Can you still AOE grind?

[Thallidomaniac]

I agree, its will be fun and interesting again, as it was interesting to level first character. Problem back then was we didnt know jack shit so it was "hard". Now buffed mobs bring nice chalange, if u can call it that. I look forward to it.

You mean fun & interesting as a tank or healer taking 1-2 minutes to kill a single mob while dps can do that in 10-30 seconds?

[Powerogue]

For my 82 Warrior, killing regular quest mobs (1 on 1, I wouldn't dare try mobbing) in Deepholme takes anywhere from 10-30 seconds, depending on procs.

ok WOW. I'm now utterly terrified of the expansion. I kidded that I can solo the level 80 elites around icecrown easily and that mobs with that amount of hp would be ideal for our gear level, but now I'm not sure i'll be able to get my 10 samples of drake skin without a group. O_O

[Profyrion]

Keep in mind that it's still beta and they have only made 1 pass on mob difficulty, and continuously adjust the numbers for players...

I think we can expect a degree of difficulty somewhere between what we have now and what we had in Wrath (opposite ends of the same spectrum).

[zaruz]

Keep in mind that it's still beta and they have only made 1 pass on mob difficulty, and continuously adjust the numbers for players...

I think we can expect a degree of difficulty somewhere between what we have now and what we had in Wrath (opposite ends of the same spectrum).

And not to mention the fact that theres been a ton of blue posts saying that all quest/dungeon loot isn't yet implemented or itemized correctly. Remember, those lvl 81 greens are going to replace your 277 epics. So ATM everyone is way undergeared on beta.

[Zka]

Absolutely no need to nerf mobs in Cat beta. They are fine, just don't be a retard - look around, use your abilities and that's it. If you can't do that, play FarmVille.

[pickley]

Just hit twilight highlands, at 84 the first mobs you see destroy you, they have 2 1 hand weapons and hit for 6-8k each swing, fun times...

[Tablemaker]

Just hit twilight highlands, at 84 the first mobs you see destroy you, they have 2 1 hand weapons and hit for 6-8k each swing, fun times...

We need to omit any data coming from Uldum and Twilight Highlands in this thread. The only zones that are up for debate are Vashj'ir, Hyjal and Deepholme. Currently you do not get any loot for quests outside of Deepholme, so Uldum and Twilight Questing are off.

As for the first three zones... I went into them with 6246GS from Live. You can manage 1-3 mobs. 3 mobs would get a little tricky (Being a shadow priest helps). I wouldn't, for the life of me, plan on AoE grinding anything in Cataclysm. I made the mistake a few times... and it was not pretty. It does not help, in the least, that some brilliant genius added a deadzone on Mind Sear.

I decided to AoE pull a pack of Neutral Mobs in Hyjal. It took a few fears, heals, renews, shield... and everything else I had to eventually kill all of them. (8-12 mobs) I believe they were in the area of 34k HP mobs. Most "normal" mobs will have 40-50k for the zone, if I recall correctly.

[Maxatoria]

currently i wouldnt do more than a 2 mob pull which reminds me of what it was when i got to 60 unles if fancied abusing every last cooldown/pot etc

[Deleted]

Reading all these comments, I'm glad I've decided to level as elemental, constant rooting and kiting means I dont have to worry about adds <3

[Sackman]

It will be an annoyance, but I like the change. If you and 10 other guys got in a fight IRL, who would win? A bad example, but it gets my point across.

Very bad example, because a trained person would undoubtedly win. Hell many just regular people would win.


But I like the change. More interesting grinding

[Deladeu]

Well.. actually.. from a mage perspective.. while you CAN make some AoE pulls.. it'll take most of your resources to complete it.. mostly because their health is so high.. and even with the last patch's 33% increase to Blizzard.. it's not enough to burn them down before they overwhlem you.. so I have to Frost Nova, Blink.. Blizzard.. PEt's Freeze, Blink, Blizzard, Frost Nova Blink... by the time I've done it.. mana is mostly gone, I probably took enough damage to warrant eating.. yada yada... So it's just not time effective to make an effort to AoE Grind.

And to be clear. I am QUITE adept at AoE farming on Live. The AoE damage is too low, snaring too low and their damage too high. It only gets worse as you level... as mobs get up to 77.5k health on average in Twilight Highlands...

In fact.. I think AoE overall is a waste of time in Beta thus far...

That's how AoE for mages was in Classic.. you actually had to be good and use a proper frost spec to do it. Enough of this grabbing 15 mobs and killing them all within 10 seconds, shits got out of hand since WotLK was released.

[Deleted]

I like the sound of this. WoTLK leveling was a complete bore. Being able to solo the elite mobs in Dragonblight was silly.

I half agree, but otherwise I don't.

