Expansion Blues

The Crusade is coming! The Crusade is coming! ...and 'end-game' raiding has become pointless.

As the expansion for WoW looms over the horizon, a few lucky individuals have managed to become involved in the beta test. I am one of those individuals, and I can say with utter confidence that your PH4T NAXX LOOTZ will amount to a steaming pile of nexus crystals come expansion. Don't even get excited about that either, because Nexus Crystals are so last month... the hot new enchants use Arcane Dust and Small Prismatic Shards.

Not in a Naxx guild? Never felt the hard floor of Nef's throneroom pressing up against your cold, dead cheek as you wait for a rez? Good news! Nobody will care, as none of that really even matters anymore!

The most important thing to have when the expansion comes out are going to be the numbers Six and Zero on your character screen. Anybody wearing garbage greens can join one of the five man groups and run it five or six times to completely replace all their gear. Here's a tip to get you started: When those Super Blue Pants of Ridiculous Stats and Sockets drop off that first boss, immediately link your Twill Pants of the Monkey in party chat, and click the little 'dice' icon. The guy wearing Legplates of Wrath will be hesitant to let his own silly pants go after he farmed Rag for 3 months hoping they'd drop. He doesn't want to 'upgrade' them off some silly boss that summons snake critters to defend himself (hint: critters don't aggro unless you attack them first!). He wants to be a macho warrior and swim naked to the bottom of a lake of lava, while whirlwinding thirty-seven elite alligators. THAT would make a worthy upgrade! He won't mind if you take those.



I mean, Look. The Wrath set still makes for a nice pair of pants, but the 3 sockets in those blue pants can go any direction... +DEF, +HIT (as i've done), +CRIT, +MANA/5sec... those green pants DROPPED OFF A FUCKING PIG, about 15 min after stepping through the dark portal. Would you rather kill a pig, or spend 3 months farming Ragnaros, God of Fire and Destroyer of 40-man Noob Raids, all while dealing with Endless Guild Bitching and DKP Drama? The blue ones dropped off some miniboss in a 5-man that makes Rend Blackhand in UBRS look like some kind of superhero. Imagine the fire guy in the beginning of UBRS, and you're on the right track.

Another Example: The Amulet of the Darkmoon.



People sequester themselves in their rooms for weeks on end farming 'Darkmoon Faire' mats to purchase tickets to redeem for 'fortunes', epic trinkets, and other useless crap. A quick scan on the item's Allakhazam page reveals the kind of pain and suffering people go through for 'teh purpels' that grace us with their presence one a month. One poor soul writes:

I was farming in Burning Steppes for a whole week for approximately 5hours per day, looting 'n skinning everything, then selling whole loot to vendor and buying additional rugged leather on AH /caused inflation of rugged leather prices btw :-)/, collected some random rare + epic drops for my alts as a bonus and finally yesterday I exchanged all those armor kits for tickets and bought this nice neck:-) Would I do it again? .... not sure:-)


Another guy puts it more simply:


2400 Rugged Leather -> 480 Rugged Armorkits -> 1200 Darkmoon Faire Prize Ticket


I can put it another way, even simpler: DON'T FUCKING BOTHER. I got something ridiculously better off another fight in a different 5-man that felt like I was battling a grilled cheese sandwich. I actually got 5 sunders on him, then went and got a soda during the fight. I came back from the fridge and we finished him, and he drops this:



This was a PUG that formed on the fly. I'm talking total commitment from "yeah i'll tank" to "i'M rolling Need for Fury" of maybe 1 hour.

Not good enough? Here's a little taste of what I've been disenchanting or passing on... this pic shows a good sample of what I've picked to wear, and other stuff that I've just seen from quest rewards or whatever:




So yeah... I basically played the expansion to 63, and then stopped after realizing two things:

1) playing the beta is a waste of time, since nothing i earn in there 'counts'. All these toons will be wiped once it hits retail, and I've learned what I need to know. That brings me to point number

B) I should be grinding that 48 rogue I shelved awhile back, but just until that little yellow explosion we all know and love signaling 60 happens. Then I'll log him out right where she stands, and start that druid I always told myself I wanted to try.

Don't get me wrong... I'm not a powerleveler, or a grinder by any means (...and denial is the first step!). I abhor the current PVP and rep systems, and choose to completely ignore that whole aspect of the game. Thank god, or I'd probably be viewing the world through a pair of kitchen knives come December. If I spent the last year dragging myself through BWL, AQ40, and Naxx, only to see the new gear you get for 'delivering this envelope to the guy standing 3 feet away' my head would probably just explode. The official forums are going to catch fire and millions of voices are going to cry out in pain... it's going to be awesome.

The point is this: if your guild loves to complain that you guys aren't raiding enough, or they would rather take a druid than you on the next run, happily surrender your raid slot and go level an alt. Having any class that you want to play in the future already at sixty when the expansion drops is going to be the Big Deciding Factor in getting on these 5-man runs... and trust me, there will be about 800,000 running at any given second once the expansion goes live. Obviously no one will want to waste time leveling you in RFC or WC when they can be running around in Outland. Do it now while everyone is so bored standing around Ogrimmar that a twink run through Wailing Caverns seems like the best idea they've heard of all week.

Rested XP in the Outland will net you 1000XP per boar killed, and any class can easily solo grind out there, picking up nice greens, and run 5 man groups for blues. Get on that alt! Time is running out!

The Crusade is coming! The Crusade is coming!