin with.

So which is it asshole? Do I get to get free xp and a quicker/easier dungeon from heirloom tank, or is it the exactly same without heirlooms? Make up your mind.

You yourself say that healers are just being whiny because they want it to be easier, but then you say it makes no difference? What kind of mental gymnastics does it take to get to this point?

[Terahertz]

Sure, why not? If anything blizzard should add more legacy-type things, but with the paid lvl 90 service I doubt they'll do that lmao. These paid services are getting really annoying simply because it's an "excuse" for blizzard to not care for such things anymore.

[Celista]

I leveled my priest to 60 before I used my free boost (prepatch) and very rarely had to heal, just pop a shield (which in heirloom gear practically doubled the tanks health bar) and then spent the rest of the time trying to top the dps which I normally did since that's all the healing that was needed

Yeah. I haven't leveled any toons through low level dungeons since 6.0 patch though, but I did read some forum posts complaining about a difficulty level increase in low level dungeons specifically, so I guess it's possible that people haven't adjusted to the difficulty level changes yet (assuming that there was in fact a tuning change to lower level content).