WoW - March to Gnomer

[Poobah]

In the new expansion they are swapping the word 'emblem' for the word 'point' but it will basically be the same thing. There will always be two Tiers of Emblems/Points/Magical gear buying pixie dust "Emblems of Frost"/"Valor Points"/"Current Tier Raiding Points" and "Emblems of Triumph"/"Hero Points"/"Points you get from all non-current Tier raids and heroic dungeons".

[Angeleyes]

I'm only Lvl 29 right now, so I should stfu. But Emblems? Huh? New stuff? I thought they are going to change that with the new add-on. Something about points to buy gear and stuff. Oh well - you should never stop playing - too many changes.

Congratulations Maaka!

In years past, raid progression worked such that it was very hard to 'jump in' if you had a new character at max level. You would have to slowly gear through the older raids until you were able to pull your own weight on milk runs in the new ones.

In Wrath, there have been 4 raid tiers.

Naxxramas; iLvl 200/213

Ulduar; iLvl 219/229

Trial of The Crusader; iLvl 232/245

and Finally Icecrown Citadel; iLvl 251, 264

Instead of making players gear through all of them when they reach 80, Blizzard has given characters the ability to earn 3-5 Emblems of Triumph from each Heroic Dungeon in the game by killing its bosses. Along with 2 Emblems of Frost each day. Triumphs are used to purchase iLvl 232 gear and Frost for iLvl 251/264 gear. This way you can be mildly geared up, at least enough to start pugging into later raids after a week or two of seeing the heroic 80 content.

In Cataclysm they will be changing Emblems to Points.

[PhelanArcetus]

My guild dropped about 2/3 the chart (afks and gay) when the GM's ex boyfriend finally left guild. We hadn't even been pulling raids together, then suddenly we raided and made progress. Though we're back into a slump prompted partly by disinterest on the part of multiple players.

Guilds may care to gear up their newer raiders, or they may just want to demand people gear themselves up. But when you're trying to just get part of Trial of the Crusader for a weekly quest, say... well sure, you can do it in a pick up group. Except expect the leader, who doesn't care about the people he's looking for to fill out the group, to demand everyone surpass a certain gear/skill threshold. He can't measure skill, so he measures gear.

Expect him to fail to find a group that fails even if he demands (and gets his way with) everyone wearing ICC25 gear for Naxx10 (level 264 gear for content tuned to level 200 gear).

[Greywolf2375]

Expect him to fail to find a group that fails even if he demands (and gets his way with) everyone wearing ICC25 gear for Naxx10 (level 264 gear for content tuned to level 200 gear).

Sadly, this isn't hyperbole. Doing Patchwerk Must Die last week we wiped when the MT pulled the room Patchwerk is in when he pulled Patchs. I honestly think we would have been able to live through it if I'd had any mana to control the mobs, but by the time I got anything back 1/2 the raid was dead. I was just dumbfounded. 18g repair bill for a 26g quest.

[RaceBannon42]

Sadly, this isn't hyperbole. Doing Patchwerk Must Die last week we wiped when the MT pulled the room Patchwerk is in when he pulled Patchs. I honestly think we would have been able to live through it if I'd had any mana to control the mobs, but by the time I got anything back 1/2 the raid was dead. I was just dumbfounded. 18g repair bill for a 26g quest.

Its reasons like this that I dont like the emblem system. Most new players don't learn how to play correctly. They faceroll to a high gearscore and think they are good. Last time I looked at WoW-Heroes I had top GS on my server, and I'm kinda terrible. Trouble is most players are way worse than that. ;)

[BlueRose]

Finally I got Sindragosa! My old guild fell apart on her, and my new guild had some attendance problems the last two weeks, but this week we had 27 or so raiders and we managed to do the weekly (XT), Vault, and ICC 25 all the way to defeating Sindy in 2 nights. I was very impressed, I think I'll stick with the new guild.

I hate GS, my server is obsessed with it. I can't raid with my alt pally because she doesnt have a high enough gear score, but I cant raise my GS if I cant raid, unless I maybe want to spend the cash to have the ICC BS gear crafted for her, and I don't. Her gear is fine and I'm not that rich, I'd rather work on a Shadow's Edge for my main.

[Angeleyes]

US-Terokkar is fairly obsessed with gear score as well.

But, we only have 4 guilds that have downed LK in 25, both Horde and Alliance side. Essentially the 3 halfway decent guilds on Horde side work together as elitists to deny gearscore problems. The average trade pug is overly concerned with gearscore, but <Eolithic> <Stormwind Mall Security> and <Synced> have really tight relationships and pug our alts around all the time. Since we can essentially guarantee the skill of anyone in those guilds, gearscore isn't ever an issue.

