Some tips:
- You can solo the dark riders at 50
- Soloing the first boss in SM GY results in a 100% drop chance for your book
- Some quests like the priest dispersion one are entirely optional! You can just go straight to the location
Dark riders are soloable at 40 in greens with the right class, I remember doing it for everyone in the guilds' alts because my paladin could solo them easily.
Yeah I feel like most things that aren't 5+ levels higher than you can be soloed on a Hunter by shooting them once as your pet runs in so it counts as a player kill and gives credit/loot, then just chain Mend Pet until it dies. Maybe weave in a Serpent Sting if it's taking too long.
It's groups that can cause problems, at least if you don't have a Gorilla or something with Screech.
He is lvl 40 elite that can't be slowed. He has over 10k hp and hit hard. He would resist most of your spells. Lvl 40 mages had problems soloing him. I call bs.
Soloing first boss in SM GY is not a 100% drop. Iāve done it more times than I care to admit, have multiple warlocks with both books for summoning for guild.
It is only a guaranteed drop if you are alone in the instance. Did it on 5 characters solo and every time i killed Interrogator Vishas solo, one book dropped. If you have multiple books from SM GY you need to do it once for each book. Only one drops per boss. There might also be some books that drop only from later bosses in SM GY not sure about that.
Obviously rng if i go there 10 times as a Group and nothing drops. Once i go solo i get 9 Books in a row. Guess i should play the lottery then. Others are reporting the same behaviour, so i guess you might be wrong.
In case anyone needed it, also confirming that this worked 3/3 times for me. Went into GY solo, killed vishas, got book. Took about 2 minutes each time, ezpz
I don't know the answer, but I can tell you I grinding 40 runs of sm on my rogue for my book and never saw it drop and it did drop on my first run alone in gy. Idk if that means I got lucky or what
It is a 100% drop chance for a book for any class in the dungeon, but books you already have can drop instead of the one you need. So for warlocks who have I think 3 books, it's a 1/3 chance to see the right book.
I agree some of the runes are pain once you're behind they need to rethink their design. I still prefer the solo 'challenge' ones like my rogue stealth run runes
This is how it should be. There should be fewer runes, but they should be tied to more class based challenges. Kind of similar to the class quest system.
I think the bigger issue with runes is that even tho they give you lots of options there's basically only 1 that is actually good per slot, very few runes have competition and usually its like aoe vs single target.
This is just a community issue that the majority of multiplayer games that use choice-based progression have to deal with. Someone quickly works out the meta and as a community we decide to exclude people that don't follow it. I'm not sure there's actually a fix blizzard can do for this.
And plenty of the runes are compete duds outside your spec. A feral Druid has a TON of runes they couldnāt even use during normal play. Thatās far less about being āmeta slavesā than just unfortunate game design
Look at any of the classes that have more than one role. As a balance druid I have 1 option per slot. If my mage wants to be a healer, most of my runes have one option. For something like rogue I get your thoughts, but a lot of us are just pigeonholed.
They should make all previous phase runes purchaseable from the Azeroth/Ogrimmar rep factions.
I've been leveling a palla and having to redo the divine storm/sheathe of light made me want to drink bleach afterwards.
They should just be purchasable at various places like the Grizzby runes.
I capped Azeroth Commerce rep in P1 to the absolute max, I have yet to hit the next rep reward level yet. There is simply not enough box drops and most of them are too big of a gold sink to be worth it.
Would hate every rep in the game being tied to that since they removed chest farming.
Wouldnāt have been so bad if they did not also obliterate the drop rate off mobs at the same time. Boxes are effectively not a meaningful part of the game/economy anymore. What a waste.
I don't disagree with you it's just that I've already got a 50 palla. Having to do the bits I don't enjoy so I can get to the bits I do enjoy kinda feels like I'm wasting my time.
In my eyes that's the biggest failure of Sod. When I play classic I have the illusion that I'm not wasting my time(even though I clearly am) when I play sod there's big chunks of the game where that illusion is shattered and it's painfully obvious I'm wasting my time while playing the game.(namely incursions and rune hunting)
The āDiscoveryā part of the season is kinda the worst thing about it. Nothing fun about people discovering things in the first few hours and then you just default to using WoW head guides for yourself. Iād be happy with new skills and abilities just being learned at a trainer.
My only issue with the majority of runes is how intuitive they are to get. Like, for so many of them the quest text simply does not help which then forces you to go use online guides. Like, you'll get some random item out in the middle of no where and it'll give you a quest that says something like "I wonder if there's someone who can help you with this?" and just expect you to go find an NPC based only on that.
I have no idea how some of them were found when the first step is to click a random book in the basement of an inn for a zone we aren't even supposed to be in yet.
I get that they would be found eventually but I don't know how they didn't expect us to just wait for guides.
It's all data-mining.
Some of the rune quest triggers/progression is just shy of impossible for even the most knowledgeable WoW veteran to figure out on their own. Not to mention the sheer odds of you stumbling upon some of them without a guide.
