2 nights a week, 8:15 invites and 8:30 pulls.. thats the plan.. go till about 11. Pretty modest schedule for a forming group to actually make any progression. Then it only takes a little to fail at one or part of one night, stunting the progress even more.
Tues and thurs, 2.5 hours of raiding for a fairly HC group... A challenge for sure.
This Tues, one healer had a connection/PC issue and could not log on and stay that way. A second healer was way late as they go nailed by a drunk driver on the way home... Sounds like all was okay except the car and nerves, but the raid failed... leaving the group w/ one night to raid. Rough stuff, and then some want to try and add a 3rd raiding night. I will not ask and stand pretty firm that the published times are all we are going to go for. Some have family commitments or limitations, others school or work... Its a really mixed bag and hard to hold back from the temptation to go out to do more. add one night a week, but I also know that some made the 2days/week commitment because the times and commitment were what they are looking for, not too much, and just enough... I guess be happy with it and hope for the best. More recruiting and more bench players as well as core flixible players. then the problem of... "who wants to be on the bench?" and know thats their status. IMO the reality is that they will be more successful on the bench w/ our group than they would in a lot of core groups with a core spot, and i have no limitations to letting them PUG, in fact i would like them to.. more strats, more gear, more of everything good to bring back to the group... except other groups fishing for players in their raid group... RAWRRR... the balance and the decisions... gotta do it and I never stop wondering if I made the right call. The biggest thing is to continue sticking to the standards and make at least the expectations static... that will attract some all by itself.. go for 3 tonight? maybe 4... should be fun either way...
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Coordination, and reasonable vs. unreasonable expectations
Playing the AH was a great learning experience. You can count on competition and changes, but the only thing to prevent your success is your RL/work/home schedules, and your game schedules i.e. raiding. Largely its a solo enterprise to go out and undertake the challenges. Its a great way to stay active in the game and not be active in group activities (raiding)
Coordinating the attendance of 10 players to raid is a challenge. 10 players that have similar enough schedules to commit to the group times and being online at the sime time with connections, computers, addons and consumables ready to go... thats the hardest part of raiding, the rest is just patience, practice and trial and error. Patience is a tough barrier. Practice and continued wipes is another one... but thats the only way you get the coordination... Well, that comes to the second point on this post...
Expectations... I feel a continued need to recruit and find alternates as one thing or another upsets people with their need to be part of the "core" team. But success is not built around the core team, its built around the Core team, and alternates. Rolling players in to get them the experience with the group means some one else has to sit out. Now, I have to set the expectation to have them available though... at least at some point, but still allow the freedom to go pug stuff to keep up with the main group. that part seems fair and reasonable, as well as group contribution and encounter knowledge and familiarity... The contribution part is where I having my biggest hurdles. I set the standard and the expectation to the group that participation in the guild website forum is not optional to maintain consideration. Its a defining element to sorta weed out those that will contribute to the group and those that just want to sit back and cruise.. There are a lot of good reasons to set the expectation, but it still seems hard to get the participation up to par from everyone. So, now, good raiders that show up are on the chopping block for continued consideration to participate in the raid. So if I cut them and fail to make a raid, then piss off the other 7 peeps that do, over this failure of 3 players... I am sorta cutting off my own left hand. its not like I did not let them know the expectation, or failed to inform anyone of the results to fail... Its just a hard line to cross... Recruit more players and replace em. take them off the main roster and bench em... That's what I have to do.. Maintain the standard, or fail... Either way its a tough play... Now after server resets, and work, more recruiting...
best wishes to all, thanks for stopping by
Coordinating the attendance of 10 players to raid is a challenge. 10 players that have similar enough schedules to commit to the group times and being online at the sime time with connections, computers, addons and consumables ready to go... thats the hardest part of raiding, the rest is just patience, practice and trial and error. Patience is a tough barrier. Practice and continued wipes is another one... but thats the only way you get the coordination... Well, that comes to the second point on this post...
Expectations... I feel a continued need to recruit and find alternates as one thing or another upsets people with their need to be part of the "core" team. But success is not built around the core team, its built around the Core team, and alternates. Rolling players in to get them the experience with the group means some one else has to sit out. Now, I have to set the expectation to have them available though... at least at some point, but still allow the freedom to go pug stuff to keep up with the main group. that part seems fair and reasonable, as well as group contribution and encounter knowledge and familiarity... The contribution part is where I having my biggest hurdles. I set the standard and the expectation to the group that participation in the guild website forum is not optional to maintain consideration. Its a defining element to sorta weed out those that will contribute to the group and those that just want to sit back and cruise.. There are a lot of good reasons to set the expectation, but it still seems hard to get the participation up to par from everyone. So, now, good raiders that show up are on the chopping block for continued consideration to participate in the raid. So if I cut them and fail to make a raid, then piss off the other 7 peeps that do, over this failure of 3 players... I am sorta cutting off my own left hand. its not like I did not let them know the expectation, or failed to inform anyone of the results to fail... Its just a hard line to cross... Recruit more players and replace em. take them off the main roster and bench em... That's what I have to do.. Maintain the standard, or fail... Either way its a tough play... Now after server resets, and work, more recruiting...
