| | Raiding Advice. | |
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Chriasas Listener
Posts : 13 Join date : 2009-06-18 Age : 53 Location : Pittsburgh, PA
| Subject: Raiding Advice. 1/20/2010, 8:20 am | |
| For some odd reason, people found me a good choice as an officer. So, now, among my other tasks, I've taken up the idea of a Friday Night Raid (10 man). Looks like most of the raid is in Ulduar/ToC 10 gear. But, we're getting our butts kicked pretty good on Lord Marrowgar right now (I think we've got him down to 70%).
I think most of us got gear via randoms (I know I did), and I had the impression that full tier 9 set should get us into ICC content, but that doesn't seem to be the case. I think we need to concentrate more on ToC, just for those odd items, like weapons, trinkets, boots, etc.
So, can a raid equipped nearly fully tier 9 from randoms walk into ICC and be sucessfull? It is the gear that's lacking, or that we don't have the opening fight down?
As an example, after spending about an hour and a half beating ourselves against Lord marrowgar one night, we decided to regroup and head on down to ToC. We managed to down the beasts and Lord Jaraxxus after a few tries learning the fight. | |
| | | Stumpalina Host
Posts : 664 Join date : 2009-04-08 Age : 48 Location : Arlington, TX
| Subject: Re: Raiding Advice. 1/25/2010, 11:00 am | |
| Personally, I would suggest that you focus on TOC a bit. There are a couple of reasons why.
Raiding Chops If you, or a group of raiders you are playing with, are new to raiding, ICC is a huge culture shock. TOC, despite how mindless it is, still requires boss strategies and coordination. The same goes with Ulduar. Consider TOC and Ulduar practice for ICC. At that point, if you have a group of 10 people that are nailing the encounters in Uld or TOC, take them to 10-man ICC to learn and prepare for 25-man ICC. Build up through preparation. This is exactly what we had to do when we started Bound. We stepped back in content and prepared for progression.
Gearing Not every piece of Tier 9 is Best in Slot for every class. Do some research, check your specs, and source some options.
Whatever you do, have fun! Good luck! | |
| | | Chriasas Listener
Posts : 13 Join date : 2009-06-18 Age : 53 Location : Pittsburgh, PA
| Subject: Re: Raiding Advice. 1/26/2010, 8:20 am | |
| We did decide to pull back a bit. Friday, we started out on OS plus a drake, then VoA since it was up, then into ToC. We managed t down the Beasts and Lord J. pretty well, we just need some more gear for them to prevent deaths. We'd consider Ulduar, but other ten mans in the guild are doing those other days, Same with Onyxia. About the only thing we're adamant about is staying the heck outta Naxx.
The PvP fight, however, was insane. We all dropped pretty quickly. What the heck were they thinking putting something like that in there!?!?! We'll need to study up hard on that one.
I think the major problem will be a rotation of people in and out. We're not nearly geared as I thought, and some of us had to bring alts to fill positions. But, it's a good exscuse for fun and drinks on a friday night.
Last edited by Chriasas on 1/26/2010, 11:24 am; edited 1 time in total | |
| | | Tatia Listener
Posts : 4 Join date : 2009-08-12 Location : Houston, Texas
| Subject: Re: Raiding Advice. 1/26/2010, 10:48 am | |
| Gear is definitely an issue in all raids now. It's not the only issue but it's a major issue. One of the things we do for all raids now, is perform a gear check on all players signed up for the raid by using the following websites: www.wowarmory.comwww.wow-heroes.com (my preference for gear checks) It shows you where players are for different raids based on their gear, spec, gems and enchants. Some players don't know the importance that spec, gems and enchants have on their overall performance. So we recommend that players check out the following sites to improve their character: www.maxdps.comwww.elitistjerks.comWhat we have found is that when players seriously look at their character gear, spec, gems and enchants, we progress a lot better and faster. I know all of this sounds like we are "hard core" but we are not. We are a casual raiding guild that is tired of wiping and doing what we can to improve our characters and raids. Honestly, I HATE what Blizzard has done to raiding by making it so gear/spec/gem/enchant dependent to progress. You cannot "carry" anyone now. If "everyone" in the raid isn't pulling their weight, it makes the whole raid struggle. Just my 2 cents...
