Epic Flying – Irrelevant?
On the road to 80 I did not have many set goals for my professions besides them being a supplemental money earning thing. It was not until my priest became a scribe and alchemist that my main became a true farming toon. I had been advised to pick up skinning and mining as professions and it served me well in keeping some money in the bank while I leveled, however they are not complementary to make real gold in game. I decided to switch Logtar to be a flower child and miner and he became “the grinder”. While those two don’t totally compliment raiding for the extra stats, I had to make the sacrifice. Even in a low population server you still have to wrestle for a node from time to time and a priest was just not going to cut it as a farmer.
When I had the money I dropped the 5K gold to get epic flying. The primary reason was from getting quicker to and from places, instances, farming, dailies. It was a necessary evil, because 5 K are not easy to grind when your main farming toon is constantly getting tells to tank something. Ever since I dropped that much gold on epic flying I have been dreading leveling other toons because once you fly that fast is hard to get on a slow mount… then travel in the WoW became irrelevant for most toons.
I don’t see a reason for getting epic flying on all my toons anymore. The gathering toon needs it to be effective, but once I have mats my crafters can sit happy in Dalaran and do their thing… you need to raid? you get summoned, you que up, there is no travel… also my crafters won’t do dailies besides cooking and maybe fishing, but that travel is limited.
Working on my third 80 now I start to think about the money that it implies and how 5K go a lot further towards leveling professions than towards having my toon fly around in style… however, the dude is druid and flying will come “natural” but is it a priority anymore?
I am curious to hear your thoughts on this matter. Do you think that now Epic flying in all toons is kind of a mute point?
Can my tokens buy badgers?
Nuke’s comment to a previous thread made me realize that I am starting to assume that everyone is up on the WoW lingo and so lets help out a bit.
Gear in WoW comes from three main sources.
Crafting: Someone makes the stuff
Drop: You kill a dude and after decimating you something useful is left behind (where do murlocks keep their gold?)
Badges – Tokens – Honor: If the encounter did not give you a new shiny, it most likely gave you a token! WOOT (Quests, Arena and BG can also give you such things)
Gear in WoW becomes outdated every time there is a major patch. When harder content is released, all other gear currently hard to get its automatically easier to obtain. Since I have been playing WoW there are ways to obtain gear if you grind. Many pieces that are meant for PvP can be used in PvE while you get a drop or grind some more… but it applies mostly to DPS classes, and to some extent healers. Tanks are probably the hardest to gear since there are no really good PvP tanking… but that can be debated.
Right now tier 10 is what the top tier set is. The t9 set is very simple to get since all the dungeons now give you Emblems of Triumph. This set is not purchased in Dalaran, is actually sold right outside of the ToC area. There are also several pieces in between t10 and t9 that come from killing mobs in the new dungeons. If you get a toon to 80, farming the new instances every day will allow you to get geared in a quick fashion, probably the quickest that the game has allowed. Also, the Emblems are downgradable, so if there is trinket or back that might be from a lower tier set (sold in Dalaran above the portal room), you can downgrade your badges and purchase it.
This is the main reason that most raiding guilds will laugh at someone with even a set of blues for their raids. It has become pretty easy to purple yourself out in days instead of weeks like in previous iterations. I believe that it used to take even months to get just a piece in the original WoW raiding, and most people did not even get to wear purples. BC made it weeks to see a purple, and months to get a complete set… I would say about 75% of the people did not get to even see a full set, but most got at least some purples. In Wotlk getting a purple is just a matter of entering a heroic dungeon, and in days with the right grinding you can have a full set of tiered gear.
Getting items crafted is very expensive. You can sometimes get them from the auction house, but it will most likely cost you over 1K gold for any current gear. Again, since pieces will become outdated, it is likely that you can get something crafted from the previous set at a lower price. Patterns to make the best stuff come from the latest content, so it is unlikely that you will be crafting your own pieces unless you are already raiding the latest content. I would not steer you away if you have a lot of gold, but for most people this is not the route to go. Specially if you plan on actually raiding because a drop most likely will replace something that you got a week ago for 3K gold.
Drops is the best way to gear up. You have to create a list of where you can get the best gear from. Raids will obviously get you the best, but dungeons can also gear you up quite a bit and get you ready to raid. Be efficient about your time and run your toon through dungeons you actually need, unless you are still looking for tier pieces where I would suggest you get as many emblems as quickly as possible.
Once you get the gear, then you go for enchants and gems… but that is for another post and another day 
Gearing Up
The new LFG system has made it very easy to gear up… and if you want to raid, you need to first gear up.
