Yet Another World of Warcraft Thread

[Kalbear]

Also, Phelan, that video: SO AWESOME.

[Ser Stephen]

I agree, Kalbear, but if I was in complete control of a raiding guild, I would not bring any guild member, even you with your special circumstances, that had not made the effort to do the 10 man, and do it well. The mindset seems to be ass backwards, it seems that the common conception is that all lvl 80 toons can be part of a 25, it does not matter how bad they are, how poorly or mis-geared, how uninformed about the fights, how un motivated, etc. they should be successful and get phat lootz. But, that only guild officers, or elite raiders can possibly dare to do a 10 man run, when the 10 man is more forgiving of gear requirements, talent, etc.

My recommendation is that a guild have 3 10 man teams doing Ulduar, probably a stretch for raid leadership in a lot of guilds, but would be the absolute minimum a guild would need to tackle 25 man raiding. 30 experienced raiders should allow enough to fill a 25 man raid on the guild's best raiding night. You would only have to adapt the fight to manage the transitional changes between 10 man and 25 man and you would not have to reintroduce the basics of every fight for each boss you face.

Although some guilds represented on this board tear through 25 man, many do not, and then lament the fact that less well geared, less experienced, less motivated raiders don't know the fights well enough to succeed. So, you need to change the paradigm. You can't continue to expect success at 25 when those you raid with can't even do 10 man. Check them out on 10 man first, set standards, stick to them, succeed.

[Week]

Dude.. i did normal nexus yesterday on my 71 DK and pumped out 950 DPS... beating a 73 lock and a 75 enh shammy.. this class is so OP.

What spec/rotation are you going with?

During Yogg I leveled my DK to 72 and it has been going pretty well. I've been leveling how I hope to have my spec when I hit 80, unholy/frost with dual wield. I've heard some people hating on dual wield and perhaps it doesn't get really good until Ulduar gear, however I really just want to get at least some different gear from my Pally without having to level a character from the start (Shaman still at 18...actually my lock is at 63, I just prefer the DK for now).

Generally I do IT/PS/BS/BS/SS-dump, SS/SS/SS, etc. I like it more than my pally to a certain extent because it seems like it takes a bit more skill and effort to do well..I sort of just facerolled into ret without having done it since level 30 or so and was at the top of a Naxx raid immediately (not an elite 10man run of course though).

Perfect? Cant be perfect if the actual fight is like the #6 priority on the list for some people. cuz i mean there is burping, Encidia Pvp/Arena, walking man, something about tits for dkp and pretty much everything else but the actual fight.

Yeah, I do have to say I was a bit surprised by the amount of nonsense going on even after the 3 hour mark. It is good to stay loose and have a good time, the game shouldn't be a job, at some point, though, you have to take it seriously for a few minutes.

Not sure that I follow the argument that raiders that have a lot of experience doing 10 man Ulduar expand into a 25 man Ulduar and expect that all 15 of those raiders with no 10 man experience to know each of the fights as well as they do. Seems a bit arrogant and mostly not a very intelligent assumption.

I'm hoping to get in on Yogg with a 10man group before 25man. Perhaps it won't be as good a learning experience as just getting into 25mans (what would be?), but at the very least I'll be familiar enough to not be making some of the mistakes that everyone else in 25man has learned from (maybe?). Also, knowing where to go and getting to things faster is definitely important for melee...can't be running around without a clue.

Phelan,

I'll see your Hammer time and raise you...

.

[RaceBannon42]

Not sure that I follow the argument that raiders that have a lot of experience doing 10 man Ulduar expand into a 25 man Ulduar and expect that all 15 of those raiders with no 10 man experience to know each of the fights as well as they do. Seems a bit arrogant and mostly not a very intelligent assumption.

To then label these less experienced folks mouth breathers is uncharitable to say the least.

Sort of says a lot about those posters.

That's my opinion.

You dont need to do 10 man to do 25. They are seperate progression lines.

I've to FL once in 10 man on my Shaman.

We don't expect someone doing the fight for the first time to not make a mistake. WE do expect people after wiping 15 times already that night to stay the F*CK out of the big green clouds that slowly circle the room. I dont think its asking to much for people to not stand in clouds, to not kill a guardian before it gets to Sara, to turn away from the pink lightning, or to DPS the GD SKULL!. ITS NOT THAT HARD!