Last edited by Tatia on 1/26/2010, 11:01 am; edited 1 time in total | |
| | | Hatch Listener
Posts : 9 Join date : 2009-07-21
| Subject: Re: Raiding Advice. 1/26/2010, 11:00 am | |
| - Chriasas wrote:
- But, it's a good excuse for fun and drinks on a friday night.
This is awesome! Keep having fun, I love the party atmosphere of weekend evening raids. - Chriasas wrote:
- We're not nearly geared as a I thought.
After reading your initial post, I was gonna say: if you only got Marrowgar to 70% in full tier 9 from emblems, then something is drastically wrong. I'm not surprised that part of the problem is that people aren't in full tier 9, they just got a few pieces and think they are "geared up". And if you say that people had to bring alts, I assume that means you don't have enough people maining tanks and healers. If the tanks and healers are undergeared and underplayed because they are alts, *and* the people playing them would rather be dpsing on their mains, of course that's gonna hold you back. More people in your guild need to make tanks or healers their mains, most likely. If your entire group was actually geared in every upgrade they could get from triumph emblems, then yeah you would be more than fine to start into ICC 10. If your group is roughly at that gear level and only getting Marrowgar to 70%, then I'm sorry, but it's an execution problem. Either you don't know the right strategy, or for whatever reason, your guildies aren't playing well. On Marrowgar, make sure the 2 tanks stack on each other the entire fight, make sure enough dps switch to the spikes to kill them quickly, and everyone stay out of the fire. - Chriasas wrote:
- we just need some more gear for them to prevent deaths
This is absolutely *not true* unless you are talking exclusively about tank deaths. On Beasts or Jaraxxus almost all of the raid damage is avoidable, or at least mitigated greatly by spreading out and reacting quickly. You'll get more out of 15 minutes spent mastering "run when you get green fire" than you would spending a few hours farming up emblems for a piece of tier 9. It's easier and faster to learn the fight than it is to gear up. And Tatia makes a great point: if your players look into getting their gems, enchants, spec, and rotation right, it will help your progression a lot. No need to get super hardcore about it, but just reading a short guide can make a world of difference. And I agree, having the PvP fight in ToC is stupid. | |
| | | Hatch Listener
Posts : 9 Join date : 2009-07-21
| Subject: Re: Raiding Advice. 1/26/2010, 11:02 am | |
| - Tatia wrote:
Honestly, I HATE what Blizzard has done to raiding by making it so gear/spec/gem/enchant dependent to progress. You cannot "carry" anyone now. If "everyone" in the raid isn't pulling their weight, it makes the whole raid struggle.
Just my 2 cents... Are you doing 10s or 25s? You can carry people a lot more in 25s because each individual person matters less in the larger raids. And the fights aren't any more difficult! | |
| | | Cornelious0_0 Rawr!
Posts : 33 Join date : 2009-09-04 Age : 39 Location : Saskatoon, SK Canada
| Subject: Re: Raiding Advice. 1/26/2010, 11:11 am | |
| Stomp is correct that the biggest difference between heroics and raiding is the tactics, strategy and mindset involved. Blizzard has made it very apparent that gear should no longer be the deciding factor when you want to raid but it doesn't take you all the way to your goals. My advice would be very similar...head back to Ulduar and/or ToC and work on your teams cohesiveness and tactics as much as possible...this will be what makes or breaks your experiences in ICC. There will be some encounters in ICC that are raw gear checks but getting stumped on Marrowgar like that really just shows that there is more time to be put in working together as a regular group so that once you have the gear you'll be more then able to work together and put that gear to good use.
