World of Warcraft

[Kalbear]

It's not that we don't want part-time raiders there. A lot of them are good players and are valuable no matter how many times they can show up. (A lot are whiny slackers like me, but I have the blackmail material on Stego).

Full disclosure: I'm in the same boat as you, blue. I'm raiding one day a week. Maybe two if the stars align, but seldom more than that. And I've asked to be suspended from earning DKP or attendance and put on the lowest tier of status. Why? Because loot given to me isn't that valuable. As long as I'm doing a good job in the raids I'm in and helping down bosses, I'm happy being there. I've been in on 4 first kills (ETA:5 - I forgot about Razorscale), and on each one I was either tanking something important or the top 2 in DPS. If you're doing a good job, a raid leader will want you there.

But they'll still not want to give you loot.

It's honestly tough for me too. Part of me wants to say screw it and give up on it, because it is awkward and weird. Part of me wants to figure out how to raid more. I finally decided that if I'm doing a good job and am contributing well, it doesn't matter when I show up. And as long as I'm not demanding upgrades or getting butthurt about not getting gear, I'll remain an asset. I do figure that once we get into the hard mode attempts my gear is going to significantly hurt my performance relative to others, but we'll see.

[RaceBannon42]

I think we do a good job of getting everyone who shows up to raid in for at least part of the night. I'm sure in some way it hurts us in terms of progression. If we concentrated on gearing up just the best 25 players and making sure they were in on every boss that we'd be farther than we are. But then what happens when someone gets sick, has to travel, or cant make a raid for any reason. You need to have more than 25 raiders. That also means people are going to be on back up at times. Its a juggling act. Obviously not all players are equally skilled. Some are better than others. But you cant let it devolve into an a team and a B team mentality either. We get people in when we can. Sometimes people complain, but there is no way to keep everyone happy all the time. People either sit at times, or raids get cancelled. One thing we do which helps imo, is we award full dkp to the people who are on back up. As long as they are online and available if needed they are contributing.

[TerraPrime]

Re: GoN

Yeah I think that's how the encounter is supposed to work. We started doing the "exploit" after we downed it first using the same positioning as you described, and it was utterly joke now. The encounter was definitely more fun without the pile positioning.

Re: loot and raid

I routinely pass loot to raiders who are there more often than I am. I am in about 75% of the guild raids (not because I don't want to be in the other 25%, but because those are typically un-scheduled raids that happen when I am not there). I think it'll make the overall guild progression more sensible for the more frequent raiders to get the better gear.

The one flaw in this system and thinking is that sometimes, these better-geared people who play well then leave guild. I know that's just part of life, but it is still annoying. We've lost a ret-pally, a prot pally, a boomkin, a mage, and a holy priest, to the more advanced guilds after we geared them up. It is annoying. All except one left because they wanted to see higher-end content more frequently. One left because he's a jerk and nobody likes him.

At the same time, we took at least 3 people from other guilds who came to us pretty well geared. They were unhappy with their old guild and wanted change. So I guess the karma is balanced. :dunno:

Re: Race

I think we do a good job of getting everyone who shows up to raid in for at least part of the night. I'm sure in some way it hurts us in terms of progression. If we concentrated on gearing up just the best 25 players and making sure they were in on every boss that we'd be farther than we are. But then what happens when someone gets sick, has to travel, or cant make a raid for any reason. You need to have more than 25 raiders. That also means people are going to be on back up at times. Its a juggling act. Obviously not all players are equally skilled. Some are better than others. But you cant let it devolve into an a team and a B team mentality either. We get people in when we can. Sometimes people complain, but there is no way to keep everyone happy all the time.

That's a really hard part to balance. Gearing up only 25 people is not a viable strategy, because of schedules. You really need a much deeper roster, and it's not just numbers. If you have 30 geared people, you can still get screwed when all 3 of the 5 tanks are out for that raid (work, family, etc.). Balancing how deep your roster needs to be is not easy, or straight forward. At least in my experience. Right now we're dying for at least two more shamans, even though we're swimming in mages (6 at least count).

I'm really sad that the GM veto'd the EP/GP system before we had a chance to really implement it. We're back to loot council for now, with rolls if there's no obvious choice. People, predictably, bitched, when tier loot went to the more regular raiders. It would have been the same result with EP/GP, but I think people are less likely to bitch because they have the number staring at them. Oh well.

[Guest thebadlady]

I am enjoying my priest but am having a hell of a time gearing up. A half geared dps doesn't matter as much as a half geared healer or tank. Vicious circle!

I started questing for cash - wow, there is cash that way. I was able to buy my priest some stuffs. :lol:

[PhelanArcetus]

Agreed on the team problem.

