World of Warcraft

[Poobah]

Not to mention that (for us specifically) a recruit has to pass the exacting task of not offending our GM, which means absolutely no:

- gearscore talk that's not derisive

- racism, sexism, homophobia

- use of the word 'sup'

- txt abbreviations

- exploiting in any form

- being a tool (bashing people because they're undergeared, blaming other people for mistakes clearly your own fault, etc)

Now normally all you'd need to do to fulfill these criteria is to be a reasonable human being, but this is the internet, so none of those are to be found.

I fail on #1 every time. Any time anyone mentions gear score I cannot help but tell them what a horrible useless piece of shit it is.

[GoN]

35th in the world in 10 man strict progression :smoking:

I think we 10 man raid because there are only about 13 people in the game everyone in the guild can stand to play with. If there were 26 of us, I'm sure we'd 25man raid, but as there isn't...

I'm really happy with the way things are for us. If I'm going to spend this much time playing a game, I damn sure better like the folks I'm spending all that time with.

We're continuing our going in blind strategy (does that count as a strategy?) We spent a couple of hours on Arthas on Sunday, getting as far as phase 3. But as our defacto GM pointed out, that could be 3 of 4, 3of 6, or 3 of 13.

Don't tell me, I don't want to know. :D

[Weak With The Dawn]

I might fail on 'sup, occasionally. And I talk derisively of gearscore itself at times.

I doubt we qualified as a strict 10 man guild even before we started the joint ToC runs; while the guild itself is too small to run 25s (and barely enough for 10s), we have a few people who regularly find themselves 25-mans outside of the guild raid times.

I'm generally ok doing 25-man pugs that are fast; Ony, VoA, Sarth, sometimes ToC. I don't like the larger volume of people (often idiots and jerks), I guess I dislike the reduction in camaraderie (at least in a semi-pug group), and the increase in competition for drops, as well as the boosted stress I put on myself as tank or healer, and the reduced sense of importance as dps. Otherwise, I much prefer to stick to 10s.

If your 25 man rank is lower then your 10 man and you don't have more then 8 people with ICC 25 achievements then you count as 10 strict IIRC.

Personally I would love to roll into 25's but there are a number of officers who would rather not, so..well there we are. I've actually been feeling disenchanted with the whole 10 man game and have been considering joining another guild, but, well, it's hard to leave friends "and Raid Leader status) behind. So for now I'll play the 10 strict game and do the best I can. Thankfully VoA doesn't count so I can at least get two pieces of 25 man gear. :blush:

[emberling]

PhelanArcetus/Poobah: You are not failing, then. What is unacceptable is anyone who takes gearscore seriously; as such, any mention of gearscore that does not make fun of the entire concept of gearscore ("gearsnore") in some way is forbidden.

Among new faces, anyway. We know where the established people stand on their philosophical view of the matter, so we're comfortable enough joking about how much gearscore our shiny new Corpse Tongue Coin, or mail DPS item for a deathknight, or Wrathful PvP item is giving us. And then we go kill BQL with healers in basically heroic badge gear at best.

[Tongue Stuck to Wall]

I just leveled a retnoob Pally to 80 in my first crack at the game, but it was all PvE and BG. I therefore have minimal instance experience, so I'm wondering if it's best to stick with this toon or re-roll and try somebody new so I can learn instancing progressively (which I don't mind doing)?

[Tyrellius]

Was kicked out of a VOA group for only having 4500GS.

Twats.

[emberling]

Instancing is easier at 80 than at any other level. It's all pretty much trivialized by either gear or the changes that talent trees have gone through, depending on the instance. But earlier instances tend to be much longer and people don't know them as well, and the people who don't know how to play are much more spectacularly bad.

The main benefits of re-leveling in order to learn how to play in groups are:

- People are less likely (but not by a huge amount) to bitch you out when you make a mistake, seeing as the standards of acceptable play are lower at lower levels. Many people have unrealistic expectations and expect, say, a level 15 mage to be a reroll of a person who has 3 years of mage experience, though; nothing will protect you from this. (Though on the other side, as a person with 3 years or so of warrior experience that just finished leveling a new warrior to 80, it sure is nice to get the tells from people who are amazed at how awesome you are.)

- If you're interested in a role other than just damage, you need either a patient mentor, a very solid amount of dungeon experience so that you know generally what those people are expected to do, or to start from the beginning. Preferably all three. Healing is probably much easier to pick up with just a vague idea of what you're meant to do, but on the other hand, it's by far the worse to jump straight into at 80. Healing gets more complex as you increase in level or progression, while tanking and DPS mostly stay the same in their general principles. That is to say, if at level 15 you kill things, and at level 50 you have to kill things while not standing in fire: the tanks and DPS only have the added element of not standing in the fire, while the healer has to stand in places other than fire and heal the damage incurred by the idiot tank and DPS standing in fire, while also healing the regular damage. Oh, and you have to dispel flame buffet so the fire does less damage, and switch to FR aura/totem, both of which are doable by certain tanks/dps but if they fail to do so and just faceroll while slowly dying, the loss will be blamed on you.