[RaceBannon42]

Week,

As I understand it DW Dk builds are pretty crappy atm. I havent done much research on unholy or frost dps though.

I have a 51-0-20 build on Gregore. Blood was amazing for leveling, and I just stuck with it, as thats what I was used to.

my rotation is

IT-PS-HS-HS-DS-RPD

DS-HS-HS-HS-HS-RPD

[Lyanna Stark]

My recommendation is that a guild have 3 10 man teams doing Ulduar, probably a stretch for raid leadership in a lot of guilds, but would be the absolute minimum a guild would need to tackle 25 man raiding. 30 experienced raiders should allow enough to fill a 25 man raid on the guild's best raiding night. You would only have to adapt the fight to manage the transitional changes between 10 man and 25 man and you would not have to reintroduce the basics of every fight for each boss you face.

That won't work for a very simple reason.

10-man team:

2 tanks

2 healers (for Mimiron and Vezax 1 DPS needs to swap to healing, making you class restricted on DPS)

6 DPS

25-man team for Yogg Saron

3 tanks

5 healers

rest DPS

See the problem?

3 ten man teams require 6 tanks, meaning 3 will have to always sit out on the 25-man and you will have to rotate, breaking up your team. You also need a total of 9 healers for the ten man teams, or a minimum of 6, with at least 3 off-healers running one DPS spec and one healer spec.

It's just not at all feasible, unless you rotate your ten man teams as well.

As we raid 25 man 3 times a week, most people just don't have the time to double up in ten man raiding too.

WE do expect people after wiping 15 times already that night to stay the F*CK out of the big green clouds that slowly circle the room. I dont think its asking to much for people to not stand in clouds, to not kill a guardian before it gets to Sara, to turn away from the pink lightning, or to DPS the GD SKULL!. ITS NOT THAT HARD!

This. :)

Plus what kalbear said: a lot of people just aren't interested or good enough to manage on ten man, they'd fail there too. Like our Holy priests with 8 dispels vs our Holy paladin healers 218. I mean, there is making mistakes due to things being new, and there are maknig mistakes because you are, in fact, a complete idiot and should have your computer taken away from you.

[Week]

Week,

As I understand it DW Dk builds are pretty crappy atm. I havent done much research on unholy or frost dps though.

I have a 51-0-20 build on Gregore. Blood was amazing for leveling, and I just stuck with it, as thats what I was used to.

my rotation is

IT-PS-HS-HS-DS-RPD

DS-HS-HS-HS-HS-RPD

I like it so far even though I know they are rather maligned at the moment. Hopefully it'll get buffed between now and hitting 80 :P. Maybe later today I'll try respeccing and see if the difference is significant, my dps has been pretty solid actually with DW (I'll do some runs late tonight maybe).

[PhelanArcetus]

Someone certainly shouldn't be insulted if the only thing they've done wrong is not done 10-man before doing 25 man. Well, unless they were specifically instructed to do so. Then you've ignored orders and deserve whatever you get.

On the other hand, just because somebody is 80 and available does not mean they are ready to attend the raid. I've grouped with people who lack basic competence. I've grouped with people who do not know the fight but also refuse, even when asked, to admit it. I've grouped with people who think that if it's a pug raid, being 80 is the only requirement to be qualified.

Yeah, you can do OS 10 pretty decently as dps the instant you hit 80. If you're an alt and have racked up some crafted gear, you might even pull off tank or heal ok. (I did.) Emalon 25, not so much. Sure, a couple undergeared dps won't wipe the raid if the group overall is geared and on the ball. But I have seen people try to tank Emalon 25 with less gear than I required myself to have to off-tank OS 10. And I spent at least a week trying Emalon 25 where there was always someone who admitted that they had just hit 80 that day. Good for you. You don't have adequate gear for this raid, go run Culling of Stratholme.

Those people should be informed, reasonably politely, and removed from the group. There's no need to be rude until the person indicates that politeness does not get the point across. We have guild chat to say horrible things about the people. Or officer chat, or tells, or AIM on the laptop, whatever.

Going to DKs now.