best wishes to all, thanks for stopping by
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Making an effort to stay around a half million
I have so much in mats that I could just go liquidate all of my stuff and prolly make 50 to 100K plus. I litterally just stopped playing the AH. It got boring and was no longer fun. I felt I had little more to learn and little more to gain... what more can you do... A half million will get you anything you want in most cases.... anything gold can buy.. and I dont want a spectral tiger that much or the motorcycle or vial of sands etc etc etc... or the hundreds of pets... just not chasing those or really any achievement anymore... just the ones I get by doing the current raid zone and supports the goals of the raid group...
But, spending 65k to get my druid raid ready, that put me on under the 500K mark by a tad, and I ensure none of the raiders have to buy mats out of there limited funds to raid... flasks/cauldrons and food/feasts at least... gear enhancements are on them to personally or cooperativly with guild maintain.
Now as the new vendors open up.. there is a higher and increasing demand for truegold and hardened elementium... time is money friend so the daily burning and saving of my true gold has me at around 125 truegold w/ a market value of around 700+ gold. the druid is a miner so a simple afk crafting of hardened elementium... those should be able to sell at higher volumes now than recent history and will be my only market focus to recover and recoup my gold... as well as selling or raid BOEs that are not main spec UGs to continue to fund the raiding... so far most of the mats for feasts and cauldrons have been bought by me... now that we are in and getting drops and such... we can rack up the community gold values to fund that and i can keep my gold... In a way the gold was always to raid... so I like to be able to provide the feasts and cauldrons or mats for them for the raid group... It helps my sense of OCD that the buffs from flasks and food are not so much for one player, but when multiplied by 10.. all raiders, that 3,000 of primary stats on the raid from flasks, and its 900 more (str, agi, int) from feasts... 90 of a stat sounds like not much.. however 900... what would you do for 900 more of your favorite stat on your gear... well team play....
thanks for stopping by
But, spending 65k to get my druid raid ready, that put me on under the 500K mark by a tad, and I ensure none of the raiders have to buy mats out of there limited funds to raid... flasks/cauldrons and food/feasts at least... gear enhancements are on them to personally or cooperativly with guild maintain.
Now as the new vendors open up.. there is a higher and increasing demand for truegold and hardened elementium... time is money friend so the daily burning and saving of my true gold has me at around 125 truegold w/ a market value of around 700+ gold. the druid is a miner so a simple afk crafting of hardened elementium... those should be able to sell at higher volumes now than recent history and will be my only market focus to recover and recoup my gold... as well as selling or raid BOEs that are not main spec UGs to continue to fund the raiding... so far most of the mats for feasts and cauldrons have been bought by me... now that we are in and getting drops and such... we can rack up the community gold values to fund that and i can keep my gold... In a way the gold was always to raid... so I like to be able to provide the feasts and cauldrons or mats for them for the raid group... It helps my sense of OCD that the buffs from flasks and food are not so much for one player, but when multiplied by 10.. all raiders, that 3,000 of primary stats on the raid from flasks, and its 900 more (str, agi, int) from feasts... 90 of a stat sounds like not much.. however 900... what would you do for 900 more of your favorite stat on your gear... well team play....
thanks for stopping by
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Finally raiding is fun again, What does it take to get there..
It has been months, or more since I had fun raiding. One fail run and group to the next... blehhh... the thing is they all were fail for different reasons... One was too casual at the end of wrath, the second was life changes and RL drama combined with the old core group shrinking a lot... then they were not all grinding to get ready for raiding. The next one was getting promised a raid slot, which turned out to be for one week... :-/ then that raid lead just quit the game, and another broke off from guild and started their own and took a bunch of raiders with them... That left me and another guy both comming to the same conclusion.. "Time for me to organize and lead a raid." He had tenure with the guild more so than me and so I deffered and let him run it...
As the main group progressed to like 7/12 heroic we managed to get 3 and 4/12 normal.. thats counting the retard in BH... Firelands came out, and the second week he wanted to go BACK to BOT/BWD... Thats when I put my foot down and said NO... Firelands or forget it...
Thats where I am today, I set a core set of standards, and group mentality... Typical raiding stuff for the most part but in my experience not typical raid leadership... I have done the casual raid leadership and it drags you down to their level. Now, I set the standards that for the group, mainly of personal accountability, team leadership, and group accountability... Oh, and my big one.. be on time or be replaced.
