the expansion: come back or not?

[Draksen]

'lo all
I left WoW 2 months ago, mainly because of the lack of content for non raiders.
I enjoy pvp, but as I dont raid, I dont have good items, and do pretty crap vs epic set dudes.

The expansion wil be out on January, and a lot of you lucky guys have already had the opportunity to test it in the Beta...

so...
tell me, is the situation any better for non-raiders?
Or should I forgot WoW forever now? (a pity, but heh...)

Thank you very much in advance for you replies, advices and such :)
Best regards,
Drak

[Draksen]

Few things that may help you answering:

I have leveled 3 characters to level 60 and never joined raids cause I dont like it. (I tried twice or so... not my cup of tea)
I play A LOT of pvp, grinded rep and such in AV, but well, it was highly unbalanced because without good items (raid lol) you cant be very efficient vs Tier2/2.5 guys...

So, basicaly a lot of things to do at level 60, but all dependant of items, and as all good items are in raids... check mate :embarassed:

What I wanted to ask is are the situation any better in the expansion?

[det]

Apparently rep grinds are not that bad anymore, and we will pretty much be on par with Tier 1 and maybe T2 ppl from the start (powerful green items).

However the hardcore raiders will be the first to 70 again..and raid the 25 man content first. Until then we might all be kinda equal..after that, the old game starts again, I suppose..unless we get an expansion every year...

[Draksen]

Thanks a lot for your reply Det :)

Do you think that the end game stuff will be reachable for non-raiders?

And what about pvp... is it still heavily item dependant? (If I remember correctly they said somethign about it, that they will try to make it more skill dependant... not sure though)

[Baal]

I'm sick of the game for the same reason - and I doubt it will change. It is an online game - so it does make sense you'd need to take advantage of that to get the best stuff.

However, I can't understand why they make it take so goddamn long for a raid. There does need to be something for those of us who don't have 5 hours to spend in a stupid computerized dungeon each night.

[cyks]

If you PvP a lot- even if you lose, you gain honor points and rep... the PvP sets handle their own against the raid tier sets. Problem solved.

[Draksen]

If you PvP a lot- even if you lose, you gain honor points and rep... the PvP sets handle their own against the raid tier sets. Problem solved.

This was true for the vanilla version.
How is it in the expansion?
Still bound to a heavy grind?

[Naolin]

This was true for the vanilla version.
How is it in the expansion?
Still bound to a heavy grind?

no more honor decay, so it's casual friendier, however it's still the more you play the faster you get the rewards.

[det]

Do you think that the end game stuff will be reachable for non-raiders?



I intend to solo to level 70 - but if you mean tier 5 gear with "end game stuff", then I suppose it is a "no". As usual that will probably part of the lv 70 dungeons.

Could be however that (as with the current gear) the PvP set is equal to tier 1 / Tier 1.5 (and in the case of the expansion tier 4.5)

[mesonm]

Do you think that the end game stuff will be reachable for non-raiders?


I believe the answer to this is no....Nonraiders won't be in the 25-man dungeons...But, the highest stuff will likely be in those...

Certainly, you could get the equivalent of lvl 70 High Warlord pvp gear, by pvp'ng at level 70...But, you wouldn't get the cool PVE gear that way.

[kreyson]

Draksen,

Since you are a "Non-Raider", You will Love TBC. From my beta testing experience, there is a Massive amount of content to do solo and many instances you can do for great rewards in 5 or 10 man instances. And some of the instances are huge in size. Equal to or bigger than Maradon.

Another thing to remember, they have added difficulty scaling for all of the instances in TBC. Harder the setting, better the loot. Heroic setting of the L60 dungeons will have a much higher drop rate of epics versus normal setting.

I went through two of the low level instances yesterday in TBC, Blood Furnace and Ramparts on "Normal" mode with a non-ideal pick up group.

1-warlock (me) L62
1-mage L60
1-warrior L60
1-rogue L62
1-paladin (only healer) L60

We burned through both instances on "Normal" difficulty with the rogue dying twice. The boss loot was pretty good. L60 blue socketable gear a cross between T1 and T2. Great rewards for the difficulty setting we were on. I am eager to try out the Hard and Heroic settings.

Bottom line is that there is alot of Fun factor elements for the "Non-Raider" players.


p.s.
Oh yeah, i have to brag about my two new trinkets I recieved yesterday in TBC. Both of them are Easy questable items. Each takes about 30 minutes to do with 2-4 L60 people in the starting zones, Hellfire Pennisula and Zangermarsh. Forgot the item names.. but here are the rough stats.

Trinket 1: +26 crit rating, Use: increase spell damage by 110 for 15 seconds, 2 min refresh

Trinket 2: +26 spell damage, Use: Increase spell damage by 120 for 20 seconds, 3 min refresh timer.

There are Melee and Healer versions of this trinket available (attack power and healing).

[Draksen]

Excellent!
This is something I wanted to hear.
Damn I loved WoW, but sadly, as a "non-raider", it was pointless.
Thanks all for your replies, I really appreciate.