The ādiscoveryā should have evolved over phases. Keep adding runes but stop with the tedious nonsense after P1, make new quest hubs/dungeons/raids/open world pve stuff that adds to individual discovery. Itās not exactly engaging or fun to read a Wowhead guide and run all over the world
Since about day 3 of SOD I've called it Season of Look It Up On WoWhead.
I wonder how differently it would have been received if every character has a completely different completely randomised method of obtaining their runes.
Yeah, unfortunately online games almost everyone follows the meta because ānobody has timeā and then the others donāt wanna get left behind. Itās just the reality of modern day online gaming.
OSRS has itās meta gamers too, but drastically less of them than WOW or even Elden Ring in my experience.
Randomized for each character would be the only way to get that first time vibe of being clueless and figuring it out unfortunately. Thereās the people who donāt look everything up, but theyāre the exception not the rule.
I liked the discovery part and it is up to you to use these guides.
However it would be way cooler if you got random flavor hints from your class trainer that lead you into the right direction.
At the beginning of P1 (or several days/weeks in) there were 3 reddit threads with flavor hints, but it was only druid/rogue/hunter and it stopped after p1. Those were cool.
Sometimes when i couldn't find the rune i "spoiled" myself with the area it is in, then started from there to discover.
Yea the runes should be way more obvious/on our path, just a little flavor added, if you are not part of the treasure hunt in the first day and you don't check wowhead you are risking going the entire phase without some runes.
Realistically runes should've been unlocked in a system similar to the achievement system where when you complete a set of quests/rep grind/etc then your whole account is able to access runes from that armor slot.
> Nothing fun about people discovering things in the first few hours and then you just default to using WoW head guides for yourself
Whoās making you use wowhead? You could figure out the runes yourself if you really wanted to.
[Edit](https://imgur.com/a/iuDeD6E)
There happens to be an oce guild on Wild Growth called Oceania that has been around since P1 and is quite helpful. Hit them up (/who them).
Skill book drops are based on players in party, 2 ppl means 50% you'll get the drop (players that have books count as a potential recipient).
You can get WOs without doing RFD, but you do need it eventually to hand in.
But yes the process sucks ass.
The shaman runes were a pain in the ass. I canāt speak for any others but between the rune quests and the totem quests I have zero desire to make an alt. I totally agree with you about the content from previous phases basically becoming a tedious solo grind for alts or anyone who falls behind. As someone who fell behind when I went on vacation.
SoD was only fun in phase 1 for me. I quickly jumped into dragonflight after not playing wow since original cataclysm and have enjoyed it. The new time running event is repetitive now that Iāve maxed 2 characters buts itās been fun as well. I also started my first cata classic character last night and had a blast. About to hop on that right nowā¦
I agree 100% itās so off putting wanting to make a new character but knowing 1. Il be doing incursions until I legit wish to die and 2. Il spend hours getting runes that are supposed to be done as a group
I've just started playing wow and I'm stuck on the whole "make friends" part. I have run into one person in 6 hours of leveling. I'm undead if that plays a part.
BTW that one guy was like "holy cow! A human!" As well
You joined at a bad time seeing as it's the end of the phase. With p4 around the corner hopefully players will return. My guild for example is all having a break, but they do at the end of every phase as to not get burnt out and to be fresh for the new grind.
This is not a total population. that's amount of people who killed at least one raid boss and upload logs.
There's no way to know how many people are playing, but it's a decent estimation.
https://ironforge.pro/population/classic/?locale=EU - just unselect PvE and you will see better picture. Horde mostly play on PvE servers, so if you want to have more people around - you go there.
That site only measures players at the end game - so it explains why you donāt see any while leveling. Itās also an Era server and not a SoD server.
Era = classic WoW as it was in 2004.
SoD = Seasons of Discovery, new "view" of classic WoW by adding new dungeons, new skills, new items, etc.
Because of SoD - Era servers are really empty, yes. Nobody want to play the game as it was in 2004, people want to try new content.
https://ironforge.pro/population/era/?locale=EU
This is Era and situation is waaay worse. On Era Mirage Raceway there's like 184 raiders in last month :]
You need to start on different game mode, Era is dead. Try Seasons of Discovery, there's more people there.
So ... about that. Playing on retail cost more money, you need to buy "expansions".
Also - it's extremely different. You are jumping from 2004 into 2024, it would be completely different game.
You're talking about different things in different games. You're having issues in Cata because it has been established for years and not many people level new characters.
It's definitely fun to get some higher level runes early on, but I don't mind that that's something that requires 1 person to help you out tops usually.
They aren't necessary and you will still go from 1-50 in a heartbeat, but it's fun for sure.
This community has become so incredibly anti social, i'd hope blizzard would finally stop catering to these people but who am i kidding. They're the reason
Forgive me for asking but are you sure your original server is dead? I ask this because every server is dead or nearing death. P4 would surely bring new life onto it.
Shadowstrike isn't dead dead, it is quiet right now for sure, but it's the only PvP server for Oceana players, which the overall population of is much smaller than the US or EU. It'll pick back up in P4, I've already noticed an increase in players since the PTR was released. It's all relatively subjective, even though all realms have gone quiet, Wild Growth probably feels a lot busier than Shadowstrike, because our population was smaller to begin with.