So, how is raiding fun again and how did I get there... I put experience to work, set, uphold and maintain the standard the I level agains all the players/raiders wannabes... Its a standard to gear, to grinding your valor on your own... and generally high performance and contribution to the raid... Last week was a blast, ended up pugging 2 healers, but we played w/ shannox and had a ton of fun... silly joke, silly mistakes and still good learning and practice... After shaping the group it was our first real run in there as a group. clowning joking and fun, not a kill but progress and getting a feel for the group and contributions. I have told everyone that I will not be the single point of focus, success and/or failure for the group.. that was great, it was a lot of pressure off me, and there were a lot of good comments that we addapted into attempts and learning...
Then this week came... Full guild run.. 10 man raid w/ 5 druids... :-/ 2 resto, feral tank, feral dps, boomkin, with a pair of pallys holy and prot, mage, lock and furry warrior to fill it out....
Shannox went down after the 3rd attempt... and about 1 hour into the raid... that meant we had a lot of time to play at beth'tilac... woot before our time was up... we got it down... Much harder fight on some levels... an early attmpt was crap since she got a spiderling, and then a later following attempt was too... all of that was worked out and we refined our efforts... it paid off... all said and done... we ran back to Lord Ryolith, got our asses stomped by the trash since it was effectively our first time on it... :-/ then got one run on the boss to get people a feel for that fight... Over all it was a great night and good fun... Imagine that.. playing a game AND its fun...
transparency... its something I lend myself to do... i dont like people that are always whispering like they got a secret, and I dont like to be one of them... one of the raiders, a good friend to boot... in front of the whole raid.. i let them know that I am running interference on the headsman... their dps is low and I am not sure in the long haul they will keep pace with the group. Time will tell...
SET LOOT TO RARE, not epic.. drama over the living ember apparently being "Ninja'd"... bahhh... its a rare item and the threshold was set to epic.. Oh well, had to slow down the raid and figure out what that silly thing was that is for the legendary staff questline... and then work with the group to pick the first winner recipient of the drops for it... :-) fun to do that as a group... I made it all whispers, to me so people could really say what they thought/felt about it... the standing member in the guild with history actaully defered to the new mage... and several others also voted the mage.. a couple vote for the boomkin too.. overall.. it was nice, a new group, no history, no sense of entilement or anything and the guy that has been there week... is VOTED to get the legendary staff... NICE...
What does it take to get there? DO IT YOURSELF... and DONT DO IT ALONE... if that makes sense... prolly not... raid leadership, IMO you really need at least a couple strong "leiutentants"... Me.. they are all given that titel.. no one is better than the other by percieved rank or position or grant of athority... except me and thats my job to empower everyone in the raid that they feel my powere base is not overbearing and threatening... I raid for KILLS... funny, when and if you do that.. gear just falls out of the sky.. :-) sorta...
The DO IT YOURSELF comment.. thats the organize the team, and build the team selflessly, set the standards and enforce them... build a team, empower the team, enable the team... and make fun of yourself... let them know your not better than them, and your let them know your are in it for fair and equitable distribution of loot, leadership, power, fun, encouragement... do all the things casuals do like be nice and say cute things that make them feel better... EXCEPT when they are dorking up... then you have to kick/replace/scold/bench/threaten etc... I will almost guarantee you... in any and every attempt to build a raid group... you will... find people that are more or less casual than you want to be... the less casual will leave because you are not good enough and your standards are too low.. the casuals will accelerate that... they show up late, poor and cheap gems and enchants, sell their valor on the BOE market and such... :-/ YOU MUST find your first victime and be the jerk... cut them, bench them boot them, cold shoulder them... unfortunately that sets the tone for all others... and they will either fall out, or they will step up... and thats what you want...
Ouch, long post, grats if you made it here... but raiding, for me, is fun again....
As the main group progressed to like 7/12 heroic we managed to get 3 and 4/12 normal.. thats counting the retard in BH... Firelands came out, and the second week he wanted to go BACK to BOT/BWD... Thats when I put my foot down and said NO... Firelands or forget it...
Thats where I am today, I set a core set of standards, and group mentality... Typical raiding stuff for the most part but in my experience not typical raid leadership... I have done the casual raid leadership and it drags you down to their level. Now, I set the standards that for the group, mainly of personal accountability, team leadership, and group accountability... Oh, and my big one.. be on time or be replaced.