The first step is to create a shopping list. You will want your tier gear and trinkets that will come from emblems of triumph. Be very careful when adding all 5 pieces you can get to your shopping list because
A) The bonus set (there is a 2 piece and a 4 piece set bonus) might be compromising some aspect of the build you want to use. You might be better off just planning to keep a couple of those pieces.
B) You might want to save for the most expensive piece of your set instead of getting two cheap ones if it will give you more output.
First make sure you replace your greens and blues with the purples from the regular heroics. Look at your gear and find where each piece can be replaced. Prioritize the list and then find what will replace that piece and where does it come from. Have not only a list of what can be from a drop, but what can be from emblems, and DO NOT dismiss things that you can get from the lower tiers. Some of the trinkets and backs can be quite useful even from a tier or so ago.
Armed with a shopping list you will have to grind randoms… but follow these tips.
- Get the weekly raid done. If not with your guild, pug it. So far I have not seen any boss that was impossible with a pug, except for maybe the instructor that requires people to know the fight. Patchwork, Razorscale, Sartharion are all puggable. Don’t miss on those 5 emblems of frost if you can.
- ALWAYS do a RANDOM dungeon. It will give you two extra badges, and the first time that day two emblems of frost.
- DO NOT SKIP Oculus, Gundrak, Old Kingdom or Nexus, they all give over 7 badges when its all said and done. In fact, if you have a piece that you need from any of those and have the time, just grind them. They will give you the same number of badges as doing UK or An-K with a random.
- Recruit a tank to help you if you are not one. They will help you queue up faster. If you have a good tank in a random group, thank them and ask them if they can do another one with you.
- DO NOT leave any loot back, even if the tank is going a mile a minute press shift click or set auto loot on. DE at every chance. Save those mats for your enchants, they will come in handy.
- DO NOT waste time. If the group is not working, leave. Set a threshold and stick to it. My recomendation is 2 full wipes. If someone is AFK for a long period of time, leave. If people are being aggravating, leave. Go do some farming while you queue up again. Avoid any group that the tank is a DPS masked as a tank to que up quickly. You can see it right away if they are wearing PvP or non defense gear, or if their health is under 25K. (most tanks of any class will have at least 25 K even when starting to gear up)
- Group with people you know. If there is a group already doing chains, ask to join them and wait for them. It will make the time you waited for them worth it to be in a good group.
- Every day while gearing up, do a run through regular ToC and the ICC dungeons. The gear there is still very good even on the regular mode.
Now that you have some emblems and a shopping list you need to do some Wintergrasp. WHAT? I NEED TO DO BGs… I HATE BGs… and well, I do as well. They are disorganized chaos, but honor is the cheapest way to get gems at the moment. WG seems to be the most effective way to farm honor because of the quests they have. Save the honor and go get gems. Get them cut as soon as you have the best piece from your shopping list. Use cheap gems and enchants from the AH for transitional pieces. Don’t leave open gems or un-enchanted gear whenever possible.
Once you have all your tier gear pieces it is time to get them enchanted and gemmed with the best there is available to you. Then it should be time for you to start doing H ToC 5 man and the H ICC 5 man dungeons.
Using the advice I gave above I was able to gear up my priest pretty quickly and now I only need to replace pieces that either need to be crafted, or are drops from ICC 5 mans or raids.
Progression does not mean left behind
After another very fun guild meeting with taking down 25 man OS right after, a group of us started trying to shape our new 10 man group. The next day people logging on see a raid forming and start feeling automatically left behind.
Our guild has 3 speeds of players.
Serious raiders that like to get content done but don’t want to deal with the annoyance of a “hardcore raiding guild” that will mistreat their members at the first mistake or kick them out for a no show.
Casual raiders that want to raid, but don’t have the time to commit to set raid days and times.
Last but not least we have the people that play and are not interested on the raiding aspect of the game.
The problem arises when someone from the casual group wants to go do what the serious raiders want to do, but don’t get a spot on a run that they have the time for. For the most part this does not become an issue because several of our raiders are used to pugging and will gladly step aside if a guildie wants to go on a run. It becomes an issue the moment we start saying progression because it means that we are making that raid with the best players available in an attempt at doing slightly more challenging content.
We have several ideas on how to make everyone feel included, but for now we are settling for two 10 mans. One we are calling our progression 10 man which will be doing higher content ToC, TogC, ICC and hard modes. The other one (or two others since we now have plenty of extra 80 alts) will concentrate on gearing people and just getting people familiar with raiding if they are new in Naxx, OS, Vault and Ulduar.
Honjuder had the great idea that we devote one 10 man per day starting on Tuesday to the weekly raid. We will still wait for the schedule to be ironed out and put in game hopefully before the end of this week.
