5.2!!! Well.. soon!!

What does this mean? Depends on what type of wow player you are.

Raiding

For a raider, you're hopefully stocking up on raid consumables, because we all know once that patch hits, the prices are going to skyrocket again. Feasts, flasks, and pots, are already on the incline on my server, and it would be wise to stock up sooner than later. This advice also goes for enchants and item upgrades. Beltbuckles, enchanted vellums, gems, and leg enchants are what AH lovers like myself are stocking up on to sell at a hugely inflated price after the patch. So get what you need now.

Some interesting info on the world bosses and new rares in Pandaria can be found in the 5.2 Patch Notes, but here is a quick recap:

New Zandalari (I am assuming rares) will be spawning in Krasarang Wilds, Dread Wastes, Townlong Steppes, Jade Forest, and Kun-Lai Summit.

"Zandalari Scouts can be handled by 1 or 2 players, while elite Zandalari Warbringers will likely require a full party of 5 heroes. Defeat Warbringers to gain special drops, including crafting materials, reputation gains, an achievement, and even the chance to get one of three new rare mounts!" 

So thats pretty awesome! I cant wait to start rare hunting with the guildies again. Though, in my guild I am known for my distaste for all things pvp, I do enjoy going around with them looking for rares and swatting a few Hordies out of the way if they have the tap. Plus I am a mount/pet addict so I will be super excited if I actually get one!


 "Players of the same faction that participated in a fight with Pandaria world bosses (Sha of Anger, Galleon, Nalak the Storm Lord, and Oondasta) now get shared credit for the kill and will be eligible for loot."

This means that you don't have to be invited to a raid group (who has the boss's tap) to get credit for a world boss kill. DO keep in mind that this also means if a player of the opposite faction/ add from the boss attacks you, the odds of you getting heals are also slim to none, since you wont be seen on any healer's raid frames. 

"Galleon now respawns much more frequently, but players can only receive loot from him once per week."


Yay! I am happy about this, and considering I only got to kill him once since he was added to the game, I don't care about only getting loot once a week. After all, he IS a raid boss, just not found in an instance, so I feel that lockouts should be treated the same.

Throne of Thunder raid bosses in Normal and Heroic difficulties have a chance of dropping items with the Thunderforged designation. Thunderforged items are 6 item levels higher than their Normal or Heroic counterparts and will drop more frequently in 25-player raids.

This is interesting! I am glad that blizzard is giving some reward to the people who do 25m raiding without making us wee 10m teams feel like we need move up to 25. I don't want to go back to Wrath were I ran 10m on my main and then pugged 25m weekly. I just don't have the time, nor the patience to put up with 25m pugs beyond LFR.  The odds of me ever seeing these are slim to none, and the odds of me GETTING one is even smaller. I do say they are awesome, but affects my characters very little.

"To encourage Raid Finder groups to persevere, each time an Raid Finder group wipes on a boss fight all players in the group receives a stacking buff that increases health, damage dealt, and healing done by 5% (up to a maximum of 10 stacks). This buff is cleared once the boss has been killed."

I like this! Everyone hates LFR and sometimes, the groups are just bad.. horrible,. terrifyingly bad!  I try to not be mean, or sarcastic, and I'd rather whisper to someone what they are doing wrong rather than in /i for everyone else to see. This I hope, is a successful change. One thing I am worried about is how with the buff stacked, people will not see their true dps and damage reflected in true numbers. 

"Satchels obtained via the Raid Finder now have a chance to contain additional rewards, including: consumables, Spirits of Harmony, rare pets or mounts, and Raid Finder versions of Normal and Heroic difficulty zone drops that were previously unavailable from Raid Finder encounters!" 

This actually makes me want to spend my coins in LFR. Right now, I DO NOT see my efforts of going into a huge pug and getting 28g as a reward and enough justification for the loads of time I have to put into dailies to get my 90 coins a week.  With my luck Ill continue to get nothing, but ill give it a shot for a while.

Battle Pets

For Pet battlers there are a TON of spell changes and as much as I could easily spend a whole day just doing pet battles, I spend most of my wow time on other endeavors. BUT! I will do some copypasta of a few note worthy changes.

"A number of new pets can be found on the Isle of Lightning, including rare spawn drops, wild pets, and raid boss drops."