DW is currently sub-par, though not terrible as I understand it. Not being able to pair Howling Blast with Impurity hurt the build, as did the shift of Killing Machine to PPM instead of simple chance on crit. Blizzard has indicated some desire to improve dual wield performance in the future (presumably in 3.2), but no telling when this will be. It's still decent at least; I have one epic in my dps gear, the spiked titansteel helm, and I easily pull 2k dps in heroics. Though I mostly tank those, due to how much easier it is to find a slot as tank.

Typically on a single target I would do PS->IT->HB->BS->BS to start. With the rune cooldown I can get another HB, and then a pair of Obliterates hoping for Rime proc. Fill in with Frost Strike whenever runes are still cooling down. On groups, since I've been too cheap to get the Howling Blast glyph (will do it next time I log in), I lay down D&D, Plague Strike, Icy Touch, Pestilence. Then when the D&D glyphs cool down, Howling Blast & Blood Boil.

[BillBrasky]

What spec/rotation are you going with?

Normally IT-PS-HS-HS-DC- DC - OB/DS- Repeat if necessary. most things are dead by the time I hit the second or this DC or Obliterate. I play as Blood. No downtime.

During Yogg I leveled my DK to 72 and it has been going pretty well. I've been leveling how I hope to have my spec when I hit 80, unholy/frost with dual wield.

The only problem you might see wih dual weild is that so many of our abilities are based on weapon damage (like 78-80% weapon damage +195) is like the description for our abilities. 1 handed weapons will give you a smaller base for your special abilities and if you look at your DPS meteres only a small fraction is actually white damage.

Another thing is if you plan to tank as dual weild you will increase your chance to get parry gibbed. Plus your offhand Hit is someting like 27% to cap, 2 hander is just 8%. DW for endgame is not optimal although some argue for it. I would assume that there must be a trick. For tanking it is a bad idea.

[Ser Stephen]

Race,

Hard core 25 man raiders that already met the gear requirements before Ulduar came out can choose between doing 10 Man or 25 Man or both if they want.

The mere mortals that barely have gear for 10 Man Ulduar need to progress through 10 Man and continue to gear up in 25 man Naxx, VoA, OS, etc. to be prepared to enter 25 Man Ulduar. Both the gear/toon upgrade and experiencing the bosses at a lower level of complexity are needed for most raiders before they expect success in 25 man Ulduar.

Lyanna, "3 ten man teams require 6 tanks, meaning 3 will have to always sit out on the 25-man and you will have to rotate, breaking up your team. You also need a total of 9 healers for the ten man teams, or a minimum of 6, with at least 3 off-healers running one DPS spec and one healer spec."

Call it 2 - 10 man teams with supplements. No doubling up is required, both teams can run at the same time if it is convenient, so only one raid slot gets used for 10 Man Ulduar.

Just chill a little on expectations that under geared, less motivated raiders can step up to the higher hurdle that is 25 man Ulduar and cakewalk through it.

Albert Einstein's definition of Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

[Kalbear]

3 ten man teams require 6 tanks, meaning 3 will have to always sit out on the 25-man and you will have to rotate, breaking up your team. You also need a total of 9 healers for the ten man teams, or a minimum of 6, with at least 3 off-healers running one DPS spec and one healer spec.

It's just not at all feasible, unless you rotate your ten man teams as well.

If you do rotate your 10-man teams so that everyone gets in in a two-week time, that would be pretty decent I'd imagine. Alternately, have them go on an alt spec. It's not like Yogg-10 is a gear challenge for those in naxx-25 gear.

[Week]

Fine, once I get another good 2H I'll switch to Blood/unholy...jerks. :P

[BillBrasky]

Fine, once I get another good 2H I'll switch to Blood/unholy...jerks. :P

brah, not saying you should. I'm jsut saying ive done like 2 work days of resaerch on elitist jerks and tankspot and class forums.

I didnt go into the DW stuff althrought here were posts. From what was said int he other posts it seemed logical.

also.

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1781938

[Cuellar]

Dude.. i did normal nexus yesterday on my 71 DK and pumped out 950 DPS... beating a 73 lock and a 75 enh shammy.. this class is so OP.

Jesus christ, my L61 DK doing Bloodforge, has no special gear (besides BOA shoulders) but dumps out 550 dps (And I wasn't even dropping blood boil shit). People suck in PUGs. I'm not looking forward to when my alts hit L80. Honestly, I'd skip all the heroics and just go straight for Naxx's gear buffet. I made the mistake on my mage of getting the best gear from all the heroics before trying Naxx, but Naxx is a joke, and your newbie ass can get a full set of gear in one run.