You do not necessarily HAVE to be in full 232/245 gear to progress into ICC-10 but it does definitely help. I would spend the majority of my time (if I were you) working on ToC, boss strategies are decent and you'll also be getting the best return on your investment in terms of gear. Making sure to cash in on every triumph/frost emblem reward along the way as you gear up in ToC10 you should soon find that some things will be made easier by better gear/stats...but a lot of this still comes down to working well together and having the boss strat worked out.
The Faction Champs is a perfect example of team play in raiding today. The key difference between this encounter and all others is the way that the mobs interact with each other and use more advanced AI to lock down your party members using everything from varying crowd control tactics to pvp trinkets to get out of a stun. The good news is that once you're coordinated enough to down Faction Champs you'll walk all over the twins once you've got everyone straight on the strat.
Have fun, enjoy yourself but more then anything else realize that you can only beat your head up against something for so long before ppl "shut down"...always have a backup plan if you get stuck on an encounter or simply take a 5 minute break for people to stretch and get something to drink.
To address a couple points made by Tatia:
I agree that it is very important to have certain points of reference but in all fairness maxdps.com is one of the worst sites to use when considering upgrades. The site rates items based on their stats but not according to how they apply to your character. Some upgrades may not be great upgrades if they're heavy on hit/expertise and you're already capped...maxdps doesn't take any of this into account and I strongly try to discourage people from using it. Elitist Jerks as a resource is fine but any newcomers to the site will definitely have a little bit of a learning curve to adjust to. EJ is pretty much THE point of reference for class specific information pertaining to just about anything but you need to be able to deal with a more technical/hardcore presentation of facts. EJ will flat out tell you not to EVER do a specific thing and many users will actually tell you you're a bad player for not following their guidelines. It is for these reasons that I suggest people read EJ for information on their class/spec but not to get into posting on the forums unless they fully realize what they're getting themselves into and can handle some pretty strict forum moderation and "set in stone" mindsets.
It is still very important to know what a decent upgrade is for you and depending on the person there are a couple options. First, there are typically spreadsheets or programs such as Rawr available to do a lot of the math for you in figuring out if a piece of gear will help you as much or as little as you think. This option is more applicable to people that already posses a willingness to do as much as humanly possible to min-max their stats/gear and newer players/raiders will often be "scared off" by such methods. Beyond this I would simply suggest finding/getting a hold of a reputable character of your class in game to pick their brain or look into/read different blogs around the internet. Not everything has to be done "to a T" but if you (or anyone else) is serious about getting the most out of their gear I would strongly recommend doing something beyond talking to a friend to better educate yourself to whatever level you feel comfortable.
In terms of what Blizzard has done to raiding, there are positive and negative points...like with anything. The one key thing that Blizz has done over the course of this expansion is make raiding more accessible. After seeing how less then 1-2% of players experienced "end game" content during both vanilla and BC they had every right to do something different. For the people who were a part of that 1-2% the game has gone downhill in many ways and started to turn into casual-craft. The more important point here is that WoW's exposure and popularity have grown immensely over the past few years and financially/as a company Blizzard would be stupid not to make some of the changes they've made. The reason for the difficulty (or lack there of) of many raid encounters is a direct result of making the game more accessible as the more people you offer the game to, the more people you need to tune the game for.
When you say that raiding is very gear/spec/gem/enchant dependant and that you can't carry anyone I'm not sure that I agree. Take ToC as an example...it's ridiculously simple to take someone with relatively new gear into ToC10/25 and make progress, whether that person is enchanted/glyphed properly or not. Obviously this is less true for healers and tanks but a statement like this is all relative to the content. Current top tier raiding should (in my opinion) never be puggable...I would expect that ICC would demand the absolute most out of your gear and tactics as the last major raid of this expansion. Again, saying that raiding is so reliant on gear/spec/gems/etc is a little contradictory to the fact that MANY of the changes that have been made to the game have revolved around the "bring the player not the class" way of thinking. So many things have been given to other classes and specs that if anything I'd say that the game as a whole is much LESS gear/gem/enchant/glyph reliant then it ever has been. Again, this doesn't (and should not) apply nearly as much to ICC or any end tier raid dungeon. If you're struggling in a raid due to one person I would be more inclined to say that you either need to step down 1 tier and/or farm emblems to finish gearing up or iron out your boss strats.
