You guys stress me to no end. no really, you do. please learn to outfit yourself with tanking gear.
Last night, me and my girlfriend ran a few level 85 dungeons to try to reach 85 by the end of the night. I am 20% away from dinging while she dinged during the dungeon.
We added a friend who jumped from her home server to play with us. She was happy to be playing with friends, at least, and we did several dungeons together. on the last dungeon we did before we went out to dinner, we got Grim Batol and got a tank from the same realm. he was 85, trying to gear up i guess, and didnt know the instance.
First off, the instances are dumb easy now. they were hard six months ago. it was fun. it was interesting. and it was frustrating all in one. it made the game good. now its almost a snorefest. and on top of that, we had drakes that killed more than half of our trash packs for us anyway. so it was triple easy even for level 84's doing level 85 dungeons. and we get this tank, from our own realm no less, with almost all dps gear and a +int cloak. at least he was spec'd blood to help with some of the mitigation.
how did he do in the instance? he did fine. he did fine only because he was being healed by my gf. she's working on her holy paladin healadining toon and was healing him non stop. but otherwise, he was horribad. granted, he did say he was new, so i ended up narrating half of the instance for him, boss fights and then some trash packs. also, i had to remind him that we needed CC in certain trash packs. he would then wait for me to give to go ahead if no cc were needed. honestly, having cc makes everything easier. i dont know why tanks like to grab entire groups and spend just as much time on all the mobs. our dps will remain relatively the same whether we down a group all at once or a couple at a time. the only real difference is, would you rather wait for the CC to land, or would you rather wait for the healer to drink after the fight? normally, waiting for the hunter to set his trap takes much less time than waiting for the healer to drink because she spent all her mana healing stupid pulls.
and so we got to the first boss where EVERYONE and their dogs knew to leave the malignant trog alone so he can be cc'd. nope. didnt happen. i tried terribly to pull him out but he stuck. so my dps was halved for the fight, but we did get through it. Second boss comes almost right after the first, with a few trash to pull. it didnt go smoothly at all. I had to tell him that the big guys are usually the decoys and the ones you need to focus on are really the small caster mobs. i then began explaining the second boss fight, throngus, or something, and he pulls right after i said something like, if he picks mace, kite. i had to yell KITE several times when he did pick his mace. fortunately, this was a normal instance, my gf is an awesome healer, and the tank was at least in the right spec. we one-shotted the boss.
from then on, CC was common unless i stated that cc wasnt necesasry. we got through the trash and then on to the dragon fight. every flame called that was placed on me was kited (just one, lol). the rest, well they all kinda blew up. the one that went to the tank blew up. it was damage, but it wasnt anything we couldnt heal through. still, bad play is bad play. amazingly, when my gf said she was out of mana, the dragon dropped the boss and fled. we cleaned him up with one more flame guy to take care of. of course, the flame guy picked the tank. we ended up beating that boss without trouble and went on to the last boss.
the last boss was fun. i put a mark on me to show everyone where the center of the storm will be. lo and behold, the tank missed it twice. the only time he was in it was when it spawned right on top of him. shadow gale sucks ass on normal, so my gf healed through it. the adds were easily killed. nothing was out of the ordinary except for shadowgale and we downed the boss with no problems. then a ring dropped. a dps ring. my dps paladin friend rolled need. she was the only dps who needed that ring. there was a rogue, but he was looking for agi, im sure. and then the tank rolled on the ring and won. now i had to yell at him. and i did. my gf added her input since she's been there and have been ninja'd by many tanks in the past for her dps upgrades. and so for a couple of minutes we tried talking this guy into giving the damn ring to the dps who actually needed it. and how it would just annoy other healers if he did use dps gear to tank. he didnt see it that way but said that an upgrade is an upgrade and then left.
well that didnt turn out too well, but maybe he did forget one thing that night. we were in the same realm. so once i got out and back into org, i did a trade announcement to "warn" others not to play with him. in my own fashion, i added his guild. Y player of X guild is a ninja, please avoid playing with him, thanks. a few replies in chat were basically affirming that X guild isnt pleasant to play with, etc.