Froto has stepped up to lead our more serious raiders and I will be using my alt to lead other raids as needed. Since some of the content will not intersect, I might even be able to run some of the gearing runs. Simply sign up for the runs and be ready to show us what you can do. The raids at the progression level will be formed to have the best chance to succeed.
So check out the calendar in game for upcoming events and be part of the fun! The key to a raid besides showing up is being a good team player.
Also see one of the officers if you want to schedule other events, we are going to go on another bear run in the coming weeks.
Ding!
Hollogos hit 80 this weekend, and weird enough he actually did it in a Battle Ground. This is my second WoW toon to reach the current 80 cap, and the first one I did for myself rather than what was more needed. I have created and deleted about 6 characters now, I start playing them and the grind gets boring. I even got a DK somewhat leveled, but when we were able to create horde toons on the same server, I created a DK to help the lowbees run through stuff. Now that toon as well as the druid I created there sit idle. I seem to be a one toon a time kind of person and have not quite caught the altoholic addiction that McTeague is the worst sufferer of, but some of our other guildies are not far behind with 3 or more 80s.
Leveling a priest in BC was rough. I remember putting the toon aside and leveling my hunter because of just the squishiness of the priest. Also the grind just seemed pointless and not very productive. Then WotLK came out and the race to get Logtar to 80 left the priest all but forgotten and third fiddle to the DK I created. He was not really touched until our progression was stagnant and I needed to make more money. I started leveling his inscription and little by little he started actually being useful.
My interest on him started to pick up when we started to receive experience while in BGs. I think I got 10 easy levels that way, but it got nerfed. Then I ventured into the healing side of things and found it very interesting and challenging in a good way. Thanks to some of those once a week healing excursions I actually met some of our guildies. I enjoyed it, but it was not a full time job… almost like a hobbie. He sat at 50 for a long time, and I would log in and quest but nothing seemed to really push him forward.
Logtar was getting to be very spoiled by both Ygraane and Blue having stoneblood potions ready when we were going to start running chain heroics. I had started Hollogos down the alchemy path, but used all of the herbs that I gathered leveling inscriptions. As I got closer to 60 and the capability of making better potions started to get more and more appealing. I made a push for mats by grinding but mostly by having guildies help out and I had my potions almost maxed out in a couple of days. Hollogos was looking better and better.
I started to heal Arathi Basin and getting more and more successful at it, eventually topping the healing charts being just a clicker, not even using heal bot yet. The grind from 60 to 70 did not seem like a grind anymore, but a welcomed break from the tanking. What also helped is that we now have several people in the guild with not just tanks, but the capability of taking my spot on runs. Also the new healers that had joined our guild kicked so much butt, that I wanted to see if I could keep up.
Slowly but surely Hollogos got to reach the upper 60s and being able to enter UK. Teague helped me with a full set of gear and I was on my way. It was tough at first, but I started clearing it as a healer consistently. I enjoyed healing more and more each day. Then Blizzard changes the game once again and makes it way easier to not just get gear but progress quicker. The dungeon system was not just handing out emblems but also experience.
Both Logtar and Hollogos were PvPing ever time the daily called for WG or AB. AV has been avoided like the plague since people seem to not grasp that turtling is not just an overall bad strategy and a waste of possibl experience on boss kills but extremely boring.
All those places that I knew like the back of my hand as a tank took a whole new meaning as a healer. Mobs that I thought were super simple to kill became my true nemesis by interrupting or silencing me. I was getting more and more encouraged by the other guildies around the 70s and we had a new little gang leveling up. No wipes, lots of laughs and gear dropping like it was going out of style. Occasional pugs will fill up our ranks and provide even more entertainment.
A week of vacation with no far away destination and cold weather created the perfect storm. I could do a push to get Hollogos about a half of level per day while still raiding with Logtar. Random dungeons quickly started to include the hated spider dungeons along with UK and Nexus.
Then a week ago I started to get queued up to Gundrak. I was surprised because I had expected to spend a lot more time doing DTK, but experience and quest related to that dungeon seem to speed up the process of leveling. I also was con
BwenBwen kicked all of our asses by getting to 80 a week before any of us. Hollogos did beat Pala, Sam, Hon, Minieme, Psycho and Buren to 80 though. Pala and Sam were very close though, I think we dinged just hours apart from each other.