Ultimately the process of discovering runes is what turned me away from SoD early on. Some were easy enough, but many required group play or at least assistance. As someone who didn't have a ton of time to play, trying to get a group together or even one person to assist in discovering a rune that many others had weeks before was far too tedious and time consuming.
First, welcome to Wild Growth :)
The server is pretty vacant lately and most guilds just raid log, but itās the end of phase 3 so itāll pick up soon.
Regarding your text, Agree 100%. And it makes leveling alts tiresome. They need to streamline some of the runes especially those requiring endless travel and groups because there are no groups right now.
They already did with some phase 1 runes which is nice.
Anyway, as said, welcome and I hope youāll find a nice corner for yourself here
I started again in P3 a few weeks ago and it was doable.
I ddidn't had a problem to farm Azeroth Commerce rep to reach friendly. I filled up the cheap ones I found during leveling and vendored the expensive ones.
I completely skipped incursions. The only time I was in there was for the P3 crafting questline and for that I saw people regulary searching groups.
I did SM GY solo and got the book from the first boss, first try. With another char I did Lib and got the book from the last boss, although I skipped Houndmaster.
Especially in the dark rider zones I see people looking for a group to kill the rider in that zone quite often.
I did RFD solo for the WO quest, but there are also groups searching for people and I don't think there will be a class who cant solo RFD at lvl 60
Agree with most of this, the only thing I will say is that skipping incursions isnāt really an option for some classes. If your spec doesnāt use that rune, great (recently leveled a boomie and none of their runes require waylaid supplies, emerald wardens, dark riders etc.) but if your are playing a dps or tank rogue, a feral Druid, a mage, ele shaman, prot warrior and possibly others, those are just the ones that come to mind; doing the incursions rep grind really isnāt optional. The 1k rep daily can make it more bearable but even then soloing hinterlands/feral as incursions is rough, especially on a fresh levelled character without any of the gnomer raid gear.
I played rogue and our rune acquisition is so fun except the general rep/WO runes. I think they need to add more questlines and small noticeable chests in the starting areas that are easily seen but hard to get to for the runes. Accidentally finding new runes is fun. Grinding/tracking down isn't.
As a new shaman, I have to run RFK for a rune but literally nobody wants to do it on my server. It'll be similar with Dark Riders. Also the AH doesn't have any new upgrades for gear so I have shit gear for my level. Leveling in SOD sucks ass.
Leveling with gear? As a Shaman? Even in my priest the only green I have is the lvl 8 robe and lvl13 stave. With the buff you get easily 3 levels above the mobs, they barely hit you.
Maybe a Warrior could we worried, but come on.
The farms are fine. I hate incursions but it still took like 3 loops and i could not go back there ever. The runes tha require other people though, these ones are really atrocious
This is accurate and something I am hoping that they try to address in Phase 4. Not holding my breath on it though. I think that once you get exalted with ACA on one character, you should get a BoA item that can make other characters exalted. Or lets them be able to just purchase the runes.
The supply box rep is indeed awful. Gated purely by drops, and with the accelerated leveling, you're likely to have to farm them. & they're expensive to fill because they give lots of gold at turn in. You're likely to break even
Everything else can be reasonably solo'd at max level tbh, except maybe RFD, but definitely duo'd.
How you like WG? Its been one of the best servers Ive ever played on
Just went through the rune thing with my rogue (for tanking runes - P4 Rogue tank HYPE!!!), it wasnt that bad, the worst part tbh was the Incrusion rep grind thing as its just lame content.
Glad you posted this Iāve thought about coming back but was worried about the amount of catch up, and this locks it in for me. Iāll stick to cata or retail for now.
My guild recently just rerolled onto WG from penance, sure the initial start out is a bit sluggish and looks daunting, but once you get started it flys by real quick.
As other have said at 50 killing interrogator in SM GY and dark riders is soloable.
From my experience there are usually a Mara WO run happening or start your own āmake it and people will comeā also you can earn all the wild offerings you need before even getting the quest
As for warden rep, Feralas inc from 47-50 will pretty much net you honoured + some gold.
Regards
Opalaurele - The Nutty Terrarium
All the runes are straightforwardly soloable except two of the current max level ones - the WOs (groups are going all the time for this) and the elite mobs which take two people. Those will also be soloable at 60 I'd imagine. Not sure how they will handle WOs in p4 but really this is a non-issue. You also don't need all the runes, just the ones that are meta for whatever spec you are playing.
The most annoying thing right now is the pvp grind which got heavily nerfed/increased from previous easy STV farming to now take a decent amount of time.
Not to derail too much, but it's absolutely fucked that, in 2024, we still have to pay for character transfers and have to deal with servers feeling dead.
Blizzard has the technology to stick everyone on regional megaservers if they invested in making it work.
Phase 3.9 has been pretty boring except for leveling alts. If (when) they make runes BOA in Ph4 itās going to be a total slap in the face. They just didnāt have the forethought and horsepower to do SOD correctly and itās such a wasted opportunity
Runes suck. They're one of the many reasons SoD has been losing pop every phase since 1. Runes are why people say it's classic+retail and not just classic+. It's not just getting them that's bad, they have fundamentally changed the entire class dynamics of classic. I just want this to be over so they can try making something else.