I'm gathering our raid leader will not be on tonight for Ulduar. Presumably she is working tonight rather than tomorrow so she can host (at my place, of course) a Cinco de Mayo party (translation: lots of tequila). At the moment I don't think we're ready to try 2-healering Ulduar, though at least we have replenishment. This being especially true if we have the terrible boomkin, as seems usual now.

So what do we do? We can pug a healer, if we're very lucky someone has a known friend. Or... we can go do something else. Naxx 10 alt run? Finally go back to Malygos and get him down (hopefully)? But we have nothing approximating a reserve. Someone can't make it, we have to bring in someone we don't know, don't care about, and, most likely, is not good at the game. I'm going to argue that we do Flame Leviathan because he's group makeup independent, then go try Maly or do alt-Naxx, if that's the case. I don't think we're ready to 2-healer it and I don't want to spend half the night trying to find a healer.

And sure we don't want to give loot to the pug. We'd be happier giving it to a guild member who can't make it very often, but obviously we all want to give loot to the core raiders before anyone else. But it is obviously frustrating to feel like you can't get the major upgrade item for you when it's going as a minor upgrade or offspec piece to someone else.

As far as people who are just bad, I generally can only provide them with very general advice, due to only knowing a few classes. I do know people who, effectively, have contempt for the players who are truly bad, and basically say "well, I did the research myself, I learned to play, why shouldn't they do it themselves too?" That is, in fact, part of why my good friend is no longer in guild; he didn't want to cater to people who were bad at the game and unwilling/unable to improve. Nor does he believe in "hey grats you hit 80 let's run you through Naxx so you can get gear!", which the guild leader loves doing. I normally don't care, because I normally end up bringing an alt who needs gear along myself.

[RaceBannon42]

Some players are really good, some players are really bad. Most of us fall somewhere in between. I'll bitch about a bad player in a pug in g chat perhaps, but I'm not going to yell at them in raid or party chat or tell them they suxxors!!!!gdiaf!!!nubcakes!!!111!! Of course the only thing I pug with any frequency is Vault, I'd rather spend my non raid time doing other things than pugging as I've found most players in pugs are on the front side of the good/bad bell curve :P

[Mack Kilimaro]

I think you can get away with two healers for Razorscale and Deconstructor. Now that the tantrum's been nerfed so hard that's even easier and it will give you a leg up on the DPS. That's assuming your two healers are good and your DPS won't stand in the fucking fires, of course.

No one shots other than FL last night, so we only had an hour by the time we made it to try Assembly of Iron. Tanks couldn't get their act together on Kologarn, for instance. One time the MT went splat after getting two stacks of the debuff. The DK OT: "I taunted the left arm by accident." How does this even happen? One is a left arm, the other is a giant fucking giant. Well, that happens sometimes. Then we were getting killed in Assembly of Iron by the Vrykul after the giant was down because the same DK was unable to interrupt the Lightning Whirl in any timely manner. However, I also think that no one was dispelling the Shield of Runes before it granted the damage buff and that didn't help our cause much either. Got a shaman and a hunter for DPS, but I think they forgot about having to do the dispel. Maybe better luck next time.

I have over 40,000 gold now.

[Week]

You can definitely two heal Razorscale...yesterday morning I got through FL and Razorscale as the MT for a Daybreak Eternal run. Wasn't really too bad overall...but it was a bit tough for me and my healer because I only have one piece of Naxx tanking gear and it replaced an epic so..not really that much better.

[Stego]

You can two heal the whole place in ten man, from what I've seen so far.

As to my belief that the dumbing down of the game has been a horrendous idea, I point to the first proof that has been released. WoW subscribers have not increased in subscriber reports for the first time in the history of the game.

They may be gaining new players, but the lack of challenge for the core of their customer base has people leaving in scores.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Blizz had the most popular game in the history of MMO's, and they decided to change it completely. Sigh.

[GoN]

Re Deconstructor: Yeah, I've heard about the alternative positioning but it rather strikes me as slightly exploitish. Kinda like the doorway trick with the Prince in Kara. I may change my mind if it isn't hotfixed anytime soon, and we struggle on hardmode, but I don't see us using it anytime soon.

Re: Healers. We've two healered Ulduar through Mimiron. Although I say, with all humilty, that it requires two pretty strong healers. I think any two healers with decent gear, gems, enchants and who are agile should be able to handle it up to that point. It is definitely more work than 2 healing Naxx was though, and I mean that in a positive way. I'm really enjoying it. We plan to two heal the rest as well, I'll let you know how it goes.