A very special tanks to everyone that helped me level, without your help the grind would have been long and tedious but you guys made it a blast. Buren, Psycho, Moon, Hon and Froto’s crab for all your tanking, Sam, Bwen, Pala, Linz, Acorn and Bomb and everyone else in the guild for all your DPS and Tera and Moon for all your enchants! I swear they were not wasted
The BoondockSaints
I don’t think that when we started this guild we realized that we were actually going to progress as much as we have. We have grown in numbers but still have the same family feel we did when it was just a dozen of us. As a guild we have gone six bosses deep into Ulduar and could probably come close to clearing it with the new gear we are all getting. Some of us have finished ToC and even getting into ICC raids. As a guild we are killing trash to get rep and a good number of us have the free rings from there.
We have a lot of fun every night on vent. We are helping people from other guild getting geared and are now on the third wave of 80s. My priest missed the second wave, but is happy healing like some 80 at 75. We are also never short on enchants and gems. More importantly we are never short on people that want to lend a hand.
We also never turn down a good PvP fight. We have made hit lists in the horde side and dominate most of our encounters! (except when we are outnumbered when there is only 5 of us on)
So now what?
Well, for the coming year while we wait for the new expansion and get ready to eventually face and kill Arthras we are going to make Froto happy and raid some more. We took a break from official raiding on December and are going back into a schedule. We are also going to continue with our farming days to keep our bank well stocked with raiding items. I also want to help Aloea and Smidgeon to their achievement seeking goals.
Raid Schedule Jan 2010
Our focus for this month will be ICC rep as well as gearing up the new 80s. Please see Froto about signing up for any 10 mans. We are going to form our 10 mans for success, we will let you know if you are ready and what you need if you are not. Our 25 mans are open to all. Please read up on the fights and watch the youtube videos before going into any raid. We required you to download and install DBM, Ventrilo and Omen if you want to raid. Contact any of the officers if you have any questions.
Raid Start Times at 8:30 unless otherwise posted in the in game schedule.
Sunday – Monday
10 Man – ICC Rep Runs
Tuesday
25 Man – Weekly Raid
10 Man – Weekly Raid
Wednesday
25 Man – OS
10 Man – Ulduar
Thursday
10 Man – Naxx
10 Man – ICC
Friday
10 Man – Naxx
10 Man – ToC
LFG Tips
I got my pug last night, after a very good experience with the new LFG feature. I had 4 consecutive runs where the DPS was excellent and the only problem was that people kept pulling agro, but that is something I can deal with and great healers did not let anyone die. In less than an hour I got the rest of the “pug” numbers to get my Perky Pug.
The road there was not an easy one, but some things I did made it easier to stomach.
Say Hello
I find it fun to see where people are from sever wise. When you say hello most people will respond and if the group is waiting for a member take the time to just chit chat and make the wait less monotonous. I have not had people drop a group when there has been a greeting, if there is none and there is a wait and no interaction people will leave. Filling a group after it has been formed can be a pain specially if someone is just going to the first boss or just want to ninja something and leave. Making conversation will lower the probability of that happening. Also try to talk about loot rules, my encounter with ninjas (they need every time instead of greed or disenchant) has been about 25% of the time. It will not make them stop but make everyone aware of why you will also start needing instead of greeding.
Help Others
Less so now, but many people are not familiar with all the features of the LFG system. People get confused when they are not automatically ported and in some cases it is simply that too many instances are launched and you cannot enter yours, instruct people to keep on trying and announce that they can join when you do get in. Make sure that if someone is not showing up, let them know that they can click on the green eye by the mini map to be ported into the instance. Be the patient person in the group and it will help set the tone.
Be Prepared
Most groups will be ready to go as soon as they can port into place. I am lucky that I go with my tank most of the time, but going as a healer has made me see that some people don’t care that you don’t have full mana or buffs before you pull. Conversing helps this, because you can fit in a, lets buff first before you start. Also if you are going to use buff food or flasks, announce it and people will be more likely to wait. Also try to leave your toon sitting by a repair person, repair after every run specially if you died during the last one. It is very easy to forget and then get stuck being dragged through an instance while gear just further degrades.
Speak Up
Even in regular heroics there are fights that people used to skip and don’t know. I have had people in gear scores higher than mine wipe in Old Kingdom simply by not hitting the right mushroom in time or at all. Ask if people know the boss if he is not a tank and spank. Also call people out. If someone is DPSing without care to threat it will hurt not just the tank but the healer. Letting the drop works sometimes, but it might also leave you stuck in a place with a boss down and without a DPS. Also after a wipe, if you know what caused it say something without pointing fingers and the group will pick up and move on; it will make the walk back actually useful.
Answer Questions
Engaging the group will make it work better. If someone has a question about a boss or something you did or skip and you know the answer, don’t wait for someone else just answer the question. It will make what you say weight a lot more if you appear to know what you are talking about.