I'd figure that will be left at that. at least a couple of people from our realm will know that Y player doesnt have great character and should be avoided. but to my surprise, i had two people whisper me, co-guildleaders, i assume. who said that this behavior will not be tolerated and that they will talk to him when he logs back on. i mentioned the person who did lose the roll was on our realm too, and they talked to her as well. overall, it was nice to know that guilds do care, at least guild leaders, do care about their own guild's reputation within the realm. through all of this, i hope that the tank will learn a few things. grim batol is easy. but heroics are a pain, especially with dps gear. ninja-ing gear that doesnt help you one bit only makes you a bad player. you might have all the skill in the world, but when rolling on clearly off-spec items make sure no one else actually really needs it.
character>gear.
skill>gear.
lots of things are > gear.
gear is just a means to an end. but it doesnt make you play better. nor does it make you a better person than the next guy. and dps gear surely doesnt help you tank. now thinking about it, one of the bosses did drop a caster cape. the tank did mention that it was better than his cape. i wonder if he secretly wanted to need on that too. who knows.
one last thing regarding the new tank. i wanted to put him on ignore to avoid playing with him again. but then i also wanted to chat with him in the future if he did change his ways. i'd rather see someone change for the better than never play with him again. maybe one day he'll be an great tank. but until then, who knows.
One last last thing. i also think it would be an improvement to the rolling system if we can roll for offspec gear. it does assume that people know what their offspec is, and that blizz would somehow link certain gears to offspec. although this might be reasonable, there can be other builds/specs/combinations that might be necessary for certain things. i dont know what, but there might be.
much like how i dont mind casters, say, shamans rolling on cloth gear if no one needs, i dont mind tanks rolling for offspec gear if no one needs. key words: IF NO ONE NEEDS.
So rolling priority will be like so: Main spec need > Main Spec type need > Offspec Need > Greed. where type is the type of material of the item (cloth, leather, mail, plate). of course, if the drop is a ring or a necklace or a mace, etc, the type will not come into play. and if you totally cant wear it, say a dagger and you're on a paladin, then you get the Greed option only.
or maybe that's too complicated. who knows. but i still like blizz' way now. it leaves the interaction, the decisions, and how we impact society and this mmo up to us, the players.
Showing posts with label gear. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gear. Show all posts
Monday, May 2, 2011
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
353s and so forth
I thought for a little about the new gear dropping from Zul G and Zul A. They're pretty much raid quality loot, at least from my standpoint. Anything better than 346 is raid level. Anything AT 346 is raid-ready. do we all agree? great. But why the epic gear already? in 5-man heroics? why not give us another raid? back in Wrath, we got Naxx first, then Ulduar, then ToC and that was when we got the instance that gave us purples in normal and heroics.
Aparently something is different this time around. In cata, we didnt get one raid with four wings. Instead we got three raids totaling the size of Naxx, or something like that. it may seem like a lot, but doing all three of the current raids is not much different than doing all four wings of Naxx, then Saph+KT. Clever of Blizz. I always figured Naxx could have been four or five different necropolises. That would have kept raids short (and now its even shorter that you can skip straight to Sapphiron and KT without going through any of the wings). In any case, it wasnt until we get ToC that normal heroics dropped level 219 epics. Yes, they were all purple. It was sort of an unreal experience going through it to gear up. Actually, people would run the normal version of the instance just farming for gear so that they can join raids in Ulduar or ToC (most people skipped Naxx at that point).
Maybe it is the fact that there are three, albiet short, raids already out. (just think, ulduar split into three or four sections, icecrown split into four, ToC with three different versions and in each version three different bosses, stuff like that). We now have a 5-man that will drop almost-raid loot. this is wonderful for two types of people. one, it is great for the raider who has been farming for a certain item to complete his 359 sets. One item that may have been missing could be a wand, or a trinket. The time commitment to this instance would be more since the individual will have to return to this dungeon, in heroic, daily to see if his item will drop. Although the instance may take about half the time as a raid might, he will be running it several times throughout the week to get his item. more time played, i say, and a win for blizzard ultimately.