So, how is raiding fun again and how did I get there... I put experience to work, set, uphold and maintain the standard the I level agains all the players/raiders wannabes... Its a standard to gear, to grinding your valor on your own... and generally high performance and contribution to the raid... Last week was a blast, ended up pugging 2 healers, but we played w/ shannox and had a ton of fun... silly joke, silly mistakes and still good learning and practice... After shaping the group it was our first real run in there as a group. clowning joking and fun, not a kill but progress and getting a feel for the group and contributions. I have told everyone that I will not be the single point of focus, success and/or failure for the group.. that was great, it was a lot of pressure off me, and there were a lot of good comments that we addapted into attempts and learning...
Then this week came... Full guild run.. 10 man raid w/ 5 druids... :-/ 2 resto, feral tank, feral dps, boomkin, with a pair of pallys holy and prot, mage, lock and furry warrior to fill it out....
Shannox went down after the 3rd attempt... and about 1 hour into the raid... that meant we had a lot of time to play at beth'tilac... woot before our time was up... we got it down... Much harder fight on some levels... an early attmpt was crap since she got a spiderling, and then a later following attempt was too... all of that was worked out and we refined our efforts... it paid off... all said and done... we ran back to Lord Ryolith, got our asses stomped by the trash since it was effectively our first time on it... :-/ then got one run on the boss to get people a feel for that fight... Over all it was a great night and good fun... Imagine that.. playing a game AND its fun...
transparency... its something I lend myself to do... i dont like people that are always whispering like they got a secret, and I dont like to be one of them... one of the raiders, a good friend to boot... in front of the whole raid.. i let them know that I am running interference on the headsman... their dps is low and I am not sure in the long haul they will keep pace with the group. Time will tell...
SET LOOT TO RARE, not epic.. drama over the living ember apparently being "Ninja'd"... bahhh... its a rare item and the threshold was set to epic.. Oh well, had to slow down the raid and figure out what that silly thing was that is for the legendary staff questline... and then work with the group to pick the first winner recipient of the drops for it... :-) fun to do that as a group... I made it all whispers, to me so people could really say what they thought/felt about it... the standing member in the guild with history actaully defered to the new mage... and several others also voted the mage.. a couple vote for the boomkin too.. overall.. it was nice, a new group, no history, no sense of entilement or anything and the guy that has been there week... is VOTED to get the legendary staff... NICE...
What does it take to get there? DO IT YOURSELF... and DONT DO IT ALONE... if that makes sense... prolly not... raid leadership, IMO you really need at least a couple strong "leiutentants"... Me.. they are all given that titel.. no one is better than the other by percieved rank or position or grant of athority... except me and thats my job to empower everyone in the raid that they feel my powere base is not overbearing and threatening... I raid for KILLS... funny, when and if you do that.. gear just falls out of the sky.. :-) sorta...
The DO IT YOURSELF comment.. thats the organize the team, and build the team selflessly, set the standards and enforce them... build a team, empower the team, enable the team... and make fun of yourself... let them know your not better than them, and your let them know your are in it for fair and equitable distribution of loot, leadership, power, fun, encouragement... do all the things casuals do like be nice and say cute things that make them feel better... EXCEPT when they are dorking up... then you have to kick/replace/scold/bench/threaten etc... I will almost guarantee you... in any and every attempt to build a raid group... you will... find people that are more or less casual than you want to be... the less casual will leave because you are not good enough and your standards are too low.. the casuals will accelerate that... they show up late, poor and cheap gems and enchants, sell their valor on the BOE market and such... :-/ YOU MUST find your first victime and be the jerk... cut them, bench them boot them, cold shoulder them... unfortunately that sets the tone for all others... and they will either fall out, or they will step up... and thats what you want...
Ouch, long post, grats if you made it here... but raiding, for me, is fun again....
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Level 85 to ilvl 364 in under a week was 13%
I figure 13%... an estimate of what impact the 65K I dropped into gear after hitting lvl 85 on my druid. 42K was the BOE AGI staff from FL trash. Another 15K was BOE valor bracers... the rest was small misc stuff on smaller scales and item enhancements.
The great thing is that I KNOW... I could go make that money back in pretty short order. The JC market should have a lot less risk with lower gem vendor prices.. making it less risk on AH listing fees... thats the great thing about glyphs and enchant scrolls... its cheap AH fees... Now Gems should fit in that risk matrix to a closer degree... your not losing as much for failed auctions anyway. The new druid is a JC, but only gettin started w/ the JC tokens to buy recipies... so it will be a while before I could attempt any large scale market entry. 3 level 85 toons, I now have the Ore shuffle covered. xmute alchy, JC, enchanter... just burned out on the daily grind and effort to get into those markets. I need to get my excess chant mat inventorys to fit in my banks first... and not have to use the mail for storage... I almost lost stacks and stack of stuff in the mail as when I cleared out some stuff I just did not care to mess with for almost a month.. The items had 4 hours left... gahhh... but I got it all into bank storage... it was good.