None of this is meant as a person attack at all but I find that raiding and the game in general is much more "glazed over" then it was even a year ago. Yes end tier raiding is very gear/spec/gem/glyph reliant...but it should be! ICC is a glimmering shard of what used to remain of vanilla/BC raiding and the first raid dungeon of this expansion filled with this level of variety and difficulty of new encounters.
Feel free to comment, I'm not here to start any fights or flame wars but I do believe very strongly in pointing out differences of opinion for the sake of discussion and resolution when someone is sincerely asking a question such as this. I believe the best thing that can be done is to provide as much information as possible and leave it up to the reader/player to do as much with it and become the best player they can. | |
| | | Cornelious0_0 Rawr!
Posts : 33 Join date : 2009-09-04 Age : 39 Location : Saskatoon, SK Canada
| Subject: Re: Raiding Advice. 1/26/2010, 11:25 am | |
| - Hatch wrote:
- Are you doing 10s or 25s? You can carry people a lot more in 25s because each individual person matters less in the larger raids. And the fights aren't any more difficult!
This is true if you go back 1 or 2 raiding tiers but many people are finding ICC-25 (just as they did ToC25 and ToGC25) to offer much more of a challenge. Part of this simply has to do with the fact that ICC has been in development for so long and carries so much expectation that I think Blizz knew they had to get things right. 10man content itself should never be harder by design...the difficulty of the content itself scales upwards in 25man but due to the lack of bodies 1 death in a 10man is more detrimental to your progress then 1 death in 25's. This simply means that difficulty in 10man content is determined more by player tactics and team coordination more then anything which is what I prefer. 25man encounters are often more difficult by design to take advantage of the extra healers/dps present but I think that the majority of things are relative to your team size and how well you work together. | |
| | | Tatia Listener
Posts : 4 Join date : 2009-08-12 Location : Houston, Texas
| Subject: Re: Raiding Advice. 1/26/2010, 11:31 am | |
| We are raiding both 10 and 25 man content. We are raiding TOC & IC at the moment. We successfully clear TOC 10 & 25 on a regular basis. We have cleared the first wing of IC so far. My post was just my opinion, Cornelious. You are certainly entitled to yours. You stated that more people are seeing end game content (that is a correct statement), but let's look at the raiding skills of those people. When performing gear checks now, it's hard to tell the "talent or skill" of the player behind the gear (it use to be very easy because you could look at someone's gear and know they have been raiding a while). "Talent or Skill" is very important in the new fights. It's like the old saying "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink." Well now, you can lead a person to raiding the new content because they now have the gear to be there, but you can't make them do their job. We are finding that many raiders these days have the gear but haven't done one thing to learn their class, like spec, rotation, gems and enchants. | |
| | | Hatch Listener
Posts : 9 Join date : 2009-07-21
| Subject: Re: Raiding Advice. 1/26/2010, 11:37 am | |
| - Tatia wrote:
You stated that more people are seeing end game content (that is a correct statement), but let's look at the raiding skills of those people. When performing gear checks now, it's hard to tell the "talent or skill" of the player behind the gear (it use to be very easy because you could look at someone's gear and know they have been raiding a while).
"Talent or Skill" is very important in the new fights. It's like the old saying "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink." Well now, you can lead a person to raiding the new content because they now have the gear to be there, but you can't make them do their job. We are finding that many raiders these days have the gear but haven't done one thing to learn their class, like spec, rotation, gems and enchants. Yes! Gear and talent/coordination are both important to raid success, but unfortunately there's no easy way to see someone's skill or ability to play well with the group. You can only preview their gear. | |
| | | Cornelious0_0 Rawr!