Second, the new instances appeal to those who are bad. yes, it's the ones who are reliant on gear to boost their play, instead of relying on sound tactics, paying attention, understanding your class strengths vs. a certain encounter, etc. (aka. Skill). As i believe, having 346 in every slot makes a player more than able to participate in a raid. Having 359s will allow the player to more easily participate in a raid. Bosses will die faster, mana will be a little more plentiful, tanks will mitigate just a wee more and healers will be taxed less. That's the idea. But i do believe that there are those in the population who will irrationally say to themselves that they do not have "enough" gear to participate in raids although they are decked out in 346s.
The process of gearing and progression is simple. Go into a raid with your 346s, kill several bosses and equip the loot that will enchance your performance. after several weeks of this + valor points, you'll (collectively) be ready to take on the final boss of the encounter with zero guarantee of success, but at least you'll have a shot. But most of these people stand in bad or in front of the boss, dont know where to run during certain events in the fight, they are inefficient with mana, they dont use their cooldowns, trinkets or even some obscure abilitiy in their arsenal like an interrupt. in short, they play badly. in order to counter this bad play, they believe that they need better gear, when, in fact, they need to learn to play.
So for the two groups of people looking at these instance i am hoping there is a third group. the one that doesnt have all the time to raid (and i have very little excuse any more now that the raids are almost the size of normal dungeons. heck, think of HoO. you can call it a raid, tune it for 10/25 man and no one will know the difference), but would like to keep playing for some kind of progression can go to these two dungeons and somewhat progress. the drops will not be as juicy as the raid drops, but you can see clearly that the drops are far superior to the blues they're currently wearing, gemmed and enchanted.
With that, this double-edge sword just dropped yesterday (for the competent raider as well as the bafoon who blames everything on gear) in the form of Patch 4.1, more specifically Zul A and Zul G 5-mans. These encounters will be fun, challenging and rewarding. Let's not worry too much about the gear farming for these two instances, as i am sure i'll probably be running these instances over and over again on my alts just to get them geared up (as their gear is much more preferred over regular or heroic gear from the original cata dungeons). Lets worry more about enjoying this game and taking up the challenge as it should be. lets not forget that difficult content should be just that, difficult, and that there's no excuse to suck if you only have heroic-esque gear. heck, i only have heroic gear on my dk, with two 359 rep pieces, but i do plan on kicking butt in each of the two new instances. for me, as the guy who sees these two new instances as new do-able content (ie. not a raid) and a chance to improve on some pieces of gear, i'll enjoy maybe a month of this before i start to wonder what firelands (and its new questing zone) will be like.
Aparently something is different this time around. In cata, we didnt get one raid with four wings. Instead we got three raids totaling the size of Naxx, or something like that. it may seem like a lot, but doing all three of the current raids is not much different than doing all four wings of Naxx, then Saph+KT. Clever of Blizz. I always figured Naxx could have been four or five different necropolises. That would have kept raids short (and now its even shorter that you can skip straight to Sapphiron and KT without going through any of the wings). In any case, it wasnt until we get ToC that normal heroics dropped level 219 epics. Yes, they were all purple. It was sort of an unreal experience going through it to gear up. Actually, people would run the normal version of the instance just farming for gear so that they can join raids in Ulduar or ToC (most people skipped Naxx at that point).
Maybe it is the fact that there are three, albiet short, raids already out. (just think, ulduar split into three or four sections, icecrown split into four, ToC with three different versions and in each version three different bosses, stuff like that). We now have a 5-man that will drop almost-raid loot. this is wonderful for two types of people. one, it is great for the raider who has been farming for a certain item to complete his 359 sets. One item that may have been missing could be a wand, or a trinket. The time commitment to this instance would be more since the individual will have to return to this dungeon, in heroic, daily to see if his item will drop. Although the instance may take about half the time as a raid might, he will be running it several times throughout the week to get his item. more time played, i say, and a win for blizzard ultimately.