Oh, and you probably already know this, but please gain a basic understanding of loot rules. If it's not blue or purple, you should push Greed (coins) or Disenchant (broken sword thing) in almost all cases. If it's blue or purple, and Bind on Pickup (gold dragon border), push Need (dice) if you want to use it. Some people consider it polite to ask before pushing Need. I consider it impolite to ask before pushing Need, because that slows things down for no purpose. Since you can now trade this item to someone else in the group for the next two hours, if there is some reason why another person who rolled need on the item might deserve it more than you (for instance, if it is a healing item and they are healing), you should offer to give the item to the more deserving person, and do so if they accept. Try to do this before they start screaming obscenities and drop group or votekick you.*

If it's blue or purple, and Bind on Equip (no special border), it's usually, but not always, considered stealing to push anything but Greed (or Disenchant, if you hate money). The best practice is to ask first or see what everyone else does. One notable exception (at least on my BG) is the Battered Hilt, which everyone rolls need on, because... just because. Nobody wants to push greed on 10k+ gold and have some dumbshit who's already wearing one grab it at the last moment. If the item in question is one that you would use, suggested practice is to ask politely if the group minds your taking it, and then EQUIP THE ITEM SO THAT THEY KNOW YOU AREN'T GOING TO PUT IT ON THE AUCTION HOUSE. This last step is fairly important in my opinion.

If an item is green and you want to equip it, simply roll Need, but only if you are under level 80. If you are level 80, you will replace it within an hour, and as such it is somewhere between rude and thievery to take priority on it. This applies to only regular equipment; special items such as Tabard of the Scarlet Crusade follow the rules for blues/purples.

No, you do not need tradeskill materials. If you roll need on tradeskill materials, you are a thief. If you ask permission to roll need on tradeskill materials, and are granted it, you are a thief stealing from four morons.

At lower levels, the protocol on trade patterns is to ask permission to roll need if you are the appropriate profession. After a certain level (somewhere between 60 and 71), trade patterns typically only are available to roll on if you are the appropriate profession; this is typically fairly awkward as you have no idea who or how many people you might be rolling against. I typically just hit greed on these.

[Tongue Stuck to Wall]

Great response, thank you! I was indeed specifically concerned about walking into a dungeon and ruining everyone's experience Including my own), but I feel a little more confident after your comments. I've had a little bit of dps and tanking experience--holding aggro on 'Drek in AV, etc., so I think I will stick with the Pally and just be up front that I'm new when I enter a dungeon. Thanks too for the advice regarding loot protocols, I'm sure this will save me considerable friction when the time comes. :)

[Shryke]

This image must be shared (those who didn't raid back in Vanilla may not get it):

http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l55/whatupbiotch/Funny%20Pic/boss.jpg

Haven't laughed this hard in awhile.

[Greywolf2375]

Well, Putricide finally died and it sounds like we've switched to the strat above - group up on the green and nuke it. Though it still was able to reach it's ranged target a couple times and blow up.

Tanked right side on Dreamwalker and it sucked. Not sure what the hell was going on, but targeting mobs was not happening. I'd target, my target would switch. Target again, target would drop. At one point screen froze with no mobs on my screen, but could hear people saying mobs were moving. Don't know if it was my pc or if it was associated to the ridiculous lag/DC's thing that has been going on. Blew ass though.

[Kymeera]

This image must be shared (those who didn't raid back in Vanilla may not get it):

http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l55/whatupbiotch/Funny%20Pic/boss.jpg

Haven't laughed this hard in awhile.

Lies. Nobody brought a non-resto druid on a raid!

[Minaku]

This image must be shared (those who didn't raid back in Vanilla may not get it):

http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l55/whatupbiotch/Funny%20Pic/boss.jpg

Haven't laughed this hard in awhile.

OMG! I was that watercooler! And that was always my sheep. Or pig, because people broke the damn sheep and I told them on Vent that if they touched my pig I would cut them.

[RaceBannon42]

We played so frickin horribly last night.

I'm glad DS yelled at people, cause I'm tired of doing it. I want to go back to being the good cop. :/

[PhelanArcetus]

Yeah that picture is pretty spot on for Vanilla raiding.