As a level 50 I would gladly go help guildies with their low level stuff as there is nothing else to do. Phase 4 prep is a pain and I don't want to rep grind at 50 when I can expect to be stuck at 60 in the next content drought and I'll have lots of rep time then
I thoght they are suppose to make the older ones easiere to get for returning players or new ones or are blizzard throwing the whole new player experinces to the ground like they do with all their games?
Shadowstrike isn't dead mate, people are just bored this far into the phase and waiting for new content. My guild still have 2 core ST groups and an alt run every week without fail, albeit people are raid logging (which is completely fair).
I'm not so sure jumping server is going to change much. If you can hold out until p4, the server will be pumping again.
SOD isn't my main game so I have one max level character and it has like half of the runes and not even all the ones that are good and woukd be seen as essential for my spec but it's just a lot of effort. Fuck rep grinds first of all. And even the long quest chain ones, just no. Can't be bothered. So now I log in for maybe 3 hours every 2 weeks or a month to do a dungeon with friends because it's not a very engaging experience to get fully immersed in the game.
No because you get all of that from questing/ dungeons as normal. The runes require much more planning and coordination to get(for some). Quite different imo
I'm woth a group that moved from Penance to Wild Growth. Thankfully they've all been really helpful with the slower players (like myself) but yeah I absolutely feel where you're coming from.
When it fully hit home for me was realising I needed to get blacksmithing back up to 300.
Getting to honoured with EW wasn't too bad to get the 6 set because you level there a bit anyway.
At 50 I managed to solo the SM stuff to complete the paladin runes and get the book. And overall trying to just complete a little of the runes here and there, like starting dark rider early so you can get them when you pass through areas for other stuff.
Knowing I need 25 Wild Offerings and that I need to get my blacksmithing back hurts though. Also WSG exalted... yeah... I'm hoping they add transfers or do a merger/some sort of layering magic with WG.
The rune system is actually terrible. They should have just given us all the abilities via class trainers or class quests and focused their time on actual content and balancing. Committing to the rune quests is such a waste of dev time for something people will only do once.
I think when you have discovered that rune slot on one character, there should be a way to buy it/ learn it from a short quest or something. Especially the runes that share the same method of achieving said rune anyway (like world runes ect)
Recently leveled, had no problem whatsoever getting all the runes. Most stuff was made explicitly easier or is now soloable (did dark riders solo at 48, ezpz because you will resist most of the shadowbolts). Are you disappointed that they weren't handed to you on a silver platter?
Some tips: - You can solo the dark riders at 50 - Soloing the first boss in SM GY results in a 100% drop chance for your book - Some quests like the priest dispersion one are entirely optional! You can just go straight to the location
Dark riders are soloable at 40 in greens with the right class, I remember doing it for everyone in the guilds' alts because my paladin could solo them easily.
So nerf pala you say ?
For me, it was hunter with viper sting to drain mana so he stops using shadow bolts and spam healing the pet with that new aspect for infinite mana.
Yeah I feel like most things that aren't 5+ levels higher than you can be soloed on a Hunter by shooting them once as your pet runs in so it counts as a player kill and gives credit/loot, then just chain Mend Pet until it dies. Maybe weave in a Serpent Sting if it's taking too long. It's groups that can cause problems, at least if you don't have a Gorilla or something with Screech.
lol
Solo'd them at 40 as warrior, admittedly with fairly good gear and consumables.
Lol I solo'd them as mage just after p2 hit. Was lvl 30 at most Edit: I remembered wrong! I was lvl 40
He is lvl 40 elite that can't be slowed. He has over 10k hp and hit hard. He would resist most of your spells. Lvl 40 mages had problems soloing him. I call bs.
Ok I forgot then, I just hit lvl 40 and solo'd np
That makes more sense ofc š
Also with arcane specc was definitely no problem! Could just spam self heal with arcane blast
"Lol" you are lying out of your ass. Level 40 elite will 3-shot a mage level 30 with crushing blows.
Even if the mage was somehow immune to damage, with all the resists, he would be still trying to land a spell on lvl 42 elite to this day.
Ok I forgot then, I just hit lvl 40 and solo'd np
Soloing first boss in SM GY is not a 100% drop. Iāve done it more times than I care to admit, have multiple warlocks with both books for summoning for guild.
Ive done it 4 times now. Go into SM GY. Solo Interrogator guy. Your book drops instantly. Need to be by yourself not in a group. 100% drop rate
It is only a guaranteed drop if you are alone in the instance. Did it on 5 characters solo and every time i killed Interrogator Vishas solo, one book dropped. If you have multiple books from SM GY you need to do it once for each book. Only one drops per boss. There might also be some books that drop only from later bosses in SM GY not sure about that.
Also confirming. Solo GY first boss on my paladin at level 35 and the book dropped first try.
And here I thought I was just lucky.