Second, the new instances appeal to those who are bad. yes, it's the ones who are reliant on gear to boost their play, instead of relying on sound tactics, paying attention, understanding your class strengths vs. a certain encounter, etc. (aka. Skill). As i believe, having 346 in every slot makes a player more than able to participate in a raid. Having 359s will allow the player to more easily participate in a raid. Bosses will die faster, mana will be a little more plentiful, tanks will mitigate just a wee more and healers will be taxed less. That's the idea. But i do believe that there are those in the population who will irrationally say to themselves that they do not have "enough" gear to participate in raids although they are decked out in 346s.
The process of gearing and progression is simple. Go into a raid with your 346s, kill several bosses and equip the loot that will enchance your performance. after several weeks of this + valor points, you'll (collectively) be ready to take on the final boss of the encounter with zero guarantee of success, but at least you'll have a shot. But most of these people stand in bad or in front of the boss, dont know where to run during certain events in the fight, they are inefficient with mana, they dont use their cooldowns, trinkets or even some obscure abilitiy in their arsenal like an interrupt. in short, they play badly. in order to counter this bad play, they believe that they need better gear, when, in fact, they need to learn to play.
So for the two groups of people looking at these instance i am hoping there is a third group. the one that doesnt have all the time to raid (and i have very little excuse any more now that the raids are almost the size of normal dungeons. heck, think of HoO. you can call it a raid, tune it for 10/25 man and no one will know the difference), but would like to keep playing for some kind of progression can go to these two dungeons and somewhat progress. the drops will not be as juicy as the raid drops, but you can see clearly that the drops are far superior to the blues they're currently wearing, gemmed and enchanted.
With that, this double-edge sword just dropped yesterday (for the competent raider as well as the bafoon who blames everything on gear) in the form of Patch 4.1, more specifically Zul A and Zul G 5-mans. These encounters will be fun, challenging and rewarding. Let's not worry too much about the gear farming for these two instances, as i am sure i'll probably be running these instances over and over again on my alts just to get them geared up (as their gear is much more preferred over regular or heroic gear from the original cata dungeons). Lets worry more about enjoying this game and taking up the challenge as it should be. lets not forget that difficult content should be just that, difficult, and that there's no excuse to suck if you only have heroic-esque gear. heck, i only have heroic gear on my dk, with two 359 rep pieces, but i do plan on kicking butt in each of the two new instances. for me, as the guy who sees these two new instances as new do-able content (ie. not a raid) and a chance to improve on some pieces of gear, i'll enjoy maybe a month of this before i start to wonder what firelands (and its new questing zone) will be like.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Naxx pug and t9
So last night in naxx, we were doing a 20-man naxx (dedicated few acheivement) and i decided to buy the t9 shoulders and gloves to increase my stats. as you know, there is a 1 hour window where i am able to return the item. after the thrid wipe on KT, i decided to hearth to Dal and grab the two items since they were cheap and i had enough emblems for both of them.
45 minutes later, and three wipes later, we decided to call the raid, on KT. because people kept dying to iceblocks and void zones. i died to void zones once. me and a tauren were standing too close to KT, which made it difficult to see anything. now i know i can stand a little bit farther and still be in melee range. anyway, i had enough time to run back to dal and return those pieces. the dps increase wasnt really noticable. i guess i needed to enchant and gem and stuff. but two pieces might not show a gigantic increase in stats. perhaps i just sucked at single target dps. cos for aoe, i was kicking butt. i noticed a little higher damage from my combat text, especially when i 100% crit on exorcism. my numbers went up just a little, but not enough to make any difference.
in any case, i read that the attack priority with the 2pc t9 bonus is judge, crusader strike, hammer of wrath, divine storm.
and divine storm hits 4 mobs. which makes it somewhat useless in the KT fight because there's just... well.. KT. i still use it tho, since it does do quite a bit of damage. =/
the four piece bonus will get divine storm at a higher priority with judgements, and crusader strike will drop to #3. i guess i'll try my best to get the 4pc set tho, as it will give me better stats anyway. but i will only buy all of these items after i've picked up everything i can from heroics and the normal ICC5mans since i want to see how well my dps does with just stuff i get from heroics.