One of my buddies puts on an alt-pug for icc 25 every Friday night that is 11/12 XD

Then my guild leader will run a GDKP for anyone who missed out saturday nights along with a few select anchors with money. That one normally gets 6/12 with heroic funship and about 3,000 gold per person.

So... make it work on your server that way and you are set. Our server has quite a nice spot at the top for those of us with the leetness and epeens to bask in the glow of the sun on their backs. :smoking:

[RaceBannon42]

I'm all for using a persons gear for getting a rough idea about them. But gear score just uses i level. I could wear all 264 i level spellpower gear and have a good gear score, but I'd suck as enhancement. I'd rather see if they itemize correctly, gem correctly, and enchant properly, if at all.

[Inigima]

I'm all for using a persons gear for getting a rough idea about them. But gear score just uses i level. I could wear all 264 i level spellpower gear and have a good gear score, but I'd suck as enhancement. I'd rather see if they itemize correctly, gem correctly, and enchant properly, if at all.

I agree, and wow-heroes is actually pretty good about that. Might give that a look if you haven't. Gives a rough estimate of what they're geared for, and shows what each piece of gear is, its iLvl and where it's from, and whether it's gemmed and enchanted properly (or if it's missing gems or enchants). It also recommends possible upgrades, gems and enchants. Still, it can be a handy "quick look" if you're careful about it.

After a while of course you start to know who on your realm is worth a damn.

[Poobah]

The Elitist Armoury that MMO champ linked is really really good, it seems to be back up and now I've checked it out I'd say it's more useful than WoW-Heroes for getting a swift and accurate overview.

[Kymeera]

Just a friendly reminder to people to pick up an authenticator if you don't have one. People have been getting hacked left and right lately, including many in my own guild, and none of them have authenticators attached to their accounts. It's always the same story. "I don't know how it happened! I run an anti-virus, don't visit suspicious sites, and don't download suspicious apps." They're only a few bucks, and if you have an iPhone I believe they're free. Blizzard will restore your stuff if you get hacked, but it'll take a week or so. It's worth saving yourself the aggravation.

[jurble]

My GM's in Alpha, and he says the Alpha forums are full of people with 2 major gripes: Resilience and Guilds. First, many, many guilds (including mine) are having problems with attendance. We raid on tuesdays and that's it. The GM and those of us who care can't think how to get people to show up any other day. We say "no loot" they pug it. We gkick them, the new guys we get are the same. There's 5 horde guilds with hardmode progression on my server, that's like what? 150 players? The rest of the server just doesn't give a damn apparently. The other Horde guilds (and Alliance) have the same attendance issues. It's that we're bad players, people just don't show up. Take Sind, the last boss we got weeks ago, on normal. We'd been at 10/12 for months, but we'd never get any Sind attempts in. So a few weeks ago, my Guild leader decided to save the lock into the next week, and we actually killed Sind on a tuesday! How about that? It was a three-shot, but still. We'd had maybe one full day of practice six days before, on one of our rare Wednesday raids. And then the whiners gquit saying how they still need gear, and that LK was impossible since we're all under-geared (most people are >6k gs at this point in my guild and on the server in general). What is that bullshit? Not just my guild, every other Horde guild has these problems, even the 5 with actual progression. They have to keep recruitment since people just want free rides. Alliance on my server is even worse than Horde so I hear.

And now, I'm learning this is a problem with quite a few guilds on other servers. The talk on the Alpha forum is, badge gear makes people lazy + hardmodes make people lazy. That is to say, average scrub doesn't care about progression because it's all the same to him, he doesn't want to wipe on a boss for hours, he just wants to kill a boss - and see the boss. To the average scrub, there's no difference, it's about seeing the boss in and of itself. Maybe the 10/25 man changes will fix this, but I still think hardmodes are a dumb concept. Should just be one mode, and if the casual players want gear they ought to be willing to wipe for it. I mean god damn, in Vanilla, my guild would spend weeks trying to progress in molten core, and every raid day, whether or not bosses were down, there were 80 people trying to get into a raid, since MC wasn't pug-able at that point.

