[WoW] Raids now and in WoTLK

[Pyros]

Originally Posted by Zehn - Vhex

When healing the only thing I really need is grid and pally power. Most of it's just a matter of convenience. Function over form and all that.

It's more for when I'm tanking and need to watch for more shit.

All things considered it could be worse. I could have Censura's UI.

I think the only really terrible thing in your UI are the big action bars in bottom right corner, way too big, you probably don't need to see even half of them ^^. Other than that, looks pretty normal for a wow UI, as long as 70% of your screen shows what's going on, I don't see an issue with it. Some people like ultra minimalistic UIs though.

[Zehn - Vhex]

I play from a recliner about 10 feet away from my screen so I ginormized pretty much everything. I could just buy a bigger monitor but meh.

[FoghornDeadhorn]

Originally Posted by Ephron

I'm not seeking to find out the differences between X a year ago and X now as much as just what perspective do raiders have of the end game in WoW.

Giant crotches.

[Fadaar]

I'd post my UI but I would give everyone seizures. Think Zehn's UI but about 10x worse.

[Erumaron]

I just did the reroll thing and It's funny how the requirements to run heroics/Karazhan have changed. I understand that people like to roflstomp places but some people take it pretty far. I rolled a prot pally and I've pushed the pre-kara/badge gear about as far as I can w/ spell dmg and trying to push crushing blows off and all of that stuff. I sit at 11k HP and have been turned down based on that number alone for *Regular* Magister's Terrace by pugs (What's also funny on that is that I went in with an equally geared healer to myself and our CC sucked, so I took to just AE tanking that whole last pull before kael'thas' room and it went flawlessly) I usually just lol and go about my business when people but man. tl;dr blah blah...moral of the story is, rerolling on a server where you don't know anybody at the end of an expansion is painful. Anybody play on Alleria?

[Gnome Eater]

If, like most people on this board, you have friends in high end guilds, you can outfit rerolls in decent gear in a week's time or so. Drag them along a Sunwell/BT clear, drop all the tier6 on them, and they are ready to come along, not like anyone needs set armor anymore.

If you have no friends and are rerolling from scratch, once you hit 70 it will take a while to gear up through heroics/badges, but you can get very good gear without every stepping foot into a 25 man raid. You can gear yourself where you are ready for any fight in game with just ZA loot + badges.

About the cost of raiding - our guild bank is not nearly as stacked as FoH's, but we still try to provide as many flasks as possible and we fully pay for repairs/enchants. Selling patterns/hearts/gems makes money fast.

[Chaid]

Originally Posted by Ephron

1) How long does it take to gear yourself out on badges once you can do heroics?

I rerolled fresh ~8 weeks ago and joined RL friends who are 9/9 BT 2/6 Sunwell. 4.5 Altazhan runs, 1 BT, a pug Mag/Gruul and a pile of heroics later I've spent 265 badges and picked up 2T6 rot loot. Without joining friends already established on a server I might have picked up as many badges, but it would have been painful. I make no illusions about raiding progression content as an undergeared feral. Learning a new class, a new role (tanking) and establishing myself as a competent/reliable player were my goals. Expectations higher than that aren't realistic with WotLK on the not-so-distant horizon, IMHO.

[Lejina Bloodbath]

Originally Posted by Erumaron

I just did the reroll thing and It's funny how the requirements to run heroics/Karazhan have changed. I understand that people like to roflstomp places but some people take it pretty far. I rolled a prot pally and I've pushed the pre-kara/badge gear about as far as I can w/ spell dmg and trying to push crushing blows off and all of that stuff. I sit at 11k HP and have been turned down based on that number alone for *Regular* Magister's Terrace by pugs (What's also funny on that is that I went in with an equally geared healer to myself and our CC sucked, so I took to just AE tanking that whole last pull before kael'thas' room and it went flawlessly) I usually just lol and go about my business when people but man. tl;dr blah blah...moral of the story is, rerolling on a server where you don't know anybody at the end of an expansion is painful. Anybody play on Alleria?

I'm on Alleria horde side, used to be on alliance side.

The quality of the dps folks in pugs is very hit and miss. Sometimes they won't miss a loose mob, nova shit running for the healer, fear-CoR extra mobs and mind control adds and other times they just can't cc shit to save their life. Non pure dps classes who realise they have weak heals and can save the day with them are an even rarer breed. I've done Karazhan with a pug a few weeks ago and even with 3 priests, 2 hunters and 1 lock nothing could be CC'ed at all, after 2 attempts I just said fuck it and tanked all 5 mobs of Moroes at once then did the same for the remaining of the instances.

Yesterday there was someone in trade chat yelling they were looking for a tank for kara and that he'd check up their armory before inviting. I looked up the guy and that was a 0-21-40 destro lock with 640 spell damage and 14% crit. It's like the entire responsability of everything is put on the tank and nothing should be expected from the dps folks: when a destro lock in green gear is talking shit and expecting to have a T6 equivalent tank for his kara run, you go hummm. I routinely outdps pure dps classes with my prot paladin; behold my massive 340dps of doom, but apparently it doesn't matter for the average pug or even raid. Average damage output outside of the strong established raiding guild is about 550-600dps with a complete ass uptime.

On the upside, I can't log on my mage or protadin for more than 15min without getting invites for 5, 10 and 25 mans. When you're in a sea of incompetence, if you show you can get the job done and do it well, you're pretty much a living god.

[Lusiphur]

Originally Posted by Lejina Bloodbath

I'm on Alleria horde side, used to be on alliance side.