45 minutes later, and three wipes later, we decided to call the raid, on KT. because people kept dying to iceblocks and void zones. i died to void zones once. me and a tauren were standing too close to KT, which made it difficult to see anything. now i know i can stand a little bit farther and still be in melee range. anyway, i had enough time to run back to dal and return those pieces. the dps increase wasnt really noticable. i guess i needed to enchant and gem and stuff. but two pieces might not show a gigantic increase in stats. perhaps i just sucked at single target dps. cos for aoe, i was kicking butt. i noticed a little higher damage from my combat text, especially when i 100% crit on exorcism. my numbers went up just a little, but not enough to make any difference.
in any case, i read that the attack priority with the 2pc t9 bonus is judge, crusader strike, hammer of wrath, divine storm.
and divine storm hits 4 mobs. which makes it somewhat useless in the KT fight because there's just... well.. KT. i still use it tho, since it does do quite a bit of damage. =/
the four piece bonus will get divine storm at a higher priority with judgements, and crusader strike will drop to #3. i guess i'll try my best to get the 4pc set tho, as it will give me better stats anyway. but i will only buy all of these items after i've picked up everything i can from heroics and the normal ICC5mans since i want to see how well my dps does with just stuff i get from heroics.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Dual Realm Ability
I have been playing with my 80 alts more often. They are mainly on Ravenholdt (RH) but i do have two 80s now on Ysondre (YS) which i do enjoy playing.
Ysondre, US, Horde
On YS, i mainly enjoy playing my paladin because i have yet to have any decent gear, yet im able to do decently on dps. although i often do have problems with dps, as my hit isnt all that great, i am slowly building up my gear to more easily dps in raids. but currently, i have a mix of outland instance blues, some ilevel200 items from heroics, and a pair of pants, ilevel219, from forge of souls. I also got those same pants for my DK, who's also in YS with decent ilevel200 gear. he's kicking butt with about 2.5k dps. all in naxx-ready gear. i might see a boost to 3k dps as i get more gear from normal toc, fos, pos, and hor. i think my main goal will be to run those instances for now as i know the heroic versions are quite a challenge. i dont even feel like i do well in heroics yet, even though my gear and output matches the output of a person who's normally geared for heroics anyway. i really wish i can downgrade my triumph emblems to get some heroism gear, just for purity's sake, but i know that's illogical. mainly because, although i have no problems with dps right now, i know that if i want to do any kind of raiding in icc, i'll have to suck it up and buy some of those emblem gear that i an putting off. big numbers dont mean much to me if i cant make big numbers with my low level gear. and i mean low compared to the current wow population now (who's all decked out in triumph gear, minimum).
my philosophy is this, that is is better to be stagnant in gear, and still improve on my dps through rotations, watching procs, positioning my character, learning when and where i can use certain abilities, etc. once i am able to max out my output and effectiveness, then, and only then will i be willing to upgrade my gear. i think it is much better to improve the player before i improve the gear. think of it this way. if im doing subpar dps, getting gear will only artificially improve my dps. i dont actually get better, although my numbers may state otherwise. and i think this is the problem here. people think that when they get better gear, they will be able to perform better. but they're performing just the same. the numbers might be different, but the type of play remains unchanged. although this IS an improvement now matter how you look at it, it is not maximum potential.
i know people can argue that once you hit a cap on gear, you can also practice on the dummies and things to pull of better damage. but i find some issues with this. one, the only real place you can do this is at the target dummies.
(1) and target dummies can only help you perfect your rotations, but it will not help you improvise during a fight. but it doesnt help you with encounters. it does help you "know" your rotations and spells so that when things go bad in raids, your muscle memory will allow you to never skip a beat.
(2) if you run heroics a lot in 6k GS gear, you might pull off 5k dps overall. in this case, you wont really have time to actually develop a full blown rotation either. so heroics arent a great place to learn your skill anyway, being so high above its level.
(3) tank and spank bosses, depending on who it is (koralon, patchwerk, saurafang) all are good, but you also want to max effectiveness in other encounters as well. additionally, koralon has fires you must step out of, which is awesome. and saurafang has adds you need to deal with. all of these are a great learning tool but leave little room for error. and since people are risk adverse to begin with, i dont find people trying new things, new rotations, new potions, new trinkets, etc on these encounters as much as on target dummies.