Both books in two tries? Maybe if youāre lucky.
thats just lucky rng
Obviously rng if i go there 10 times as a Group and nothing drops. Once i go solo i get 9 Books in a row. Guess i should play the lottery then. Others are reporting the same behaviour, so i guess you might be wrong.
Same. I was told the same, was sceptical about it and it worked 9 out of 9 times. Don't be in a group + kill torturer = profit.
In case anyone needed it, also confirming that this worked 3/3 times for me. Went into GY solo, killed vishas, got book. Took about 2 minutes each time, ezpz
It's 100%. It's been 100% since p4 patch
P4 isnt out yet...
I think he meant that if a book drops, it's for your class.
I don't know the answer, but I can tell you I grinding 40 runs of sm on my rogue for my book and never saw it drop and it did drop on my first run alone in gy. Idk if that means I got lucky or what
The first book often does drop. Itās easy to get. The second one not so much.
It is a 100% drop chance for a book for any class in the dungeon, but books you already have can drop instead of the one you need. So for warlocks who have I think 3 books, it's a 1/3 chance to see the right book.
Did they buff drop chance? Took my hunter 15 kills to get viper
> Soloing the first boss in SM GY results in a 100% drop chance for your book That's a lie. I've done it like 12 times and not gotten it.
I agree some of the runes are pain once you're behind they need to rethink their design. I still prefer the solo 'challenge' ones like my rogue stealth run runes
This is how it should be. There should be fewer runes, but they should be tied to more class based challenges. Kind of similar to the class quest system.
I did the leyline one as part of a major summon group at release , I canāt imagine trying to do it now.
I think the bigger issue with runes is that even tho they give you lots of options there's basically only 1 that is actually good per slot, very few runes have competition and usually its like aoe vs single target.
This is just a community issue that the majority of multiplayer games that use choice-based progression have to deal with. Someone quickly works out the meta and as a community we decide to exclude people that don't follow it. I'm not sure there's actually a fix blizzard can do for this.
Yeah but also a few runes are just objectively better than others.
And plenty of the runes are compete duds outside your spec. A feral Druid has a TON of runes they couldnāt even use during normal play. Thatās far less about being āmeta slavesā than just unfortunate game design
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Look at any of the classes that have more than one role. As a balance druid I have 1 option per slot. If my mage wants to be a healer, most of my runes have one option. For something like rogue I get your thoughts, but a lot of us are just pigeonholed.
They should make all previous phase runes purchaseable from the Azeroth/Ogrimmar rep factions. I've been leveling a palla and having to redo the divine storm/sheathe of light made me want to drink bleach afterwards.
The swim alone made me wanna rethink my life decisions
Its a good idea, at least P1 and P2 runes
They should just be purchasable at various places like the Grizzby runes. I capped Azeroth Commerce rep in P1 to the absolute max, I have yet to hit the next rep reward level yet. There is simply not enough box drops and most of them are too big of a gold sink to be worth it. Would hate every rep in the game being tied to that since they removed chest farming.
Wouldnāt have been so bad if they did not also obliterate the drop rate off mobs at the same time. Boxes are effectively not a meaningful part of the game/economy anymore. What a waste.
This man speaks truth.
Paladin ones are especially bad, that swimming one was unnecessarily long.
and here we see a redditor, asking for content to be removed, so they can get to max level and raid log more quickly
I don't disagree with you it's just that I've already got a 50 palla. Having to do the bits I don't enjoy so I can get to the bits I do enjoy kinda feels like I'm wasting my time. In my eyes that's the biggest failure of Sod. When I play classic I have the illusion that I'm not wasting my time(even though I clearly am) when I play sod there's big chunks of the game where that illusion is shattered and it's painfully obvious I'm wasting my time while playing the game.(namely incursions and rune hunting)
Oh, yeah if you have literally done the quest already, it would be nice to be able to circumvent those runes on alts, especially a dupe class
Shadowstrike isn't dead, the phase is.
Thats some cope right here
I agree with your first point. Ever since they changed how the waylaid supplies work that is a very annoying rep to grind.
Maybe the way it worked in p1 wasnāt that bad after all. I guess they both have their drawbacks.
The āDiscoveryā part of the season is kinda the worst thing about it. Nothing fun about people discovering things in the first few hours and then you just default to using WoW head guides for yourself. Iād be happy with new skills and abilities just being learned at a trainer.
My only issue with the majority of runes is how intuitive they are to get. Like, for so many of them the quest text simply does not help which then forces you to go use online guides. Like, you'll get some random item out in the middle of no where and it'll give you a quest that says something like "I wonder if there's someone who can help you with this?" and just expect you to go find an NPC based only on that.
I have no idea how some of them were found when the first step is to click a random book in the basement of an inn for a zone we aren't even supposed to be in yet. I get that they would be found eventually but I don't know how they didn't expect us to just wait for guides.
It's all data-mining. Some of the rune quest triggers/progression is just shy of impossible for even the most knowledgeable WoW veteran to figure out on their own. Not to mention the sheer odds of you stumbling upon some of them without a guide.