Gotta say, on the raid front... Ragnaros is a tough fight... the coordiantion on the transision phases is where we had the most problem. The other things were more like, just practice to learn the dance steps...
Tonight I will lead a group into FL for a Beth'tilac and Shannox attempt... one, the other or both... Should be fun if everyone actually shows and takes it serious... Or at least already have been serious and gone to see videos...
Thanks for dropping in.. till next time
The great thing is that I KNOW... I could go make that money back in pretty short order. The JC market should have a lot less risk with lower gem vendor prices.. making it less risk on AH listing fees... thats the great thing about glyphs and enchant scrolls... its cheap AH fees... Now Gems should fit in that risk matrix to a closer degree... your not losing as much for failed auctions anyway. The new druid is a JC, but only gettin started w/ the JC tokens to buy recipies... so it will be a while before I could attempt any large scale market entry. 3 level 85 toons, I now have the Ore shuffle covered. xmute alchy, JC, enchanter... just burned out on the daily grind and effort to get into those markets. I need to get my excess chant mat inventorys to fit in my banks first... and not have to use the mail for storage... I almost lost stacks and stack of stuff in the mail as when I cleared out some stuff I just did not care to mess with for almost a month.. The items had 4 hours left... gahhh... but I got it all into bank storage... it was good.
Gotta say, on the raid front... Ragnaros is a tough fight... the coordiantion on the transision phases is where we had the most problem. The other things were more like, just practice to learn the dance steps...
Tonight I will lead a group into FL for a Beth'tilac and Shannox attempt... one, the other or both... Should be fun if everyone actually shows and takes it serious... Or at least already have been serious and gone to see videos...
Thanks for dropping in.. till next time
Friday, July 8, 2011
How to casually get hard core...
BTW... 2 days at 85 and avg ilvl is 359... fun stuff.. granted, thats 65K later, but JP and VP gear, its doable to a simalar degree with out much more time... Dont run heroic if your grinding JP for gear... to slow and too many tards... healers tanks and dps can all be stupid and you still get through normal dungeons fast...
This is more a post of me thinking through a current situation...
Consistently server top 25 guild, and as high as 5 that I know of. The main group that is.
There used to be 2 other groups going, one leader seems to have quit the game, a second quit the guild in a drama fest and took about 10 casual raiders, and 5 more regulars with them. prolly more.
The fallout... In the same week, a more guild established player and myself both must have said something like, "Time to step up and field group 2." They took the main raid lead and lead/organized raids... when they were around, and managed 1-5 (not counting BH) bosses a week.. usually 2, and those runs were wipe fests and though I like to raid, I found myself walking away dissappointed in the evening. Raid time is 8:30, and often after pugging would start after 9 and then a 11 stop time was pretty consistent... so about 90 minutes or so of actual pulls for about 2 kills.. pretty dismal. Fine if you are starting out... and learning raiding, and completely casual, not so much if your not a baddie, you want to be more than casual, but less than 4 nights 4 hours hard core...
Now... I will not raid with that raid leader... Tues they wanted to go back to BWD/BOT, and knew nothing about the FL encounters... As I said, I was not going to BoT/BWD, I lead the raid, and went for beth'tilac. It was good experience for many, but overall, a wipefest, no progress, we never got over half way through phase 1. A bit low on dps, but REALLY low on SA (situational awareness) and reaction times. There was a mage that said they could not see spiderlings till they were half way to us. Thats a lot of lost DPS time, and lot of time traveling with no slow on them.. and overall, just poor. Above us the tank and healer were struggling to get the movement and mechanics right and watch the energy to jump down.
Now, I am working at forming a new group, a second raid team that will just be serious at the raid times... and invest some hour or three per week looking over videos/spec/gear/rotations/priorities and other general info to be a valid contributer in the raid. Be on time, and be ready for the encounter...
I have lead casual raiders, it was a major pain and a major drain to have to call all interupts, dispells, moves, CDs and other stuff, review poor performance, and train peeps on specs, gear, gems, enchants, and often buy/give away stuff to get them more ready, only to have them be unsatisfied over all that they were now better than they were and dont want to be with the scrubs... viscous cycle of the revolving door group... GAHHH.. not doing that. The standards set will be held to or we will not raid... Not interested in pugging either, I will for one or 2, but not sure where I will set my standards on that... Tank Pugs can be really rough, healer pugs can be rough, and dps.. all over the field... it is my intent to build a raid team with reasonably consistent rotation of raiders... I imagine a running roster of 3-5 tanks 4-7 healers and about 4-5 pure dps. rather that comes with dual spec or second toons... all good, about 12-15 players that just want to go kill stuff, they are not raiding for gear... but for kill and there is one of the worst problems in raids. People only want the gear, not the kills, priorities are jacked.. the cart is in front of the horse.. they want delivery before payment...