With 1 and 3, there's very good opportunity to improve in your skills. but 2 does not offer much opportunity to actually know your character that well. cakewalks usually make people more clumsy about their class anyway. which is why i choose not to upgrade my character's gear because i know heroics (specifically taking twice as long to kill trash and bosses than having t9 gear) will help me develop my play much more than a once a week session with suarafang and banging away at non-responsive target dummies. dont get me wrong tho, they do help. but i find that being "appropriately" geared for heroics make the heroic runs that much more rewarding. an sure, when i do find myself maxing out on my character's dps, i then will look to gear as the only other alternative to improving dps. thats right. exhaust all other options before upgrading gear. i honestly dont intend to buy t9 gear or t10 gear until i've gone through and gotten everything from heroics.
So that's my deal on YS server. a dk and a paladin, both dps, trying to dish out as much dps as orcishly and elvishly possible before resorting to the most obvious form of advancement--gear.
Ravenholdt, US, Horde
Life with my new guild isnt too exciting. i think everyone's blaming this pre-expansion slump and summer vacation thing on low attendence. actually, i've seen lots of people in our guild. the only problem is that there's not a lot of people available for raids when raids are announced. last week two of the three 10mans needed to be cancelled because of low attendance. actually, the weekend raid, which i signed up for, included me and one other member. that was cancelled. i didnt know much about the weekday raids, but i think the "Main" group ended up stopping at Sindragosa. the "alt" group never made it off the ground and was cancelled.
But other than that, my guild seems pretty cool. there are a few players willing to do heroics with me, which is cool, but i really dont have much of a need for triumph emblems on any of my toons (except maybe for Diinky, who wouldnt mind more tier pieces, although the 4pc bonus is still iffy). thats in regards to t9 gear. but rejuv critting does add a little excitement. I did spend a lot more time on RH over the weekend, and it was just to be able to pug a few things with other guildies. hopefully i will get to know them more. hopefully. its one of those things i have to ease into, you know? friendships are built slowly and through adversity. its been only a week and there hasnt been any form of adversity thus far. i'll have to see if i really want to stay, although i do enjoy the people so far (although only 1 out of 10 people actually talk). i'll have to see what goes on on vent, as i do believe much of the conversation and chatter happens in private or in vent. so we'll have to see.
One of my friends decided to join a raiding guild as opposed to a "social" guild that raids. well actually i'll call my guild a casual guild that raids. we're not too social.
SO anyway, she joins and hates it. but i tell her to keep on keeping on as its only been one day. although she does feel a bit lonely, its expected as the new guildie. although it is a raiding guild, there are some pretty friendly people in the guild. so although she might think they're unfriendly or cold to her at first, its really because they've already developed in their friendships and spend a lot of their time communicating in private chat or in vent. plus, she joined on a monday, which is an offday for many people. i thinks he really does need to give it a chance to really evaluate if she really wants to stay. there's no point in joining and quitting in a day. and even if she's in another guild, it doesnt stop her from having alts in a different guild. she can log on to her raider during raids and log on to her alt/leveler/main when she's not raiding. but i know, sometimes we're attached to our characters. i dont know what she'll do. i hope she has fun. but sometimes in order to get what she wants, she needs to suck it up a little. i wish her the best. sometimes the rewards are worth the sacrifices. blah blah blah.
i think i'll want to level my priest and warrior now. i have two friends leveling mages. one has reached northrend and will probably hit 80 in a week. the other is a bit slower leveling and i think that's who i want to level with this time. she's hit 58 and is ready to do ramps and bf several times. so i'll go with her on one of my characters. probably my rogue, who's 62, until she reaches 64. once she reaches 64, we can level up with my warrior, as he is 65 and ready to tank.
i made the tank over a year ago when i made a deal with a friend of mine to level the characters together. this friend, instead, decided to level up to 80 without me. kind of annoyed me when she specifically said she'll level the character with me. anyway, when she started doing all the quests in zangarmarsh thereby leaving me to solo many of those quests on my own, i easily grew tired of it and played other characters. she was a healer/dps hybrid troll shaman and was able to easily get into instances as a healer. by the time she was about three levels above me, i just gave up and decided not to play the warrior anymore. after some other unrelated events, we stopped talking to each other. so there he sits. my warrior at 65 with no leveling buddy... until NOW!! yay. thanks buddy!! you rock!! just dont outlevel me like my old friend did. it will be a sad day when i have to stop playing the warrior again.
and so that's my ramblings for today. Yes, this is my lunch break and i think im entitled to ramble on as much as i want. lol. jk. anyway, i hope to NOT have to go to a third realm, but i may if my gf ever plays and chooses alliance. but she's got some project going on now and will probably be at it for another month before she tires of it. only time will tell.