Elite quests in Outland were much more interesting than almost all the Northrend ones. Remember those Hellfire Peninsula colossus (red giants) or the huge red guy in the green slime pools with scary multi-armed women patrolling around him? Or even the Ring of Blood elites were much more difficult than the equivalent Ring of Anguish/Northrend ones for their level. Yes, I was easily able to solo the 200k+ dragon in Dragonblight on my warlock and there were exactly six group quests I could not solo while leveling to 80 (counting Ring of Blood + Ring of Anguish as two).

However, the problem with encouraging Blizzard in this direction is that they could easily turn every group quest into effectively a mini-raid to completely rule out the "physical" possibility of one or two people completing a group quest. Tackling any group quest solo on live already requires some decent amount of skill and understanding of your class. Average and just above average players cannot do most of them - believe me (its quite shocking really). So, its already fairly well-balanced at least in that regard.

Also, the main problem is that all this has to be considered in context. Levelling in Outland is much more linear and straightfoward compared to the very intricate and heavy quest chaining and mini-zone design of Northrend. I very much looked forward to doing group quests in general but for different reasons. In Outland, getting together a group was quick and efficient probably because people had zipped through the traditional quest hubs and were up for a challenge. In Northrend, most people seem to avoid either doing group quests or trying to find a group for them. This could be because the zones are so much larger and quest chains so much more intricate, there are simply less people at the same stage as you. I find in this situation I very much look forward to soloing group quests as a challenge and as a way to break up the much larger grind of Northrend. If I was forced to spend 30mins/hours looking for a group in this situation, I simply wouldn't bother with most group quests since they always terminate quest chains or are standalone.

Back to the topic of aoe grinding specifically, I would be somewhat dismayed if "drain tanking" was no longer viable on my warlock with at least a couple of mobs (given I could easily pull up to 7-10 mobs at my level on live going down to ONE would be...a big blow!). Its a very fun playstyle basically not possible with any other caster and involves juggling several factors at once.

[Sinea]

Holy crap. 80 k hp / mob? That's like an elite in northrend, lol.

I hate AOE grinding, prefer enjoying the content =D

[Victoriaautmors]

Well as a mage it will be very easy to control and kill groups of mobs (unless they are immune to roots and snares,which would be stupid).

between mirror images, invisibility, blink , improved blink and frost nova , Slow/CoC/Frostbolt + sheep you would indeed need to be retarded to die to mobs :P

[Twinkeltoe]

No AoE grinding means less mob tagging when Cata ships.

Everybody got a chance to kill the q mobs and the players that try to steal them will accidently pull more and die = win/win :P

[The Ogdru Jahad]

In beta I wouldn't dare try and do 2 mobs at once on my feral druid. My blood Dk is able to do it a little better.... but not much.

[Riavan]

Why should the normal leveling be this challenging, it seems you guys just suck it up rather than do what you should be doing. Complaining.

[Bluenose]

It will be an annoyance, but I like the change. If you and 10 other guys got in a fight IRL, who would win? A bad example, but it gets my point across.

That example would work were it not for the fact you character is meant to be a god damn hero, Not nearly dieing on every single enemy.

[Xionor]

This is impressions from full 264/277 ICC gear, Death Knight dps, fully enchanted and gemmed, which is better than most quest rewards loot pre-level 84, and pre-level 82 blues which you won't really enchant or epic gem.

As char level 81-82 In Hyjal and Vasj'ir you can easily take on 4-5, even 6-7 mobs and make it out alive. Pretty possible to AoE grind.
With an 83 char, however, once you step in Deepholme using all cooldowns availible no more than 4 maximum. with ALL cooldowns.
No cooldowns, 4 would kill you. 3 would be challanging. 2 is pretty okay. If you pull 6-7 mobs, they'll pretty much one-shot you together :P

In Deepholme, on 62% plate armor, melee hits for 2k, special melee abilities for about 4-5k, spells hit for about 8-10k average.

I think I had about 45k health. Do your maths.

[Deleted]

No AoE grinding means less mob tagging when Cata ships.

Everybody got a chance to kill the q mobs and the players that try to steal them will accidently pull more and die = win/win :P

Yes, but in practice how often does this happen (i.e. surrounded by greedy taggers) compared to how much often as an individual you have to kill things while leveling from level 1? A seemingly small and simple change like this can dramatically change the feel of the game and how much time it takes to achieve anything. What is the likelihood that after this they change all the numbers for every single quest or at least some of the more kill-heavy quests so that you do not spend 15 minutes finding and killing say 20 mobs for a single kill quest (that on live would take you at the very most a third of that time)? This does not even include quests with low collection drop rates which require killing monsters.

I hope that this change in mob scaling is only for the new quests from level 80 to 85 which gives them a chance to make the quest kill requirements reasonable.