Re bad players:

I do know people who, effectively, have contempt for the players who are truly bad, and basically say "well, I did the research myself, I learned to play, why shouldn't they do it themselves too?" That is, in fact, part of why my good friend is no longer in guild; he didn't want to cater to people who were bad at the game and unwilling/unable to improve.

Emphasis mine.

This is effectively why me and 11 or so others left my previous 25 man raid. Once you've spent 3 years advising people how to spec, enchant, gem, where to read up on the tricks of the trade, running people through Molten Core, BWL, ZG, AQ20, AQ40, heroics, Kara, etc etc, I think you are entitled to say fuck it. I don't feel like I have to be a dick about it, but I don't feel any responsibility towards fixing a pug.

There are exceptions. I have run across people who don't know, for whatever the reason, but ask questions and are really open to advice. I am happy to help as much as I can in that instance. But, in my experience, 95% of players don't give a fuck.

Oh and:

How does this even happen? One is a left arm, the other is a giant fucking giant

:lol:

[RaceBannon42]

There are exceptions. I have run across people who don't know, for whatever the reason, but ask questions and are really open to advice. I am happy to help as much as I can in that instance. But, in my experience, 95% of players don't give a fuck.

I was a total mouth breather before GoN straightned me out. Now I only stand in the fire sometimes.

[PhelanArcetus]

Yeah, that's the thing. Someone is bad, recognizes it, asks for advice? If I have advice, I'll give it. Or I can just give them a rough tip on where to find information.

Someone barely outdamages the tank and thinks they're doing well? Stands in red stuff, orange stuff, purple stuff, black stuff, blue stuff, green stuff, constantly? Someone who ends every line they type with "lol"? Those people, not so much.

Unfortunately, while most players don't give a damn about helping other people... it also seems like the majority of the bad players also don't give a damn about improving themselves. That's who I almost always find in pugs; the people who don't get basic game mechanics, think that it's the healer's fault if the dps stand in fire and die from it, and pull a fraction of a tank's dps. (This not counting the fact that my friend MTing Kel'Thuzad 25 last night did as much dps as I did when dps'ing Sarth 25 a couple nights ago; there's a legitimate gear difference, quite likely a buff difference, and definitely a "what do you mean I'm too far away?" difference.)

There was no raid last night. Guild leader wasn't on so we were short a healer, and I frankly don't think our healers are good enough to two-healer Ulduar. Can you 2-healer it in Naxx25 + some Ulduar 25 gear? Sure. Can you 2-healer it with two really sharp healers? Ok, sure. Can you two healer it with the two healers we had? Not yet, at least. If it was the guild leader's druid and the priest, I'd trust it more than the priest and the guild leader's boyfriend's shaman.

Also our ret paladin didn't show. With no word, and, when the GL's boyfriend said he'd call... well, I never heard the results of that call, so we have no idea what happened.

Didn't put together a Maly group either. Hell, didn't do an alt Naxx. The boyfriend ended up in a different Ulduar 10, and 2-3 people ended up in an Ulduar 25. I took the two mages and the prot pally and I healed Heroic HoS and HoL. With a lot of failures on Loken, sadly. Massive running out failure, and I do not believe I could have healed if we stayed in the nova. Just not geared enough yet. I did replace my green trinket and my BC boots, at least. And debating buying the EoH neck.

[TerraPrime]

Re: Ulduar

We tried Thorim last night. Well, I got pulled into it for the last 1.5 hours of it. Something is not clicking. Haven't put my fingers on it yet. We tried 4/6 and 5/5 split, as well as 2 and 3 healers. We either can't keep the arena group alive, or the healers are all OOM by the time the boss was engaged. Part of this no doubt is the gauntlet problem of going too slow. Of course, our group composition was pretty bad too, with only priest healers (3 of them), no shamans, and no boomkins/spriest. That didn't help matter.

Ah well. We'll have another go at him tonight I'm sure.

Re: GoN

Yes, and I wouldn't have learned how to trap properly if you had not made me trap every single pull in heroic SV. :love:

[Cuellar]

Problem with WoW is that due to its success, and ease of leveling/playing, you get a bunch of retards unless you got a good core group of people. It's also very hard to weed them out in any sort of PUG... since half the people there, you have no idea how they will perform, even after looking at their gear.

I'm actually thinking of starting a char over on a server where my old EQ server has a casual guild. They basically play 1-2 nights a week only, but at least you've got a guarenteed good group of peeps. Only problem is leveling up AGAIN bores the shit out of me, and playing on 2 servers is a pain in the ballsack when you don't have a lot of time.