Posts : 33 Join date : 2009-09-04 Age : 39 Location : Saskatoon, SK Canada
| Subject: Re: Raiding Advice. 1/26/2010, 11:51 am | |
| - Tatia wrote:
- We are raiding both 10 and 25 man content. We are raiding TOC & IC at the moment. We successfully clear TOC 10 & 25 on a regular basis. We have cleared the first wing of IC so far.
My post was just my opinion, Cornelious. You are certainly entitled to yours.
You stated that more people are seeing end game content (that is a correct statement), but let's look at the raiding skills of those people. When performing gear checks now, it's hard to tell the "talent or skill" of the player behind the gear (it use to be very easy because you could look at someone's gear and know they have been raiding a while).
"Talent or Skill" is very important in the new fights. It's like the old saying "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink." Well now, you can lead a person to raiding the new content because they now have the gear to be there, but you can't make them do their job. We are finding that many raiders these days have the gear but haven't done one thing to learn their class, like spec, rotation, gems and enchants. I don't believe it was ever Blizzards intent to let everyone SUCCEED at end game content as the major outcry by the end of vanilla and BC was that nobody could even get INTO those raids. It is very true that by handing out so much gear it is much harder to tell if someone is any good or not but there are only 2 scenarios where I believe this would ever be applicable, running heroics and running raids. Obviously heroics are more or less laughable by now and even if you have 1 or 2 dps horribly under performing you can still typically finish most wrath heroics. The new ICC 5man content was a bit of a wake up call for many people but even now many of those fights are trivial at best. I would never argue that gear is ridiculously important in most heroics that were designed for us being in ilvl200 gear and nerfed since...but it is one example. The other (more applicable) example is raiding. Obviously Tier 9 and 10 content is going to offer different challenges at different times but I don't really see this as an issue when looking at people's gear. People now just like always will and have had issues with pug raids, it was nice to be able to gear check someone for a pug and know that they're reasonably experienced but all the free gear has really done is make the pug raids more random and unpredictable. Most established guilds will put you through a trial period to establish if your skill level matches your gear before relying on you a great deal and again, this is something that has never really changed. If 90% of wrath heroics are laughable at best and pug raids are the only things being made a great deal more difficult or frustrating by all this free gear then does it really matter for those of us that are guilded and in a relatively successful raiding team? The only time a guild leader/member would have to deal with any of the downsides to free gear is during someone's trial period...but that's what it's there for. I'm not saying that Blizz should plan to shaft everyone not a part of a raiding guild but in many ways they have created a situation where people should WANT to be in guilds if they plan to raid and at that point it's a LOT easier to work with the person and get their skill and gear on the same level. I agree that we can't force or expect anyone to perform in a raiding environment after simply opening the door for them but if said person is one of the many people moving towards a raiding guild to get away from the pug disasters then of course they're not going to be as educated. It's our responsibilities to give that new person everything they need to measure up and let them make use of their trial period to do so...or at least show progress. This is also another reason why I don't think new applicants should be automatically thrown into current raid content. As you said, gear and achievements mean so little these days without seeing someone perform...so why not simply run them through 1 or 2 easier raid encounters (VoA/Ony/ToC) to see if they earned their achievements or were carried? Again, nothing is meant as a person attack but the state of affairs the raiding community is in is seriously revolving around the pug community...all the guilded raiders have been effected by are new recruits who need a little more help getting started...and what's wrong with that? With the exception of hardcore progression guilds I think everyone should be willing or at least accepting of a new recruit in need of guidance, it's the only way we're going to curb this issue and carry on while pug raids keep blowing up. | |
| | | Tatia Listener
Posts : 4 Join date : 2009-08-12 Location : Houston, Texas
| Subject: Re: Raiding Advice. 1/26/2010, 11:58 am | |
| I know! I have mixed emotions about Blizzard making it easier to get gear. I love it for everyone that needed it, but hate it for trying to determine raiding skill. There are a lot of talented players out there that are finally able to get great gear, but there is also a lot of untalented people getting great gear too. | |
| | | Cornelious0_0 Rawr!