"Elite Battle Pets have been added to the game world. These rare pets will spawn alone against an entire team. The Beasts of Fable taming quest will now become available from Gentle San or Sara Finkleswitch once Aki the Chosen has been defeated. Defeating all of the fabled beasts will award the new Red Panda pet, while completing the associated daily quest has a chance to award the rare brown, white, and orange variants "

My little pets are not nearly high level enough to get capture these guys, but one day I aspire to get out the and battle them!

"Level capped players will now have a chance to earn Lesser Charms of Good Fortune after winning a pet battle versus a pet within 5 levels of the highest level pet on their team. Higher-level pets will offer a better chance to earn a charm."

This makes me kinda want to do more battles...  We have a guildy who actually quit the game due to his hate of dailies, so this WOULD be a way to get charms.. though probably not a great way since it's only a "chance"... and it would give him an excuse to spend more time battling pets.. which he actually liked. lol.

Players may now participate in pet battle duels while in the Throne of Thunder instance.

I know what I am doing when we're standing around waiting!

"Players with a high fishing skill have a chance to fish up new pets. The Pet Journal has clues on where these elusive pets could be found."

Jewlcrafting

There are changes to fishing, Jewlcrafting, leatherworking, blacksmithing, tailoring, and archeology but I am only going to cover the JC changes. Check out the 5.2 Patch Notes for more info on the other professions.

Jewelcrafters may find the designs for Serpent’s Heart and uncut Primal Diamonds during the course of their adventures (world drops).
  
Serpent’s Heart is a daily cooldown that consumes several Serpent’s Eyes to create a random rare quality Pandaren gem.  In addition, there is a small chance that a player will discover the design for the Sapphire Cub or Jade Owl. (Looks like this will finally be the Panda version of The Fire Prism from Cata)

The design for uncut Primal Diamonds requires Spirits of Harmony and large quantities of uncommon gems (ew)

Items

Transmogrification rules have been broadened for several weapon types.
       
           - Two-handed axes, maces, and swords can be Transmogrified to each other.
           - One-handed axes, maces, and swords can be Transmogrified to each other.
           - Staves and polearms can be transmogrified to each other.

The ethereals that offered to upgrade items using Valor or Justice Points have departed Azeroth for the moment. They may yet return in a future patch. (There has been some discussion in my guild weather or not this was a failed attempt to gradually make the raids feel "easier" without actually nerfing the content. For ME it felt like I could still work on getting some "better" gear when the RNG Gods choose to hate me week after week)

        -The cost of Valor Point gear introduced in patch 5.0 has been reduced by 50%.
       - The cost of Valor Point gear introduced in patch 5.1 has been reduced by 25%.
       - Skyshards are now Bind on Account.

I am happy for the price reduction, my much neglected alts will be ecstatic to get out of blues.. though I am too lazy to do dailies on them so this change is like "yay" but I don't think it will really affect me. I have never seen a Skyshard so meh.. Still trying to figure out how a guildy got the drake a month into the game...

Dying guild?

What does one do about a dying guild?

For the most part, every player has experienced a situation similar to this, or at the very least knew someone who has. Right now the guild I am in seems to be dying. Like this is worse than end of cata content. If we weren't playing wow, the main raiders and/or officers could always be found in our very active mumble channel. Mostly playing League of Legends (Amg pvp.. I think I just broke out in hives thinking about it), or on our dedicated Minecraft server.

The faithful raiders in our guild (ones that actually stick around for more than 1-6 weeks before dropping off the face of the earth) have become a close knit group of friends. We are connected outside of game through various social networks Ect, but when it comes to WoW, and the lack of any progression in raids or even attempting to put a group together anymore, when is it time to call it quits and move on? Should you leave these amazing people? Will you find a guild that you fit in with a just as much?

I seemed to be cursed, as the thee people I became closest to as friends have all stopped playing the game what so ever, one to the point that he has disconnected himself from every guildy in every other game we played from him. The thing with this guy is there was never drama with him, he was a pretty chill guy so we don't understand the sudden and extreme cutoff.

While I still have time before my school becomes overwhelming with homework and just life in general, I want to raid, I want to experience bosses in a controlled environment, unlike the chaos with LFRz.

Two weeks later I come back to this pose and due to all of the guild inactivity I am honestly consorting putting stop to my subscription.

Will this be the end? :( sad making thoughts