Second, a lot of people have gripes with resilience. Back in Vanilla, the only reason I wanted to get PvE gear was so I could go smash Alliance faces. Now, I understand resilience in one regard - my warrior had 30% in Vanilla, and that was a lot of Crit back then. I got to rank 13 btw, that shiiiit was awesome. Playing WoW nearly 17 hours a day, just 5-capping AB's, and WSG occasionally. Before x-server bg's you knew all the Allies you were fighting against, and it was awesome because you knew they were crying irl 'cuz of you rofl-stomping them. Especially the Alliance Marshal group. They had like 30 minute queues (since the Alliance to Horde ratio was like 4:1 pre-Blood Elves) and we had instant queues, so making them lose after waiting that long was sweet. But yeah, with 30% crit I could tear the face off of undergeared scrubs, and even geared cloth. It'd be charge (or intercept) mortal strike, whirlwind, done. God, those were the days. Resil is necessary for an Arena, I guess, to better balance something like a warrior vs. a mage. But in a BG, resil just makes things last longer than they should. BG's are about objectives - capping flags and holding bases. HK's are ancillary. My Warlord group never farmed HK's, we'd just push the Alliance back, cap stables, and hold them up in their little spawn point. It was about winning the BG. Moreover, the health differences between classes have declined a lot since Vanilla. I no longer have like 3-4x as much health a mage. I couldn't 3 shot a mage if I wanted to (I guess, I don't play a warrior anymore).

But yeah. I share those gripes too, if you couldn't tell. Not a fan of casual gamers at all, or pandering to them. ICC should not be pug-able. It just shouldn't. It's the concept of the thing. MC wasn't pug-able until well after AQ 20 and ZG started feeding scrubs free epics. Even then, those pugs had mains carrying them damage-wise. BWL was never pugged on my server, with a real pug, maybe pick-ups from Naxx guilds on an off-day on their alts or mains. But otherwise, no way. Honestly, right now, I don't know how to fix my guild's problems. The talent pool is completely empty of any competent player willing to actually raid any day but Tuesday for free loot and badges.

[Snarfy]

I agree with most of what you said (cept the resilance) since ive been there before, but the problem is you pay the same amount of money as the casual player and they outnumber you a thousand to 1. Blizz just went where the money was.

[Kymeera]

The other Horde guilds (and Alliance) have the same attendance issues. It's that we're bad players, people just don't show up.

Sounds like your server needs some guild mergers.

[Poobah]

Are any of those of you with serious raiding guilds european? I think I might need a new guild. Two officers in our guild including one tank have over the weekend made posts on our forum and become social members because they don't feel they have the time to play any more, and one (tank/dps) has made a very similar post, but them server/namechanged and joined another higher-ranked guild, running off in the process with 4/5ths of our second Shadowmourne. That betrayal is really hurting me right now and looking around our guild a lot of people are feeling pretty stunned, plus losing one tank, and having one tank go social seriously hinders our ability to continue progressing on LK25H. At the best we would need to recruit new people which would further fracture our guild's close-knit core membership, since we were playing and progressing as much to play together as for any other reason, but now?

I dunno. I'm feeling really betrayed and depressed and angry and conflicted really. Help :(

[Tyrellius]

Poobs, check out Sylvanas and the guilds Anointed and Kill Loot Repeat. Both guilds have been around for ages and are still doing HM currently. Both are semi hardcore, with Anointed being the more relaxed outta the pair Summer is just around the corner so most guilds are going to be having attendance issues.

I've been in both, Anointed from MC raiding days and KLR from wipes on Mother Shahraz (when it was still called iddqd - screw that stupid name change). Both are good guilds with good (deranged and slightly mad) people.

[TerraPrime]

Are any of those of you with serious raiding guilds european? I think I might need a new guild. Two officers in our guild including one tank have over the weekend made posts on our forum and become social members because they don't feel they have the time to play any more, and one (tank/dps) has made a very similar post, but them server/namechanged and joined another higher-ranked guild, running off in the process with 4/5ths of our second Shadowmourne. That betrayal is really hurting me right now and looking around our guild a lot of people are feeling pretty stunned, plus losing one tank, and having one tank go social seriously hinders our ability to continue progressing on LK25H. At the best we would need to recruit new people which would further fracture our guild's close-knit core membership, since we were playing and progressing as much to play together as for any other reason, but now?

I dunno. I'm feeling really betrayed and depressed and angry and conflicted really. Help :(

Ugh. Sorry to hear.

Guild drahmah is the best drahmah.

[Cuellar]

Got my stuff back.

I installed Norton 360 on my WoW computer, and suprise suprise, not a single virus or item found. I have McCaffee running on my work laptop, and need to run Norton on my old-old computer (maybe I logged in months ago)... otherwise I still have no idea how the hell I got hacked.

Oh well, installing the serial thing to lock down my account, but I'm more worried about bank data and real world shit being stolen than my wow account.

[WhiteHaven]

Is there any way to transtfer your char to a UK realm? Would be awesome to play with some guys from Westeros, you know.

[Inigima]

FYI, lots of us play on non-UK realms as well.