[GoN]

TP: Trapping builds character. Or maybe it was just revenge for all the times someone made me trap when I played my hunter :lol:

Survivability in the arena is very important on the Thorim encounter. We settled on leaving behind a tank and our two plate wearing DPS (DK and Ret Pally), along with my shaman healing, and sending everyone else up the gauntlet. This does require that the DPS you leave behind be pretty decent, or else you risk being overrun.

We had fun figuring that encounter out. First everyone stood in the arena killing adds, watching the enrage timer tick down. Second time we all run up the gauntlet and got killed by uber explosion of death for not having anyone in the arena. We finally pieced it together. Was fun.

Mandy, you don't need any help from me from what I've seen in the heroics we've done, or Naxx. I think I have the undeserved reputation of knowing more than I actually do, but I can live with that. Its not the worst thing that's been said about me :P

[TerraPrime]

TP: Trapping builds character. Or maybe it was just revenge for all the times someone made me trap when I played my hunter :lol:

It makes me sad that cc is no longer needed in most instances. I guess, especially for hunters, traps have been such a big part of the class that right now it is under-utilized. Same with rogues' cc skills I imagine. Hunters and rogues went from dps with cc utilities to straight up dps. In comparison, warlocks are dps that bring non-cc raid utilities, like ss and portals, and we just got a nice boost on portals in the new content. I think the improved abilities of tanks to tank multiple targets make aoe damage more feasible and efficient, so that makes cc less needed.

Survivability in the arena is very important on the Thorim encounter. We settled on leaving behind a tank and our two plate wearing DPS (DK and Ret Pally), along with my shaman healing, and sending everyone else up the gauntlet. This does require that the DPS you leave behind be pretty decent, or else you risk being overrun.

I know. I tried to convince the RL of that. He was taking 2 hunters in to the gauntlet, and leaving a DK, a mage, a lock, and boomkin out with a pally tank and priest heal when I logged on. The boomkin had to go after my first try, and we replaced him with a 3rd priest heal. At least the mage can spell-steal the bubble and lived through the worst of it. On my first 2 tries in arena I died very quickly. I dual-spec into a demo/destro so I switched to that one for more hp and that helped a bit. Eventually I got him to swap out 1 hunter for me, and I think it worked out better. At least hunters can FD and trap. My only cc was fear (and thank goodness they're fear-able). It almost makes me think that a PvP spec for the arena might not be a bad idea. But yeah, I was wishing our ret pally was on last night.

In concept, I rather like the design of the encounter because it forces your team to stand on half its strength, which means that you can't be carrying dead weight in your team. I don't think our team had any dead weight because every DPS we brought had over 3K dps average in Nax runs. Supposedly Ulduar 10 is tuned for Nax10 gear, and most of us have at least a few pieces of Nax25 and 4pcT7.5. We just have to figure out a strategy that works for us.

Oh yeah, I agree with your earlier comment, too, that blizzard's new motto of "bring the player, not the class" is shite. I mean really, is that why Razuvius in 25-Nax requires priests? Or that Faerlina was designed to be done with priests? Or that KT in Nax only takes 3 melee dps and no more? Now one thing that they are getting right is to give some of the buff mechanisms, like replenish, to more classes. That I can get behind.

[PhelanArcetus]

It makes me sad that cc is no longer needed in most instances. I guess, especially for hunters, traps have been such a big part of the class that right now it is under-utilized. Same with rogues' cc skills I imagine. Hunters and rogues went from dps with cc utilities to straight up dps. In comparison, warlocks are dps that bring non-cc raid utilities, like ss and portals, and we just got a nice boost on portals in the new content. I think the improved abilities of tanks to tank multiple targets make aoe damage more feasible and efficient, so that makes cc less needed.

Yeah, I was so excited when I saw Repentance was being made into actual CC. Hey, my talent point is going to add actual utility, rather than a half-baked stun. It'll help ret paladins get groups, since they were so maligned in BC (and rightly so). I've hardly used it at all, though. Didn't need it to solo, don't need it in heroics... it's almost a wasted point in PvE.

[Stego]

Oh yeah, I agree with your earlier comment, too, that blizzard's new motto of "bring the player, not the class" is shite. I mean really, is that why Razuvius in 25-Nax requires priests? Or that Faerlina was designed to be done with priests? Or that KT in Nax only takes 3 melee dps and no more? Now one thing that they are getting right is to give some of the buff mechanisms, like replenish, to more classes. That I can get behind.

Naxx was created for level 60's. The new motto came years and years after Naxx came out.

[Guest thebadlady]

I am bored and disenchanted with WoW. Gonna take a break and see if the love comes back.

[Shryke]

Turns out, Emalon has an enrage timer. Who knew?

Thankfully, we dumped the nub sub-2k DPS (in a 25 man, this fucking pathetic) and kicked his ass.