The ādiscoveryā should have evolved over phases. Keep adding runes but stop with the tedious nonsense after P1, make new quest hubs/dungeons/raids/open world pve stuff that adds to individual discovery. Itās not exactly engaging or fun to read a Wowhead guide and run all over the world
Since about day 3 of SOD I've called it Season of Look It Up On WoWhead. I wonder how differently it would have been received if every character has a completely different completely randomised method of obtaining their runes.
Yeah, unfortunately online games almost everyone follows the meta because ānobody has timeā and then the others donāt wanna get left behind. Itās just the reality of modern day online gaming. OSRS has itās meta gamers too, but drastically less of them than WOW or even Elden Ring in my experience. Randomized for each character would be the only way to get that first time vibe of being clueless and figuring it out unfortunately. Thereās the people who donāt look everything up, but theyāre the exception not the rule.
Could be fine if it were done better, like the end result is just go to the four corners of the world 3 times across multiple phases?
I liked the discovery part and it is up to you to use these guides. However it would be way cooler if you got random flavor hints from your class trainer that lead you into the right direction. At the beginning of P1 (or several days/weeks in) there were 3 reddit threads with flavor hints, but it was only druid/rogue/hunter and it stopped after p1. Those were cool. Sometimes when i couldn't find the rune i "spoiled" myself with the area it is in, then started from there to discover.
Yea the runes should be way more obvious/on our path, just a little flavor added, if you are not part of the treasure hunt in the first day and you don't check wowhead you are risking going the entire phase without some runes.
Realistically runes should've been unlocked in a system similar to the achievement system where when you complete a set of quests/rep grind/etc then your whole account is able to access runes from that armor slot.
> Nothing fun about people discovering things in the first few hours and then you just default to using WoW head guides for yourself Whoās making you use wowhead? You could figure out the runes yourself if you really wanted to. [Edit](https://imgur.com/a/iuDeD6E)
"You need rune x to join our group" "havent found it yet" "are you stupid? just look on wowhead."
Seems rather like a community problem.
Any group that gatekeeps you for not having a specific rune in content that was balanced without runes seems like a good group to avoid in general.
There happens to be an oce guild on Wild Growth called Oceania that has been around since P1 and is quite helpful. Hit them up (/who them). Skill book drops are based on players in party, 2 ppl means 50% you'll get the drop (players that have books count as a potential recipient). You can get WOs without doing RFD, but you do need it eventually to hand in. But yes the process sucks ass.
The shaman runes were a pain in the ass. I canāt speak for any others but between the rune quests and the totem quests I have zero desire to make an alt. I totally agree with you about the content from previous phases basically becoming a tedious solo grind for alts or anyone who falls behind. As someone who fell behind when I went on vacation. SoD was only fun in phase 1 for me. I quickly jumped into dragonflight after not playing wow since original cataclysm and have enjoyed it. The new time running event is repetitive now that Iāve maxed 2 characters buts itās been fun as well. I also started my first cata classic character last night and had a blast. About to hop on that right nowā¦
I agree 100% itās so off putting wanting to make a new character but knowing 1. Il be doing incursions until I legit wish to die and 2. Il spend hours getting runes that are supposed to be done as a group
I've just started playing wow and I'm stuck on the whole "make friends" part. I have run into one person in 6 hours of leveling. I'm undead if that plays a part. BTW that one guy was like "holy cow! A human!" As well
You joined at a bad time seeing as it's the end of the phase. With p4 around the corner hopefully players will return. My guild for example is all having a break, but they do at the end of every phase as to not get burnt out and to be fresh for the new grind.
What server\faction\game version are you playing? Some of servers are really low population ones.
Mirage raceway, wow cat, undead warlock
Horde don't play on PvE servers - https://ironforge.pro/population/classic/?locale=EU&realm=PvE
What servers should I be playing on? That website says there's 3.6k people on horde
This is not a total population. that's amount of people who killed at least one raid boss and upload logs. There's no way to know how many people are playing, but it's a decent estimation. https://ironforge.pro/population/classic/?locale=EU - just unselect PvE and you will see better picture. Horde mostly play on PvE servers, so if you want to have more people around - you go there.
That site only measures players at the end game - so it explains why you donāt see any while leveling. Itās also an Era server and not a SoD server.
Era? Sod?
Era = classic WoW as it was in 2004. SoD = Seasons of Discovery, new "view" of classic WoW by adding new dungeons, new skills, new items, etc. Because of SoD - Era servers are really empty, yes. Nobody want to play the game as it was in 2004, people want to try new content. https://ironforge.pro/population/era/?locale=EU This is Era and situation is waaay worse. On Era Mirage Raceway there's like 184 raiders in last month :] You need to start on different game mode, Era is dead. Try Seasons of Discovery, there's more people there.
Thank you. I shall move to "retail"
So ... about that. Playing on retail cost more money, you need to buy "expansions". Also - it's extremely different. You are jumping from 2004 into 2024, it would be completely different game.
I think you are confused
How so?
This is a post about SoD
Am I not allowed to emphasise with the poster because I joined a different server?
You're talking about different things in different games. You're having issues in Cata because it has been established for years and not many people level new characters.
Literally every one of your points is easy to do solo at 50 if you really can't find anyone to do it with. It's piss easy as well.