If you want to heal, Paladins are probably the easiest to pick it up on, just because they have so few spells to heal with. Granted, healing damage to multiple people sucks as a paladin, and makes you wish you had Circle of Healing or Wild Growth or Chain Heal or something, but there's no getting overwhelmed by the number of options like with a priest.

It's probably best to learn about dungeons as an 80 dps; some specs, Retribution included, suffer badly at lower levels because key talents aren't yet available. For example, a ret paladin without Judgments of the Wise will run out of mana and be useless very early in a fight. Crusader Strike, Divine Storm, and Art of War are other truly critical talents that affect what you can do.

We were short two people last night, so instead of doing Dreamwalker (we didn't feel like pugging 2 people and talking them into getting locked to what might be a no-kills night), we banged out Vault and an alt-ToC10. Then it was time for randoms and two more VoA runs on my paladin. No loot, the idiot mage in my Old Kingdom cost me the Respect Your Elders achievement by dpsing the guardian when we said we were doing the achievement, but got all my emblems and a round of tournament dailies done as well.

[Inigima]

kurokaze has given good advice. I will note that generally I don't give a shit if people roll need on materials at non-80 levels provided they're of the profession to use them. No one else really uses that shit at that level anyway. I roll Need on Books of Glyph Mastery on my scribe, and before I do I say in party chat "needing, [inscription]" and wait a few seconds to see if anyone has a problem with it. So far, no one has.

You'll be fine DPSing at 80 in dungeons for the first time, with a few caveats:

- Check a site like elitistjerks.com to make sure your talent build (and your rotation, but retadin rotation is retardedly simple) aren't horrifically gimping your DPS. I am assuming you have learned how to properly gear your paladin by now, but if not, get that info there too.

- You may want to fess up if it's your first time somewhere; you can probably just do that on the ICC 5-mans, though (Forge of Souls, Pit of Saron, Halls of Reflection). Those three have gimmicks where you can get your entire group killed, which they'll mind a lot more than you just getting yourself killed. Then hopefully people in your group will explain for you.

- Don't stand in fire, or anything else. If it's appearing on the ground, you probably don't want to be in it. (Exception: Malygos in Eye of Eternity.) The void zones in the beginning of Drak'Tharon Keep come to mind.

EDIT: For ease of healing, most classes are pretty easy to pick up at low levels. Oddly, I'd say priests are maybe the least intuitive when you're just starting out.

[RaceBannon42]

Yeah they key to the game is know what to stand in and what not to stand in. Like on Hodir, you WANT to stand in the fires... I mean WTF is up with that?

[Inigima]

Ah, didn't know that. Never done Ulduar.

Oh, other helpful tips:

- Kill casters first, almost always. There are a few special mobs that should be targeted first no matter what -- Skirmishers in Azjol-Nerub for example. Often the tank will mark these with a skull.

- If you aren't sure what to hit, hitting the target of the tank (press F) is usually a safe bet.

[Weak With The Dawn]

This image must be shared (those who didn't raid back in Vanilla may not get it):

http://i93.photobuck...%20Pic/boss.jpg

Haven't laughed this hard in awhile.

My old roommate had this as his background a few years ago. I think my 3 favorite parts are the dots on the boss, the savory delights and of course, our favorite water coolers :-).

[PhelanArcetus]

Hitting the tank's target is better now than it was in BC; now that we can generate meaningful AoE threat on stuff without tab-targeting non-stop... I used to have people assist off of me and end up on 3 different targets because they each assisted at a slightly different time.

Ret paladins are pretty easy; not as easy, say, as a BC-era BM hunter who basically had one skill to hit, but pretty easy. I generally consider the talent build to be pretty hard to mess up, but then I find the ret paladin dpsing with Seal of Wisdom because she doesn't have Judgments of the Wise.

Here's the basic talent build. I've left a couple of points blank, and the Improved Blessing of Might points can be moved, but that's all the essentials for Ret. I like to put the rest of mine into Pursuit of Justice, Vindication, Divine Purpose, and then Guardian's Favor (in Protection); this gives me some runspeed, a little more survival, and some utility.

Ret's rotation is called First Come First Serve, with clash resolution; essentially, hit whatever is available right now. If multiple skills are available, pick between them in this order. There's actually an add-on that does this pretty nicely: clcret. You can adjust the priority, as your gear changes. As a fresh 80, Judgment > Crusader Strike > Divine Storm > Consecration > Exorcism, basically.

Seal of Command for groups and Seal of Vengeance for individual mobs (sometimes Seal of Righteousness is better on singles, depending how long they're going to live; generally it's not worth worrying about).

[Inigima]

Note that if you are Horde instead of filthy Alliance it is called Seal of Corruption instead of Seal of Vengeance.