Ehh, I am done.. have a great weekend
This is more a post of me thinking through a current situation...
Consistently server top 25 guild, and as high as 5 that I know of. The main group that is.
There used to be 2 other groups going, one leader seems to have quit the game, a second quit the guild in a drama fest and took about 10 casual raiders, and 5 more regulars with them. prolly more.
The fallout... In the same week, a more guild established player and myself both must have said something like, "Time to step up and field group 2." They took the main raid lead and lead/organized raids... when they were around, and managed 1-5 (not counting BH) bosses a week.. usually 2, and those runs were wipe fests and though I like to raid, I found myself walking away dissappointed in the evening. Raid time is 8:30, and often after pugging would start after 9 and then a 11 stop time was pretty consistent... so about 90 minutes or so of actual pulls for about 2 kills.. pretty dismal. Fine if you are starting out... and learning raiding, and completely casual, not so much if your not a baddie, you want to be more than casual, but less than 4 nights 4 hours hard core...
Now... I will not raid with that raid leader... Tues they wanted to go back to BWD/BOT, and knew nothing about the FL encounters... As I said, I was not going to BoT/BWD, I lead the raid, and went for beth'tilac. It was good experience for many, but overall, a wipefest, no progress, we never got over half way through phase 1. A bit low on dps, but REALLY low on SA (situational awareness) and reaction times. There was a mage that said they could not see spiderlings till they were half way to us. Thats a lot of lost DPS time, and lot of time traveling with no slow on them.. and overall, just poor. Above us the tank and healer were struggling to get the movement and mechanics right and watch the energy to jump down.
Now, I am working at forming a new group, a second raid team that will just be serious at the raid times... and invest some hour or three per week looking over videos/spec/gear/rotations/priorities and other general info to be a valid contributer in the raid. Be on time, and be ready for the encounter...
I have lead casual raiders, it was a major pain and a major drain to have to call all interupts, dispells, moves, CDs and other stuff, review poor performance, and train peeps on specs, gear, gems, enchants, and often buy/give away stuff to get them more ready, only to have them be unsatisfied over all that they were now better than they were and dont want to be with the scrubs... viscous cycle of the revolving door group... GAHHH.. not doing that. The standards set will be held to or we will not raid... Not interested in pugging either, I will for one or 2, but not sure where I will set my standards on that... Tank Pugs can be really rough, healer pugs can be rough, and dps.. all over the field... it is my intent to build a raid team with reasonably consistent rotation of raiders... I imagine a running roster of 3-5 tanks 4-7 healers and about 4-5 pure dps. rather that comes with dual spec or second toons... all good, about 12-15 players that just want to go kill stuff, they are not raiding for gear... but for kill and there is one of the worst problems in raids. People only want the gear, not the kills, priorities are jacked.. the cart is in front of the horse.. they want delivery before payment...
Ehh, I am done.. have a great weekend
Thursday, July 7, 2011
What does a a half million gold do...
First off getting there... You learn a repeatable process that if you ever need gold you can go make more faster than most players...
BUT... Today, the topic is the druid that hit 85 yesterday. Often short tanks and heavy on priests in the guild, I started pushing my druid up as feral. yesterday was the great ding, 85. In a matter of a couple hours, I was random queing ZA/ZG w/ some guildies, and doing 10K dps, as well as doing 16k dps in a BH run on the new boss (25man), grinding regular heroics for JP got me the T11 pants, 60K in gold got me the 42k BOE 378 ilvl pole arm, 15K got me the new BOE, valor bracers, and a few more pieces off the AH all gemed and chanted ready to go raiding... same day I hit 85. The 16k in BH was using mangle instead of shred and having been a long time out of playing melee in raids/groups. As well as being new to the rotations to keep up. It just does not apply when questing, and I am also tanking mostly in instances. Things die to quick to get a real kitty feral rotation going. My spec is also not pure Kitty, I am running a hybrid tank spec to do decent dps as feral, but mostly to tank. So, new boss in BH, same day I hit 85, #13 on dps at 16K... not bad in my book. Still lots of pracice to really do well. On my roge where I learned melee dps in raiding, I ran combat, never had to worry about the positioning requirement. Shred.. that does require positioning... its new and harder, and I LIKE IT...
So, I had a half mill, now I dont, only like 480K or something... I have the low end therazane chants for shoulders, the tanking helm glyph from earthen ring, and have been clearing up in Hyjal to complete the quest line and get into the dailies with the avengers, for the purchasable 365 neck, and looking for rep runs in FL for a new belt and cloak... In a couple days, I expect to also have the 378 cloak and belt with Avenger's of Hyjal rep.