Ysondre, US, Horde
On YS, i mainly enjoy playing my paladin because i have yet to have any decent gear, yet im able to do decently on dps. although i often do have problems with dps, as my hit isnt all that great, i am slowly building up my gear to more easily dps in raids. but currently, i have a mix of outland instance blues, some ilevel200 items from heroics, and a pair of pants, ilevel219, from forge of souls. I also got those same pants for my DK, who's also in YS with decent ilevel200 gear. he's kicking butt with about 2.5k dps. all in naxx-ready gear. i might see a boost to 3k dps as i get more gear from normal toc, fos, pos, and hor. i think my main goal will be to run those instances for now as i know the heroic versions are quite a challenge. i dont even feel like i do well in heroics yet, even though my gear and output matches the output of a person who's normally geared for heroics anyway. i really wish i can downgrade my triumph emblems to get some heroism gear, just for purity's sake, but i know that's illogical. mainly because, although i have no problems with dps right now, i know that if i want to do any kind of raiding in icc, i'll have to suck it up and buy some of those emblem gear that i an putting off. big numbers dont mean much to me if i cant make big numbers with my low level gear. and i mean low compared to the current wow population now (who's all decked out in triumph gear, minimum).
my philosophy is this, that is is better to be stagnant in gear, and still improve on my dps through rotations, watching procs, positioning my character, learning when and where i can use certain abilities, etc. once i am able to max out my output and effectiveness, then, and only then will i be willing to upgrade my gear. i think it is much better to improve the player before i improve the gear. think of it this way. if im doing subpar dps, getting gear will only artificially improve my dps. i dont actually get better, although my numbers may state otherwise. and i think this is the problem here. people think that when they get better gear, they will be able to perform better. but they're performing just the same. the numbers might be different, but the type of play remains unchanged. although this IS an improvement now matter how you look at it, it is not maximum potential.
i know people can argue that once you hit a cap on gear, you can also practice on the dummies and things to pull of better damage. but i find some issues with this. one, the only real place you can do this is at the target dummies.
(1) and target dummies can only help you perfect your rotations, but it will not help you improvise during a fight. but it doesnt help you with encounters. it does help you "know" your rotations and spells so that when things go bad in raids, your muscle memory will allow you to never skip a beat.
(2) if you run heroics a lot in 6k GS gear, you might pull off 5k dps overall. in this case, you wont really have time to actually develop a full blown rotation either. so heroics arent a great place to learn your skill anyway, being so high above its level.
(3) tank and spank bosses, depending on who it is (koralon, patchwerk, saurafang) all are good, but you also want to max effectiveness in other encounters as well. additionally, koralon has fires you must step out of, which is awesome. and saurafang has adds you need to deal with. all of these are a great learning tool but leave little room for error. and since people are risk adverse to begin with, i dont find people trying new things, new rotations, new potions, new trinkets, etc on these encounters as much as on target dummies.
With 1 and 3, there's very good opportunity to improve in your skills. but 2 does not offer much opportunity to actually know your character that well. cakewalks usually make people more clumsy about their class anyway. which is why i choose not to upgrade my character's gear because i know heroics (specifically taking twice as long to kill trash and bosses than having t9 gear) will help me develop my play much more than a once a week session with suarafang and banging away at non-responsive target dummies. dont get me wrong tho, they do help. but i find that being "appropriately" geared for heroics make the heroic runs that much more rewarding. an sure, when i do find myself maxing out on my character's dps, i then will look to gear as the only other alternative to improving dps. thats right. exhaust all other options before upgrading gear. i honestly dont intend to buy t9 gear or t10 gear until i've gone through and gotten everything from heroics.