Lyanna, what's amusing to me is that your guild problems are the same shit virtually every company has to deal with. Shit people who underperform, don't keep up with the industry, job, do the bare minimum, and expect lifetime guarenteed employment and massive raises every year. You gotta shitcan the poor performers.

[Ser Hippie]

Warning: incoming rant

Last night we had our first guild Naxx 10 run (casual guild, even my offspec is 200 points higher on WoW-heroes). Epic, epic fail.

Three tanks show up, one with 20k health unbuffed and more items under iLvl 174 than over it, including a level 60 something libram.

Near wipe on the first trash (little spiders) in the Arachnid Quarter, as a DPS wanders in and aggros them before everyone is there.

0/6 on Anub'rekan. I'm OTing the adds, nobody moves to help, I go down with 25 stacks of acid spit. Second time, the third tank comes to help, adding 600 DPS to help make sure I die with only 21 stacks the next time. MT dies to the slime and a hit while kiting the third time. Hillarity ensues the next two times. I try MTing him the last time. Healers OOM when he hits 50%, wipe shortly thereafter.

We decide that Anub'rekan might not be in the cards tonight, we decide to do Patchwerk. First attempt gets him to 22%, but the DPS is...uh...less than ideal. According to recount;

1. Mage at 2370 or whatever

2. Me (tank) at 2050

3. Ele shaman at 1600

4. Bunch of people at 11-1200

Obviously we miss the enrage timer and get smashed around unpleasantly. Second attempt lasts all of a minute when all three healers decide to heal me instead of the hateful tank. Wham, wham he's dead. Third tank (24k HP buffed now) tries to stand in, to his credit, but obviously I need to switch to hateful tanking since I'm at 34k buffed. Unfortunately, he isn't using any abilities and even after I stop doing anything but auto attacks (to keep divine plea going) he puts up no threat. Wham wham he's dead. Wipe.

4 hours, 8 wipes, 0 boss kills.

Now, I wouldn't have minded it all that much, really, if people realized they need to gear up in heroics and not be in, you know, quest greens from level 70 to be in Naxx. Instead, I get a message from the guild leader telling me that we're going to be trying again today; I responded by telling him we aren't ready and won't be for some time. Miraculously he agrees.

So off to Heroic OK we go, and we actually manage to only nearly wipe 4 times on the trash leading to the first boss. We start the fight, I emphasize that they need to bring the guardian over to me if I can't see it while tanking the boss, or just burn it down. But, hell, why bother doing that when you can just keep ineffectually hitting the immune boss. Wipe. Wipe again. Wipe again. Wipe yet again. Hey, another wipe. Finally, on the 6th attempt we finally get him down, with 2 DPS dead and me having burned all cooldowns when they came up and droping a lay on hands on the healer.

Wipe on trash when the healer mistakenly targets a DPS and heals them while I die. Wipe again when I pull one of the groups on the platform that create the shield for the 2nd boss (the vampire elf), and one of the DPS (our third tank) decides he's going up the other platform for God knows what reason. Wipe three times on the vampire boss as people don't DPS him down when he's life-sucking on people.

So we actually make it to Jedoga (orc boss). Needless to say we did not burn the volunteers down, melee DPS did not avoid her whirlwind, and healer could not keep me alive when she got her frenzy. Three more wipes, we decide to skip her and go to the Herald. Wipe the first time because people didn't know about the insanity and a couple people didn't fight the evil clones thinking it was mind control. Barely manage to get him down the 2nd time with a DPS dead and another lay on hands on the healer from me.

We leave the instance, and guild leader goes "We'll be alright once our tanks get their rotations down". I pst him asking him what he meant exactly, and he goes "It's the tank's job to prevent wipes".

/gquit

[Ser Hippie]

To be fair though, avoiding whirlwinds is a pain in the arse.

Anyway, most bosses/mobs don't whirlwind as such; it's usually more of a bladestorm... just with a much shorter cooldown. How is that fair?

True enough. I guess I was irritated with the particular DPS in question because he has a habit of doing this (trash mobs in HoL leading to Loken and *god* Skadi, where he also led the whirlwind towards the clothies and nearly wiped us).