Posts : 33 Join date : 2009-09-04 Age : 39 Location : Saskatoon, SK Canada
| Subject: Re: Raiding Advice. 1/26/2010, 12:06 pm | |
| - Tatia wrote:
- I know! I have mixed emotions about Blizzard making it easier to get gear. I love it for everyone that needed it, but hate it for trying to determine raiding skill. There are a lot of talented players out there that are finally able to get great gear, but there is also a lot of untalented people getting great gear too.
Very true, I find myself in the first group you described. I consider myself to be a very skilled player but never had time to raid with the requirements of BC and with the changes in Wrath I am able to experience ToC and ICC on a regular basis. I feel that those "bad" players getting Tier 9 gear are a representation of Blizz quieting the entitled cries of people they've been dealing with for the past year or so yelling "I pay my money...I should get to see everything" at the top of their lungs. Those people deserve just as much as an opportunity as everyone else and it's because of this that I think it's very important to have a well laid out trial period in any guild so not to leave yourself burdened with people that obviously are not showing progress. Best of luck to everyone in ICC during the coming weeks. | |
| | | Demented4fun Listener
Posts : 1 Join date : 2010-01-26
| Subject: Re: Raiding Advice. 1/26/2010, 9:10 pm | |
| Success in raiding as with most of the high end content seems to be broken into 2 types: Gear and Skill. If you don't know the fight it's a good chance that things will end badly for you and possibly others. If the group doesn't know it then it's guaranteed. And as for gear, even though people hate all the gear score talk it is relevant. Not always to the extend some people push it, but if your dps/healing/tanking stats aren't up to snuff then the fights will carry on too long and risk total failure or end very abruptly. | |
| | | Cornelious0_0 Rawr!
Posts : 33 Join date : 2009-09-04 Age : 39 Location : Saskatoon, SK Canada
| Subject: Re: Raiding Advice. 1/27/2010, 12:49 pm | |
| - Demented4fun wrote:
- Success in raiding as with most of the high end content seems to be broken into 2 types: Gear and Skill. If you don't know the fight it's a good chance that things will end badly for you and possibly others. If the group doesn't know it then it's guaranteed. And as for gear, even though people hate all the gear score talk it is relevant. Not always to the extend some people push it, but if your dps/healing/tanking stats aren't up to snuff then the fights will carry on too long and risk total failure or end very abruptly.
You've hit the nail right on the head man, gear will only take you so far...eventually skill and team cohesiveness need to take over and finish the job. Again I will make the point that this is all relative to the content in question. It is (obviously) much easier to carry someone through (or to have their gear carry them) something like ToC...and that's more then likely the place those people should stay until they can walk on their own two feet. I would never expect raiding guilds to deliberately and knowingly carry someone through a raid week after week but I do think that there needs to be a certain grace taken when dealing with people that have flat out never raided before. In a way I really appreciate the changes that Blizz has made to the game as it has made it so that everyone at least has a fighting chance. People in trade chat spouting crap like "these retards in welfare gear are ruining the game" are to close minded to deal with and are missig the entire point. The changes made to the game revolving around raid accessibility and the badge system are in place to give everyone a chance to see the content but it also puts them in a situation where they seriously need to buckle down and learn their $hit to be accepted. For better or for worse guilds the game over have become much more scepitcal of people in 232/245 gear and to a certain extent they should...but it has gone to far. The only thing that can really be done about the situation/debacle forming around this gear "issue" is to turn a blind eye to the negative nay-sayers in trade chat and go about your own business. If you happen to run into someone not pulling their weight in a heroic or raid at least throw them a few tips or pointers instead of yelling "L2 play newb" and dropping group. The discussion of gear preparing you for raiding has been turned into a lot more then it really needs to be and unfortunately it's a lot of jaded veterans to the game instigating it. It is for these reason I'm glad I'm not AS seasoned (started playing pre 2.4 part way through BC) as some people as I find it fairly easy to look at a situation like this and at least attempt to stand up and being one of the few that don't think our game is spiraling in the shitter. | |
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