The quality of the dps folks in pugs is very hit and miss. Sometimes they won't miss a loose mob, nova shit running for the healer, fear-CoR extra mobs and mind control adds and other times they just can't cc shit to save their life. Non pure dps classes who realise they have weak heals and can save the day with them are an even rarer breed. I've done Karazhan with a pug a few weeks ago and even with 3 priests, 2 hunters and 1 lock nothing could be CC'ed at all, after 2 attempts I just said fuck it and tanked all 5 mobs of Moroes at once then did the same for the remaining of the instances.

Yesterday there was someone in trade chat yelling they were looking for a tank for kara and that he'd check up their armory before inviting. I looked up the guy and that was a 0-21-40 destro lock with 640 spell damage and 14% crit. It's like the entire responsability of everything is put on the tank and nothing should be expected from the dps folks: when a destro lock in green gear is talking shit and expecting to have a T6 equivalent tank for his kara run, you go hummm. I routinely outdps pure dps classes with my prot paladin; behold my massive 340dps of doom, but apparently it doesn't matter for the average pug or even raid. Average damage output outside of the strong established raiding guild is about 550-600dps with a complete ass uptime.

On the upside, I can't log on my mage or protadin for more than 15min without getting invites for 5, 10 and 25 mans. When you're in a sea of incompetence, if you show you can get the job done and do it well, you're pretty much a living god.

Or more accurately, geared AE tanks are living gods. After all why go into a 5 man with a non pally tank ? Like ever. Its literally 20 - 30 minute saving in time even with a really competent group. With DK's being more of the same it will be ferals and warriors who will be LFG a lot.

Add to that the approx 90pc of DK's who will be DEEPEESSS DK's (and all the pallies going ret) and will refuse to tank and if anything Blizzard has made the tanking issue worse, not better (At least for 5 mans).

Raids will still go with established tanks (our warrior MT is a god amongst men) but after the first run of any 5 man people just want to get that shit done as fast as they can.

[Emrok]

lol @ decent players not making it into groups.

i've been turned down by heroic mag pug's because my dps "isnt going to be good enough"

The World of Warcraft Armory

yes lol ret pal... but still...

[The Ancient]

In certain respects though it must nice to play a class where the complete idiots who you don't want to group with are nice enough to prevent you from grouping with them. After they turn you down, maybe they pick up me but I don't realize until 30 minutes into the instance that not only run is going to continue to be miserable as fuck, but it's going to take 2-3x longer than it should.

[Sharmai]

The Ancient if your a CC/Tank/Healing class then you just leave. I tank on my druid and if a group wipes on the first pull I leave unless its a damn good reason.

If the healer starts bitching that my health is going down to fast (I'm Kara epic'ed on my druid) then I'm out.

If the mage keeps sheeping the target after it gets well within my swipe range. I leave.

If the rogue goes AFK after every pull and we have to whisper him to get him to sap before every pull. I leave.

If the hunter doesn't know how to distract a mob onto his frost trap. I leave.

If the group kills things in whatever attack order it feels like or can't keep the ads down on a boss. I leave.



I use to just bitch till everyone got on the ball or till 2 hours later we finished the run. Now I just type two words..... I'm out.

[The Ancient]

Oh for certain that happens, I'm just saying being a ret pally comes with certain advantages in terms of PuGing. You know before you even set foot in the instance if you've got problem members.

crzymike whispers: wut spec are u pally?
crzymike whispers: lol k but i gonna replace u w/ friend mage if u suk

Big red "Don't Bother" sign.

[Brand]

Originally Posted by Erumaron

Anybody play on Alleria?

Yeah, Horde side. Look for sybil, or itkovian

[Danth]

"If the group kills things in whatever attack order it feels like or can't keep the ads down on a boss. I leave."

Although I'm presently on hiatus from Warcraft...

I joke that other tanks hate me but don't know it. I frequently tell the damage-dealers in my groups to attack whatever they feel like at their discretion. That goes for CC too; I'll let those Mages sheep stuff or the Hunters trap stuff even if it isn't necessary because maybe they find it more fun than just pressing 2-2-2-2 for 45 minutes. Besides, I like a little of what I call 'controlled chaos'. It might keep an instance fun for fifteen or twenty trips instead of getting boring after only three or four.

In some cases, the 'bad' players weed themselves out. Sometimes people leave groups I form when they notice that oftentimes I don't ask what talent specs people are--or, in some cases, even check what class ("Group needs 1 more, don't care what so long as you have a pulse and an IQ higher than that of a squirrel!"). Apparently some folks are hesitant to do fairly simple stuff without having a 'perfect' group; I figure I'd rather not group with them anyway and just invite someone else.

As everyone posting here knows, Warcraft's combat system places lopsided emphasis on the tank and healer. I play a tank, my wifey plays a healer, and if you give us one competent additional player, then the other two group spots could be filled by partially-trained chimpanzees and it wouldn't matter most the time. I'm not sure whether that's a good thing or not. It seemed like any time I started to think that responsibility for success should be spread out more, I got one of those groups that reminds me that I do not *want* to be particularly reliant on the Warcraft player base.

The 10-man raid sizes in WOTLK interest me more than any other single feature of the upcoming expansion. I've never enjoyed raiding and never will--I'm strictly a group player--so smaller is better in my book. 10 is small enough that I barely even consider it 'raiding'.

Class improvements are merely icing on the cake. To which I ask to players currently in beta: Are resto druids still utterly reliant on heal-over-time spells and twice as hard to play effectively as any other healer? My wife couldn't get the hang of it and switched to a Shaman for TBC content, but her heart still lies with the Druid. If I could tell her, "Honey, you'll be playing your Druid again soon!", that'd make her day.

Danth