As for a medal - they're generally nice people, which is why I did stick around. But even a relatively casual (Naxx, OS) raider like me is well beyond what they're up for at this stage gear/experience wise, and wasting entire evenings on this doesn't work when I'd also like to use the time I have for dailies/rep grinding BC factions.

C'est la vie.

[RaceBannon42]

"It's the tank's job to prevent wipes".

QFT

:P

[Mack Kilimaro]

True enough. I guess I was irritated with the particular DPS in question because he has a habit of doing this (trash mobs in HoL leading to Loken and *god* Skadi, where he also led the whirlwind towards the clothies and nearly wiped us).

As for a medal - they're generally nice people, which is why I did stick around. But even a relatively casual (Naxx, OS) raider like me is well beyond what they're up for at this stage gear/experience wise, and wasting entire evenings on this doesn't work when I'd also like to use the time I have for dailies/rep grinding BC factions.

C'est la vie.

I think you're being pretty reasonable about it. There's casual and there's full-blown suckfest. To be sure, it's all relative. Stego and company bitch about dumb people on 25 man Yogg-Saron, whereas for me it's 10 man Antechamber or Keeper hijinx, but both of these are better than an epic failure of a Naxxramas run at this stage of the game. Honestly, I don't even know how people in shitty gear can only manage to do 1200 DPS or less on boss fights. I guess I've progressed far enough where 2100 DPS or so is the threshold where someone is tolerably bad and anything below that is unfathomable.

We did an off night Maly 10 last night because we never made it to Malygos before Ulduar came out, and even since we'd only gone in twice and killed Maly when he wasn't there. Not enough people show up so we pull in a guy who's in my RP guild. The guy is about a step above a huntard, but gets knocked back down a peg because he fits the stereotype of "RPer who is bad at raiding." For the longest time he had a belt with spellpower on it because he liked the stamina and intellect, and you have to inspect him every time to make sure he's remembered to put on useful trinkets. You see him with the cannonmaster trinket or the one that makes everybody dance. He sucks and he's a duplicitous fuck who is all smiles when a chick is around and is an asshole otherwise (then they all talk about what a nice guy he is). Even he gets 1700. And that was with standing around like an idiot in phase 2 because he didn't realize he could attack the guys on the platforms, even though we told him six times that ranged can attack the scions.

For all that, I think the thing that makes it crazy is that the guild leader blamed it all on the tanks. I mean, come on. That's where I would have quit too. :P

[Lyanna Stark]

We took Yoggie tonight FINALLY. We got 4 brain phases, but due to gear, we could just muscle our way through P3. Not the neatest take down, but hey, it worked. :)

Once he hit 10% we just screwed the adds and nuked his arse. Cycled sacrifice, PS, angel, shield wall etc on tanks and got him with at least 30 sec to spare before enrage.

Just chill a little on expectations that under geared, less motivated raiders can step up to the higher hurdle that is 25 man Ulduar and cakewalk through it.

Dude, our raiders OVERGEAR it, they're just being thick. Really, they have no excuse. The proof is that we did Yoggie despite 4 brain phases since they mistimed the BL and still just muscled our way through it. The minimum gear level for us is full Naxx/EotS 25, but most are at least partly decked out in Ulduar 25 gear. One of our hunters got his last bit of Tier 8.5 tonight.

Also, since it's clearly stated when people apply for our guild that we expect them to be interested in raiding and actually make the effort, I can't see that they have an excuse for just being, well, lazy, unmotivated and destroying the game for their guild members, who actually know what's going on and what is needed.

Lyanna, what's amusing to me is that your guild problems are the same shit virtually every company has to deal with. Shit people who underperform, don't keep up with the industry, job, do the bare minimum, and expect lifetime guarenteed employment and massive raises every year. You gotta shitcan the poor performers.

Yeah, tell me about it. :lol:

Well, luckily, the holy priest with 8 dispels is taking "a wow break", so we're rid of her for a while. :P

[RaceBannon42]

We took Yoggie tonight FINALLY. We got 4 brain phases, but due to gear, we could just muscle our way through P3. Not the neatest take down, but hey, it worked. :)

Once he hit 10% we just screwed the adds and nuked his arse. Cycled sacrifice, PS, angel, shield wall etc on tanks and got him with at least 30 sec to spare before enrage.

Grats!