So.. a Half mill.. go nuts... I still play to raid, and a decent tank that is consistent is hard to come by sometimes... OKAY.. almost all the time. 65K spent on gems, enchants, and stuff and I hit ilvl 352 w/in hours of lvl 85... Oh.. and I went broke on that toon.. so I sent hime a 50K Operational Continuation Fund. RAWRRRR.. next will be gearing up the resto set...
Fun fun... :-)
BUT... Today, the topic is the druid that hit 85 yesterday. Often short tanks and heavy on priests in the guild, I started pushing my druid up as feral. yesterday was the great ding, 85. In a matter of a couple hours, I was random queing ZA/ZG w/ some guildies, and doing 10K dps, as well as doing 16k dps in a BH run on the new boss (25man), grinding regular heroics for JP got me the T11 pants, 60K in gold got me the 42k BOE 378 ilvl pole arm, 15K got me the new BOE, valor bracers, and a few more pieces off the AH all gemed and chanted ready to go raiding... same day I hit 85. The 16k in BH was using mangle instead of shred and having been a long time out of playing melee in raids/groups. As well as being new to the rotations to keep up. It just does not apply when questing, and I am also tanking mostly in instances. Things die to quick to get a real kitty feral rotation going. My spec is also not pure Kitty, I am running a hybrid tank spec to do decent dps as feral, but mostly to tank. So, new boss in BH, same day I hit 85, #13 on dps at 16K... not bad in my book. Still lots of pracice to really do well. On my roge where I learned melee dps in raiding, I ran combat, never had to worry about the positioning requirement. Shred.. that does require positioning... its new and harder, and I LIKE IT...
So, I had a half mill, now I dont, only like 480K or something... I have the low end therazane chants for shoulders, the tanking helm glyph from earthen ring, and have been clearing up in Hyjal to complete the quest line and get into the dailies with the avengers, for the purchasable 365 neck, and looking for rep runs in FL for a new belt and cloak... In a couple days, I expect to also have the 378 cloak and belt with Avenger's of Hyjal rep.
So.. a Half mill.. go nuts... I still play to raid, and a decent tank that is consistent is hard to come by sometimes... OKAY.. almost all the time. 65K spent on gems, enchants, and stuff and I hit ilvl 352 w/in hours of lvl 85... Oh.. and I went broke on that toon.. so I sent hime a 50K Operational Continuation Fund. RAWRRRR.. next will be gearing up the resto set...
Fun fun... :-)
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Where is your guild at, and where are you on progression
Gold in the game removes the stress to have the gear enhancements and consumables to go... that was the project... Play what I want to play at and not care about the rest... The guild my raiding main is in... We believe got a server first beth'ilac (spelling) kill.. they were server #5, and they are talking about how they fell to #14... Not bad.. I am not in the raiding grou, have not killed anything on H mode, or even cleared the T11 raid zones. Its time to regroup and change things up with group 2... just too casual... and the expectations are low and so then is attendance and performance. Still having fun at it..
The only thing that bites is old habits... I still can not take my 84.3 druid, almost 85... and easily pass the mining nodes that I see.. I can not make myself turn off "tracking" for mining, or even vendor stuff in my bags.. it goes to an alt sits in the mail, and then gets mass posted when I drag myself over to that toon and spend an hour cleaning and organizing... I still have stupid stocks of stupid stuff in G-banks, banks, bags and mailboxes... But I may find I desire to have some fun with the JC market and go for more gold as the druid is feral tank spec atm, but the nice thing about feral tank, is you still have pleanty of tools to do very respectable DPS by just going cat form. Plan him to be a raiding feral dps/pinch OT, and when the gear is in place I will prolly get a resto spec going... I should get into the Hyjal dailies soon and get going for that gear, and get enough soon enough to get out and gear up.. since Justice will now buy a lot of gear, dungeon for rep and JP gear... good too go. Fast and easy... into firelands trash runs for the rep gear there will be nice. I will get a toon into see cho or Nef soon enough.. will be fun.. and its soooo nerfed now... totally puggable if you have a decent raid leader that knows whats going on.