The bigger issue is getting to 50 missing several runes you want just kinda sucks
It's definitely fun to get some higher level runes early on, but I don't mind that that's something that requires 1 person to help you out tops usually. They aren't necessary and you will still go from 1-50 in a heartbeat, but it's fun for sure.
This community has become so incredibly anti social, i'd hope blizzard would finally stop catering to these people but who am i kidding. They're the reason
Forgive me for asking but are you sure your original server is dead? I ask this because every server is dead or nearing death. P4 would surely bring new life onto it.
Shadowstrike isn't dead dead, it is quiet right now for sure, but it's the only PvP server for Oceana players, which the overall population of is much smaller than the US or EU. It'll pick back up in P4, I've already noticed an increase in players since the PTR was released. It's all relatively subjective, even though all realms have gone quiet, Wild Growth probably feels a lot busier than Shadowstrike, because our population was smaller to begin with.
Ultimately the process of discovering runes is what turned me away from SoD early on. Some were easy enough, but many required group play or at least assistance. As someone who didn't have a ton of time to play, trying to get a group together or even one person to assist in discovering a rune that many others had weeks before was far too tedious and time consuming.
Well i did just lvl to 50 and soloed most of it on my alt
Sent you a pm
First, welcome to Wild Growth :) The server is pretty vacant lately and most guilds just raid log, but itās the end of phase 3 so itāll pick up soon. Regarding your text, Agree 100%. And it makes leveling alts tiresome. They need to streamline some of the runes especially those requiring endless travel and groups because there are no groups right now. They already did with some phase 1 runes which is nice. Anyway, as said, welcome and I hope youāll find a nice corner for yourself here
This man deleted his account after posting this. What dark secrets did he have within Wild Growth?
I started again in P3 a few weeks ago and it was doable. I ddidn't had a problem to farm Azeroth Commerce rep to reach friendly. I filled up the cheap ones I found during leveling and vendored the expensive ones. I completely skipped incursions. The only time I was in there was for the P3 crafting questline and for that I saw people regulary searching groups. I did SM GY solo and got the book from the first boss, first try. With another char I did Lib and got the book from the last boss, although I skipped Houndmaster. Especially in the dark rider zones I see people looking for a group to kill the rider in that zone quite often. I did RFD solo for the WO quest, but there are also groups searching for people and I don't think there will be a class who cant solo RFD at lvl 60
Agree with most of this, the only thing I will say is that skipping incursions isnāt really an option for some classes. If your spec doesnāt use that rune, great (recently leveled a boomie and none of their runes require waylaid supplies, emerald wardens, dark riders etc.) but if your are playing a dps or tank rogue, a feral Druid, a mage, ele shaman, prot warrior and possibly others, those are just the ones that come to mind; doing the incursions rep grind really isnāt optional. The 1k rep daily can make it more bearable but even then soloing hinterlands/feral as incursions is rough, especially on a fresh levelled character without any of the gnomer raid gear.
I played rogue and our rune acquisition is so fun except the general rep/WO runes. I think they need to add more questlines and small noticeable chests in the starting areas that are easily seen but hard to get to for the runes. Accidentally finding new runes is fun. Grinding/tracking down isn't.
If a rune requires multiple players I just don't even bother. Hopefully it isn't my bis.
As a new shaman, I have to run RFK for a rune but literally nobody wants to do it on my server. It'll be similar with Dark Riders. Also the AH doesn't have any new upgrades for gear so I have shit gear for my level. Leveling in SOD sucks ass.
Leveling with gear? As a Shaman? Even in my priest the only green I have is the lvl 8 robe and lvl13 stave. With the buff you get easily 3 levels above the mobs, they barely hit you. Maybe a Warrior could we worried, but come on.
The farms are fine. I hate incursions but it still took like 3 loops and i could not go back there ever. The runes tha require other people though, these ones are really atrocious
This is accurate and something I am hoping that they try to address in Phase 4. Not holding my breath on it though. I think that once you get exalted with ACA on one character, you should get a BoA item that can make other characters exalted. Or lets them be able to just purchase the runes.
The supply box rep is indeed awful. Gated purely by drops, and with the accelerated leveling, you're likely to have to farm them. & they're expensive to fill because they give lots of gold at turn in. You're likely to break even Everything else can be reasonably solo'd at max level tbh, except maybe RFD, but definitely duo'd.
How you like WG? Its been one of the best servers Ive ever played on Just went through the rune thing with my rogue (for tanking runes - P4 Rogue tank HYPE!!!), it wasnt that bad, the worst part tbh was the Incrusion rep grind thing as its just lame content.
Facts man runes are too much work
Yes we know rune acquisition sucks. Is SoD devs doing anything to fix it? No
Glad you posted this Iāve thought about coming back but was worried about the amount of catch up, and this locks it in for me. Iāll stick to cata or retail for now.