So that's my deal on YS server. a dk and a paladin, both dps, trying to dish out as much dps as orcishly and elvishly possible before resorting to the most obvious form of advancement--gear.
Ravenholdt, US, Horde
Life with my new guild isnt too exciting. i think everyone's blaming this pre-expansion slump and summer vacation thing on low attendence. actually, i've seen lots of people in our guild. the only problem is that there's not a lot of people available for raids when raids are announced. last week two of the three 10mans needed to be cancelled because of low attendance. actually, the weekend raid, which i signed up for, included me and one other member. that was cancelled. i didnt know much about the weekday raids, but i think the "Main" group ended up stopping at Sindragosa. the "alt" group never made it off the ground and was cancelled.
But other than that, my guild seems pretty cool. there are a few players willing to do heroics with me, which is cool, but i really dont have much of a need for triumph emblems on any of my toons (except maybe for Diinky, who wouldnt mind more tier pieces, although the 4pc bonus is still iffy). thats in regards to t9 gear. but rejuv critting does add a little excitement. I did spend a lot more time on RH over the weekend, and it was just to be able to pug a few things with other guildies. hopefully i will get to know them more. hopefully. its one of those things i have to ease into, you know? friendships are built slowly and through adversity. its been only a week and there hasnt been any form of adversity thus far. i'll have to see if i really want to stay, although i do enjoy the people so far (although only 1 out of 10 people actually talk). i'll have to see what goes on on vent, as i do believe much of the conversation and chatter happens in private or in vent. so we'll have to see.
One of my friends decided to join a raiding guild as opposed to a "social" guild that raids. well actually i'll call my guild a casual guild that raids. we're not too social.
SO anyway, she joins and hates it. but i tell her to keep on keeping on as its only been one day. although she does feel a bit lonely, its expected as the new guildie. although it is a raiding guild, there are some pretty friendly people in the guild. so although she might think they're unfriendly or cold to her at first, its really because they've already developed in their friendships and spend a lot of their time communicating in private chat or in vent. plus, she joined on a monday, which is an offday for many people. i thinks he really does need to give it a chance to really evaluate if she really wants to stay. there's no point in joining and quitting in a day. and even if she's in another guild, it doesnt stop her from having alts in a different guild. she can log on to her raider during raids and log on to her alt/leveler/main when she's not raiding. but i know, sometimes we're attached to our characters. i dont know what she'll do. i hope she has fun. but sometimes in order to get what she wants, she needs to suck it up a little. i wish her the best. sometimes the rewards are worth the sacrifices. blah blah blah.
i think i'll want to level my priest and warrior now. i have two friends leveling mages. one has reached northrend and will probably hit 80 in a week. the other is a bit slower leveling and i think that's who i want to level with this time. she's hit 58 and is ready to do ramps and bf several times. so i'll go with her on one of my characters. probably my rogue, who's 62, until she reaches 64. once she reaches 64, we can level up with my warrior, as he is 65 and ready to tank.
i made the tank over a year ago when i made a deal with a friend of mine to level the characters together. this friend, instead, decided to level up to 80 without me. kind of annoyed me when she specifically said she'll level the character with me. anyway, when she started doing all the quests in zangarmarsh thereby leaving me to solo many of those quests on my own, i easily grew tired of it and played other characters. she was a healer/dps hybrid troll shaman and was able to easily get into instances as a healer. by the time she was about three levels above me, i just gave up and decided not to play the warrior anymore. after some other unrelated events, we stopped talking to each other. so there he sits. my warrior at 65 with no leveling buddy... until NOW!! yay. thanks buddy!! you rock!! just dont outlevel me like my old friend did. it will be a sad day when i have to stop playing the warrior again.
and so that's my ramblings for today. Yes, this is my lunch break and i think im entitled to ramble on as much as i want. lol. jk. anyway, i hope to NOT have to go to a third realm, but i may if my gf ever plays and chooses alliance. but she's got some project going on now and will probably be at it for another month before she tires of it. only time will tell.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)