Know when to Hush
If you bring something up, but you can make up for it (low DPS for example), let it go and continue. Harping beyond the initial pointing out of the problem will not make it go away unless you decide to kick the bad player. Be aware that doing this is not a good idea, I’ve had little success with kicking someone out and filling the spot beyond the point one boss is already down. You will end up saved and with a broken group. Filling it up will waste your time.
Know when to quit
Even though a bad player can be dragged through and they might even be thankful, do know when to quit. I have experienced that one really bad player or three medial players will make a run double the time. Cut your losses and go somewhere else. Minimize the time you spend waiting and maximize the time you are getting stuff. The reason you use to tool is to get stuff done. The rules of when you run with your guild or friends do not apply here, so learn to fold.
Need before Greed
Try to be the last one to select your loot choice. I have been surprised by how many people pass, greeding should be the norm and don’t pass it is 1-3 gold every time something drops. Not only that, enchanting mats are going for good gold in the AH or will help your GB be full. Do not believe ninjas, if you have someone need before greed, they will continue to do so. Announce to the group that you are going to need the rest of the run unless it is something that you truly don’t need and can do without. Hopefully people roll before you and you don’t run into this problem but this has been the biggest annoyance for me.
Be polite and have fun! catch some of the gear that currently is running.
Patch 3.3 LFG
Since I started playing WoW the game went from BC to WotLK and even though the changes to the game were fantastic and big nothing has changed the game like the latest feature implemented. They removed the annoyance of travel to dungeons altogether and let you earn money, mats, rep and emblems for as long as you can stomach it.
Even though there have been about 25% crappy groups, the chances of you having to group with those people again makes it a non issue. Besides the people that don’t know the fights at all, even gear seems to be a non issue in most heroics, minus of course the new content.
At first I though I was getting paired up with people with my same gear level, but that is actually just a side effect of the people on the first night who had downloaded the patch prior or had a faster connection. I’ve had some amazing groups that impressed me by their level of both play and good manners. I’ve also seen the lowest of the low. The question is now, why do I need a guild?
Raids – You will still your guild to run raids. Raids require good communication and knowing people’s play style. Even in the harder dungeons can turn into a wipe fest if people don’t communicate.
Enchants and Gems – Unless you have an unlimited amount of money and a good AH, you will have an easier time getting that shinny new gear ready for raids with a group of good crafters working together and everyone sharing the greens that are raining from the sky.
Fun groups – As much fun as it is to burn through a instance without stopping it gets mechanic and old quickly. Its nice to be able to run with the people you know when they are online. Specially now that we are all going to be so overgeared! Also with partial groups being filled so quickly, you and a couple of guildies can have tons of fun with the LFG system.
Cataclysm – I cannot wait for the new expansion and all the changes that will be attached to guild achievements. Having a solid guild going into the new expansion is going to make it 100x better.
That’s all I have for now. I am halfway to getting my pug and loving the experience.
Gank Fest
Our WoW time lately has been very hecktic trying to raid casually while we wait for the latest patch which will drop today. Most of us have been working on our alts so we have more 80s that can be easily geared just by grinding heroics, and with the promise of shinny new gear even farming ulduar. Before we get there we get to actually level those toons. My priest is almost capped on both inscriptions and alchemy now and is sitting at 69 at the moment. I will have some time off during December so it might be time to get him to 70 and have some fun healing.
One side effect of having to level toons in a PvP server is the occasional ganking. Our guild has a simple policy “See a Horde, Kill a Horde.” It little by little has made us the target of ganking… however, it is starting to taste less and less pleasurable for the gankers. When someone is getting camped our guild pulls together and heads to that area and kills as many as we can. We do get eventually overwhelmed since our server Alliance to Horde ratio during peek hours is just insane. This was not the case last night. We took over the circle of blood in Nagrand and then moved to neighboring town with little resistance. Actually had fun just killing the ganker.
Then we moved to crossroads and still no horde response. We then got a little greedy and headed to Thunderbluff to 15 man the dude there. That is when Doorhinge showed up (one of the best PvPers in our realm) and I was able to kill him once… then it was all over. We could not get back on our feet and decided to call it a night. It was tons of fun though, and now you know that if you gank one of ours, you will have to gank us all!
Twilight Assist (10 player)
Kel'Thuzad's Defeat (10 player)
The Fall of Naxxramas (10 player)
The Hundred Club (10 player)
Make It Count
The Wyrmrest Accord
Ruby Void
Don't Look Up
Shutout (25 player)
Heroic: The Halls of Reflection