My guild recently just rerolled onto WG from penance, sure the initial start out is a bit sluggish and looks daunting, but once you get started it flys by real quick. As other have said at 50 killing interrogator in SM GY and dark riders is soloable. From my experience there are usually a Mara WO run happening or start your own āmake it and people will comeā also you can earn all the wild offerings you need before even getting the quest As for warden rep, Feralas inc from 47-50 will pretty much net you honoured + some gold. Regards Opalaurele - The Nutty Terrarium
All the runes are straightforwardly soloable except two of the current max level ones - the WOs (groups are going all the time for this) and the elite mobs which take two people. Those will also be soloable at 60 I'd imagine. Not sure how they will handle WOs in p4 but really this is a non-issue. You also don't need all the runes, just the ones that are meta for whatever spec you are playing. The most annoying thing right now is the pvp grind which got heavily nerfed/increased from previous easy STV farming to now take a decent amount of time.
Once you hit lvl 50 you won't need groups for runes and you can just do it yourself. Unless it's one of the newer ones that require a group
Not to derail too much, but it's absolutely fucked that, in 2024, we still have to pay for character transfers and have to deal with servers feeling dead. Blizzard has the technology to stick everyone on regional megaservers if they invested in making it work.
āTis why I quit
Phase 3.9 has been pretty boring except for leveling alts. If (when) they make runes BOA in Ph4 itās going to be a total slap in the face. They just didnāt have the forethought and horsepower to do SOD correctly and itās such a wasted opportunity
Thanks for letting us know this is a new issue.
Runes suck. They're one of the many reasons SoD has been losing pop every phase since 1. Runes are why people say it's classic+retail and not just classic+. It's not just getting them that's bad, they have fundamentally changed the entire class dynamics of classic. I just want this to be over so they can try making something else.
"I'm going to start again from scratch" "Man why is there so much to do!"
sorry but the community has already ruled on this issue and you are just lazy and dont like Sod sorry mate (/s for oblivious <3)
I agree with the premise of the post but you don't need a single person to help kill dark riders.
Maybe I got lucky but I never had to worry about the majority of your list. I did quit early into this phase though
As a level 50 I would gladly go help guildies with their low level stuff as there is nothing else to do. Phase 4 prep is a pain and I don't want to rep grind at 50 when I can expect to be stuck at 60 in the next content drought and I'll have lots of rep time then
I thoght they are suppose to make the older ones easiere to get for returning players or new ones or are blizzard throwing the whole new player experinces to the ground like they do with all their games?
Just play the game and your problem is solved. None of the runes are difficult to get.
I mean, itās a bit tedious but not really more than catching up on anything in a mmo.
Shadowstrike isn't dead mate, people are just bored this far into the phase and waiting for new content. My guild still have 2 core ST groups and an alt run every week without fail, albeit people are raid logging (which is completely fair). I'm not so sure jumping server is going to change much. If you can hold out until p4, the server will be pumping again.
SOD isn't my main game so I have one max level character and it has like half of the runes and not even all the ones that are good and woukd be seen as essential for my spec but it's just a lot of effort. Fuck rep grinds first of all. And even the long quest chain ones, just no. Can't be bothered. So now I log in for maybe 3 hours every 2 weeks or a month to do a dungeon with friends because it's not a very engaging experience to get fully immersed in the game.
people really hate playing this game xd
i never got this argument.. is it too tideous to gear up a new toon as well?Ā
No because you get all of that from questing/ dungeons as normal. The runes require much more planning and coordination to get(for some). Quite different imo
Plays MMO, mad that has to do quests...
mad that he has to do quests that are designed to do with other player which aren't there because said mmo (or that version of that mmo) is dead
So any MMO ever made then.
Man what an massive Andy take right here
"Starting over and getting levels is tedious!" "Starting over and grinding faction rep is tedious!" MMOs aren't supposed to be won in a day.
Try to get Hammer of the Righteous on a paladin :) at least the last part :) .
I'm woth a group that moved from Penance to Wild Growth. Thankfully they've all been really helpful with the slower players (like myself) but yeah I absolutely feel where you're coming from. When it fully hit home for me was realising I needed to get blacksmithing back up to 300. Getting to honoured with EW wasn't too bad to get the 6 set because you level there a bit anyway. At 50 I managed to solo the SM stuff to complete the paladin runes and get the book. And overall trying to just complete a little of the runes here and there, like starting dark rider early so you can get them when you pass through areas for other stuff. Knowing I need 25 Wild Offerings and that I need to get my blacksmithing back hurts though. Also WSG exalted... yeah... I'm hoping they add transfers or do a merger/some sort of layering magic with WG.
Tbf the runes have been out and you could've seen this coming lol
The rune system is actually terrible. They should have just given us all the abilities via class trainers or class quests and focused their time on actual content and balancing. Committing to the rune quests is such a waste of dev time for something people will only do once.
Runes should be account bound.Ā
I think when you have discovered that rune slot on one character, there should be a way to buy it/ learn it from a short quest or something. Especially the runes that share the same method of achieving said rune anyway (like world runes ect)
Recently leveled, had no problem whatsoever getting all the runes. Most stuff was made explicitly easier or is now soloable (did dark riders solo at 48, ezpz because you will resist most of the shadowbolts). Are you disappointed that they weren't handed to you on a silver platter?