On gold habits.. having done it once... no need to make a mad push to get more gold... its all just for fun now, but I have developed the skill set and addon usage to repeat the process again and again. So I may dable at the JC jumble, I have a xmut alchy, I have an enchanter, and now I have a JC... just not sure how much I really want to get into all that.. playing an hour or so daily in the AH game was draining... I could never go to Org and not run an AH cancel/post it seemed... I was always flipping the auctions... later I quit that and still made respectable sales, just a bit less, the I quit at that game and decided a tank is my goal... Almost there and owning all the non heroics against the most idiotic and stupd DPS... LFD DPS is terribad.. I rareley have a group where one of them does not pull agro for failure to target my target.. then what do they do... RUN AWAY... AND... KEEP DPS GOING... I taunt it back sometimes.. and before it gets to me... they have agro back.. I let them have it... I just quit taunting... I mark a target.. they DPS another... Something twiches.. and they open up with AOE.. no allowance to let me get agro or position mobs.. just LOAD UP the recount meter... Gahhh, terribads... Or just plain rude, I can tell by the performance of many of them that they know how to play well and are likely raiders... They are just cocky and have unrealistic expectations that it is my job to save their ass... Nope... dont pull agro, and let me get agro... target my target too... Oh well its still fun and I need to get in and get the rep for therazane and Uldum and Earthen ring, stam agi head chants and shoulder enhancements...
Side not... I did a couple dungeons, and the quest to go with them, but wow... 45% xp bonus... i was 83 before I cleared Vaj'ir... (need the stam/dodge head glyph) Not sure if deepholm will get me to 85 or not... but shoulder chants there.. then to Uldum for more questing... Agi/Haste chant, then off to Hyjal for the quest lines to the new content... and the healing head glyph... OHHH.. glad I was thinking on that... I guess I need to prioritze Hyjal up the list... gota run the quest line to get into the dailies sooner than later... I guess it will be clear Deepholm then to Hyjal... then to uldum...
Hope you had a happy fourth of July if you celebrated te 235th anniversary of the USA...
The only thing that bites is old habits... I still can not take my 84.3 druid, almost 85... and easily pass the mining nodes that I see.. I can not make myself turn off "tracking" for mining, or even vendor stuff in my bags.. it goes to an alt sits in the mail, and then gets mass posted when I drag myself over to that toon and spend an hour cleaning and organizing... I still have stupid stocks of stupid stuff in G-banks, banks, bags and mailboxes... But I may find I desire to have some fun with the JC market and go for more gold as the druid is feral tank spec atm, but the nice thing about feral tank, is you still have pleanty of tools to do very respectable DPS by just going cat form. Plan him to be a raiding feral dps/pinch OT, and when the gear is in place I will prolly get a resto spec going... I should get into the Hyjal dailies soon and get going for that gear, and get enough soon enough to get out and gear up.. since Justice will now buy a lot of gear, dungeon for rep and JP gear... good too go. Fast and easy... into firelands trash runs for the rep gear there will be nice. I will get a toon into see cho or Nef soon enough.. will be fun.. and its soooo nerfed now... totally puggable if you have a decent raid leader that knows whats going on.
On gold habits.. having done it once... no need to make a mad push to get more gold... its all just for fun now, but I have developed the skill set and addon usage to repeat the process again and again. So I may dable at the JC jumble, I have a xmut alchy, I have an enchanter, and now I have a JC... just not sure how much I really want to get into all that.. playing an hour or so daily in the AH game was draining... I could never go to Org and not run an AH cancel/post it seemed... I was always flipping the auctions... later I quit that and still made respectable sales, just a bit less, the I quit at that game and decided a tank is my goal... Almost there and owning all the non heroics against the most idiotic and stupd DPS... LFD DPS is terribad.. I rareley have a group where one of them does not pull agro for failure to target my target.. then what do they do... RUN AWAY... AND... KEEP DPS GOING... I taunt it back sometimes.. and before it gets to me... they have agro back.. I let them have it... I just quit taunting... I mark a target.. they DPS another... Something twiches.. and they open up with AOE.. no allowance to let me get agro or position mobs.. just LOAD UP the recount meter... Gahhh, terribads... Or just plain rude, I can tell by the performance of many of them that they know how to play well and are likely raiders... They are just cocky and have unrealistic expectations that it is my job to save their ass... Nope... dont pull agro, and let me get agro... target my target too... Oh well its still fun and I need to get in and get the rep for therazane and Uldum and Earthen ring, stam agi head chants and shoulder enhancements...
Side not... I did a couple dungeons, and the quest to go with them, but wow... 45% xp bonus... i was 83 before I cleared Vaj'ir... (need the stam/dodge head glyph) Not sure if deepholm will get me to 85 or not... but shoulder chants there.. then to Uldum for more questing... Agi/Haste chant, then off to Hyjal for the quest lines to the new content... and the healing head glyph... OHHH.. glad I was thinking on that... I guess I need to prioritze Hyjal up the list... gota run the quest line to get into the dailies sooner than later... I guess it will be clear Deepholm then to Hyjal... then to uldum...
Hope you had a happy fourth of July if you celebrated te 235th anniversary of the USA...
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