WQ rep grind transitioning to alt play

World of Warcraft
1

Not sure about you guys, but for me I have finally completed the exalted grind on all BFA factions on my Warlock.

Then I had the big ‘what now’ question. Not quite ready to game hop yet.

Ilvl and gear progression is an endless chase, and I think it is a bit soon for that. In Legion I hyper focused on one mage, did progression raiding, got its gear way up there, and then as time went on and all of the Argus catchup came online, it felt like all of that time was wasted because you could get the same or better from Argus.

So this time for me it is alt play time. I don’t know which class I like the most in BFA, and I have a crap ton of 110s just sitting around idle. So it is time to take those out for a spin and see which is the most fun.

You see right now you have a few things working for you. First, each week you get more levels for the same amount of azurite. This is the first catchup mechanism. You can sit there and cap out your weekly azurite gain, or you can kick back and let that passive per week catchup mechanism do the grind for you. Yep sign me up for that. I am not going to grind out IEs on every alt every week. Nope, not gonna do that.

Next, they tossed in the Arathi bosses which drop 340 gear, and the raid boss which drops 370. If you just do the emissaries and bang out the warfront bosses per week, your alts will get lots of rep and item level for a minimal time investment. LFR wings are still opening up. Might as well get people to 120 now so they can go and do that stuff over time.

Feedback on what I have played so far

Warlock- Affliction is the raid spec now, bursting right and rotating right is the key here, lots of micro management. I hear demonology is fun but not really good for raiding, and destruction is solid, but I did that one expansion, and would rather play some other class that roots you as you cast. You still have to sit still to cast, and they still have ranged hose stuff that seems to make you move faster than you can complete seed of corruption. This class was fun to solo WQs, but I don’t really want to raid with it.

Shaman- Tried enhancement. Fun with lots of pyrotechnics. Squishy compared to other classes when soloing, have to use burst and earth elemental to get through tougher fights. Can be very streaky with procs for fun burst spikes, the exact opposite of affliction. Right now sucks on DPS tables though, so parking it for now.

Warrior- Tried fury. Very smooth on WQs, though big bosses can be hard. Faster action with skills. I hear Arms is just a huge wrecking ball of AOE DPS, and I might flip that way. Was fun taking to 120, not sure about raiding.

Demon Hunter- my present project. AOE DPS is insane. For WQs just mount up, pull as many as I dare, then eyebeam and grind into component parts. Fun. This class for me became a lot more fun when I took movement out of the DPS rotation and just reserve it for positioning. Not sure how this will finish at 120 (at 112 now), but sure is fast and fun.

On Deck: Monk, Hunter, Paldin, Mage, Rogue for the 110 to 120 push.

Way further: Got my Lightforged Dranei, Iron Dwarf, and later Kul Tiran druid to do. Oh and a DK.

Gold- BFA is basically a cash drain. Even lucky BOE drops are harder to sell with time. Mats from previous expansions are selling for me. So taking allied races from 20 to 120 might be a cash positive thing to do. You can minimize the gold drain in BFA by going double gathering, and just posting raw mats, and use the gold to buy what you need.

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I’ve been topping the damage meters on both my monk and demonhunter in dungeons. AoE ftw I guess. I’ve been less successful as a balance druid…maybe because dots are not getting their full duration before mobs die. I have not researched it in detail though.

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How are you doing on the meters for single target bosses?

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I’ll try to remember to reset my damage meter before my next boss fight and see hehe.

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If you can believe Noxxic’s damage meters (I’ve never known if their info is reputable or not), they rank elemental shaman second from the top, right under affliction lock. Boomkin is second from last, where feral is rock bottom. If this is the case, then yea, dots won’t help much because other classes are killing the mobs.

I still enjoy playing my boomkin and plan on leveling her next, regardless of dps rankings. And I’ve found that I’m not having as much fun on my holy priest as I used to, but shadow is a lot of fun this xpac.

Edit: rumor has it that rep levels will be account wide, maybe as soon as 8.1.

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Noxxic ranks Enhancement Shamans as #2 for Single Target for 340 Max. (you can change Single to 3, & Max to Real) to see all the variations. Retro Pally are disabled under the Real category due to sim error.

I always look at this site as what is possible, not set in stone. You have to take it with a grain of salt.

Everyone should always be running Recount in raid, not to see who is swinging the biggest sword/staff, but as a learning tool. As a group we averaged 345 ilevel on Monday’s raid. From a high of 351 to a low of 331. Don’t scoff the 331, that was the #1 healer out of the group. ilevel gets you in the door, knowing the dance and how to max your build and play your class gets the job done.

What i do with Recount is click on the individual names to see the breakdown of what was cast. I’m not looking at the damage output but the counts (for a Warlock the ticks of the dots) How many times did Agony tick, how well did i keep Agony applied compared to Corruption (talented for Endless Corruption so it never falls off). Agony takes time to ramp up to 10 stacks and if i let it fall off a target, it greatly lowers my dps till it ramps back up. How many times did I forget to send in my Darkglare off cooldown. I would compare myself to Snydlee’s warlock when he was running. We both have the same build, but since he was a good 15 ilevels higher than me, I wasn’t looking at damage output but more the rotations to do the best job i could do.

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I think Details is the better meter now. Recount has issues in that it only gathers data within a certain range of you, so if you are in a wide spread, you have poor to no data of the people on the far side of the room. Lots of people have issues with Noxxic, think warcraftlogs is what people link to now. Very different ranking than Noxxic

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warcraftlogs is interesting, thanks for sharing the site info

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Seconding Snydelee’s recommendation of both Warcraft logs and Details. Details has a Compare feature where if you click on your name and hit the Compare tab it shows the results of anyone else with your class and spec, makes it easy to compare the number of casts and how hard each spell hits for etc. I also advise picking up the Details Advance Death Logs plugin for it. It shows you after a wipe what everyone was killed by, shows the last 5 sec or so of incoming heals and damage, helps figure out what mechanic is wiping the raid.

  • Istyn
10

Just an update here. I have now 5x120’s at the end game. I have them macroed with key spammers, and they are all working great. Have an affliction Warlock, fury Warrior, enhancement Shaman, havoc Demon Hunter, and most recently retribution Paladin.

Just a few quick tips if you are doing this. First look up the Wowhead article on the professions you have and see which reputation unlocks the most recipes for you, and focus on running those zones. You can get through a full clear on one zone and about a half clear on a second zone before you ding 120.

I would recommend starting as a 120 by riding to each flight point. Do not take any quests as you do this. The aim here is to have a full flight grid there and ready for when you hit 120 and are doing world quests. You get lots of discovery bonus, and if you gather it will give you a quick edge on mats. If I do this and harvest while I level up, I can get a gathering profession to 150 by the time I hit 120. Along the way scrap everything you have outgrown, and pile up the mats on the appropriate toons.

Post 120 two things work well for me. (1) Do Arathi quests and bosses, and (2) do the emissaries. I use the phone app to send followers out on BFA missions. I only bother upgrading to the 2nd tier on my ship too. Typically I focus on rep missions.

Arathi quests and bosses is a huge catchup mechanism. You get about 5 quests, which grant around 200 war resources each, so if you do the full load you get around 1K war resources which will last you weeks. There are two ways to do this. I usually fly to the West boss and see if people are killing it. If not I join a custom group for Arathi bosses WM off. Find the largest raid you can. That raid will blow through the bosses quickly. After they are all done, go camp the few bosses you have left (usually you join the raid late and miss a couple). Then go to the place where the players are and just tag stuff that people are already killing for quest credit. Do the raid boss in a raid group if there isn’t a pile of people on it. Note that Sat/Sun around 11am EST or so the activity there is higher and it is easy to knock this out. Be sure to shell out for 1 bonus roll token (the guy to the left of the inn where you bind) and use it on the raid boss, who drops 370 gear.

With WQs if you can bang out the emissaries, you will grind faction for your professions and get decent rewards along the way. I typically focus on champs/turtles in the zone, or do gear upgrade quests, or if that fails go for pet token quests or war resources quests. I try to minimize the amount of WQs run.

Between the emissaries and Arathi, if you go 2 times on Arathi you will likely be above ilvl 320 with your fresh 120, and be able to raid or do whatever else you want.

As far as those classes go, here is my feedback.

Affliction was fun and sturdy, and it drives you to this gather by loading it up and let the dots do the work mode. I played so much with that warlock to hit exalted that I just park it now and run ship missions. He is retired. Ilvl for this guy is 350-360.

Enhancement has been a slow gear. I tend to get a lot of stuff for the heal spec or the elemental spec, and have yet to score decent weapons. I get higher ilvl weapons, but the DPS number on them is less, so I stick with my 300ish pair. Enhancment is only getting more bursty and fun as time goes on. Also as my ilvl goes higher, I am more sturdy and do not feel so much like wet tissue. Ilvl for this guy is around 323.

Fury is a hoot and only getting better. So much mobility, and that any time whirwind is just fun for tagging things. When the Arathi boss goes for me, I leap out and hit my worgen sprint. Can not take it toe to toe. I can do just fine with the azurite yellow pool buff, but not in Arathi. Ilvl for this guy hit 343.

Havoc is my favorite so far. I never really played much with it last expansion, so I am really playing this for the first time. Love that eye beam and love the mobility. Big change from a fun standpoint was holding movement skills for movement only and not trying to use them for DPS. With ilvl around 320, already I am doing very well on DPS lists for things like the world boss. If I had to pick a DPS to raid on, this would be my pick right now.

Retribution right now for me is a little weak. I am at ilvl 300ish. I have a 340 2-h hammer. The problem for me is AOE dps. It feels really weak, and it takes a long time to burn down a crowd, and I get in trouble and have to pop defensives. This is a big step down from Legion. Single target feels fun, particularly with Avenging Wrath. But AOE is a problem. Maybe with better gear this will play better.

Next on my list is Monk.

Bank account went from 500K gold to 800K gold since I last posted. Most of money is coming from 30 slot bags and other Draenor stuff I post. All BFA mats are hoarded for crafting later. I can literally turn on my 8 barns with insta completion orders and dump fur on the market for money whenever I want. I have so much sorcerous materials, and none of them were selling (even the earth, which is surprising). So I just transmuted about 2000 of it into sorerous earth and just dump them on my 2 bag makers. Bags move slowly, with a lot of people undercutting by a lot. You can sell them now in this market for around 1500g each.