Gear Creep

Has anyone noticed the quality of pugs has both increased and decreased lately?

Groups get impatient with pulls and stupid / reckless with extra gear. You can’t plough thru all the crowds without mana breaks and ignore all CC mechanics just because your Level 24 guild is doing Nefarion Hardmode. We’re all NOT on the same page. This leads to bigger expectations in random PuGs and players able regress back into WotLK playstyles.

I tank Heroic 5 man content. I use three toons between 352 and 340 gear level. As a Tank, you worry about Threat and being able to survive the damage output. As people get better equipped, I’ve had dps rip agro off in regular intervals. Why? The dual wield Fury warrior is pushing 16000 DPS using twin 365s and is wearing T11.5 in all slots. He was pushing insane amounts of damage. Consecrate has nothing on a 30k damage whirlwind. Then I had two 359 iLevel Warlocks unleashing hellish amounts of spikey threat and 15k Dps in a damage race. I was forced to keep Taunt as part of my rotation. The healer was going OOM trying to keep up with Life-taps and Adds being ripped off the Tank. Are they bad players? Yes. BECAUSE their better gear makes them assholes? No. They just happen to be inconsiderate players with fantastic loot.

I also heal 5 man Heroic content. My healers are 350, 340, and 333. That’s a much bigger range of ability. As a Healer, it’s a different kind of hell. I had a full 359 Tank geared for Max Avoidance. He only had 155k health. I had to explain to him that 5 man heroic content should still be respected. He drew all of the mobs onto him without any CC, then expected to be healed thru Inferno + Meteor Strike + Lightning Lash and two melee beating on him. I understand the caliber of endless mana he’s accustomed to bathing in, but seriously know your limits. Some of that trash will still rock your face, if you get reckless. My obligation as healer is to keep the tank AND the rest of the group alive thru the fight. That sucked trying to keep up. A couple seconds of Polymorph, Banish, Ice Trap, Sap, or whatever can mean a world of difference. Don’t push your healer in blue 333 gear. Gear Creeping upwards to Tier 12 doesn’t mean that everyone’s alts are able to achieve the throughput required to do Hardmode 25man content. Especially when you que for a Random PuG.

I also DPS. My mage pushes 8k. My Shaman pushes 14k. My DK pushes 12k. Not much to brag about. If I can’t keep up with the other DPS, there’s no crying. I can accept being Top DPS and being Very Bottom. I always use CC and assist the tank. If the tank breaks CC and the healer is fine, we’re all good. I STOP attack and run to the tank when I do pull agro. DPS is easy. Follow the lead. Think on your feet. Help where you can. Stay out of the fire.

Play nice. It’s a chore to do Pugs for daily Valor points with the “non-Raid Scrubs”. Don’t be a jerk about it.

Pug Raid spots

Got into a raid as a 3rd healer. Keeping the Offtank / Main Tank alive and the other two healers are doing Raid heals. Interesting scenario being a Paladin Healer. The mana demands are heavy. Using a new interface VuhDo to help with the task. Still fine tuning the gear / gems / enchants for optimum output and efficiency. Wish me luck!

LF Cataclysm Raid

I have 350 iLevel Prot / Holy Paladin Looking for a 10 man raid group. Been raiding since the dawn of time - Motlen Core, C’Thun, Tempest Keep, Ulduar hardmode, and ICC Lich King hardmodes on multiple characters. I've studied Tankspot videos, WowHead strats, Youtube, and blog guides on Cataclysm raid instances.

I can't find a spot in a raid group in my own guild. They have two teams. The reason?? No Blackwing Depths / To4W experience. Insisting on 8/8 hardmode achieve to join your PuG team? Circular argument.

If you’re going to insist on a Kingslayer title to start your Lord Marrogar group, I call bullshit. If your group needs people, you’ll accept any new player that has basic equipment and basic understanding. Fill them in on the fight. You had to be new once.

I have fantastic gear and five years of experience on six level 85 characters. People wanting easymode on the raids are back wanting over the top ilvl plus achievments meaning anyone who hasn't kept up with the progression of the main group of players on their realm are locked out of raiding. Apparently, I will be looking for a new guild that actually wants players.

Shaman Cataclysm Pre-raid Wisdom

Gotta credit Vixsin from Life in Group 5 with this bit of wisdom.

This was his reply to someone on his blog post, but I think it deserves a page on its own.

Cataclysm Resto Shaman Stat Guide

In hard mode encounters, I would argue that Crit is your least valuable stat (Mastery and Haste are top contenders). But in normal mode encounters, Crit will come in a close second to Haste. Think of it like balancing a scale–you don’t want to load everything on one side right from the start, because the scale will simply tip over. What you want to do is load a little bit on each side, gradually working your way up to higher and higher levels.

At present, based on my own experiences in Tier 11, I would advise a Resto Shaman to pursue the following:

Pre-raiding stats:
- At least 700 haste (provided that you glyph RT, this will get you an extra tick)
- At least 1.8k Spirit
- Even contribution of Mastery and Crit

When working your way through normal mode raids:
- At least 900 haste (if you don’t have RT glyphed you will need to get > 916 haste)
- At least 2.1k Spirit
- An even contribution of Mastery and Crit
- If you’re sitting in mostly epics and haven’t gotten into hard modes yet, haste will be the key to increasing your HPS

Prior to entering hard modes:
- At least 900 haste
- At least 2.2k Spirit (this should increase to >2500 Spirit as you upgrade to ilvl372 gear)
- More than 700 Mastery
- After these points, increase your Haste or Mastery depending on your healing style and needs of your healing team. Mastery will ultimately make your spells hit a LOT harder, while haste will enable you to deliver faster heals. (I personally stack Mastery past 900 haste).

As for the reasoning as to why each stat is rated valuable or invaluable:

- Haste: in conditions where healers have plenty of mana, and thus can overheal in greater amounts without fear of running OOM, haste will be the key to higher HPS because it enables you to beat other healers to the punch. In other words, in a non-triage environment, haste will prove valuable because speed is of greater value than strength.

- Mastery: in triage conditions, Mastery will be the key to greater HPS because it increases your throughput and is at its most powerful when players are at low levels of health. (These are conditions seen in most hard mode encounters). In these conditions, healing-per-mana becomes more important than healing-per-second.

- Crit: unfortunately, it isn’t that favored of a stat this tier because of the reduced stat levels across the board. This means that its contributions through Imp. Water Shield and Ancestral Awakening aren’t as powerful as they once were, and point-for-point, your return on investment for Crit rating is comparatively lower than with Haste and Mastery. That being said, in normal mode encounters and environments where resto shaman are tank healing exclusively, crit is on par with Mastery.


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Crap does my shaman need to work on his Resto set !!

Why insert a shaman piece? So many players state guides for what stat to favor.

Int > Spirit > Haste > Mastery > Crit

Which items are BiS and which gems to use.

Nobody puts information on what minimum stats to bring to endgame content.
Some folks stop at Heroics. Some folks stop at 10 man Raids. Others shoot for 25 man Hardmodes. Each of these has a sliding scale of requirements.

Gospel? Maybe not. I'm just loving that someone listed base numbers

Ulduar Take II

I hit 10man / 25 man Ulduar.
Ulduar hits me back.

All of the mobs die, but one of the PuG raid-members triggers Easymode Flame Leviathan. No Achievement. Just 1 short of the Rusted Protodrake.

Next week, Abraxus comes back for his FL Achieve and I have my Dk fill in for the rest of the instance. I take over as tank. We one-shot the rest of the instance. As a consolation, my DK wins the Celestial Antechamber key and gets the Starcaller title.

Woot!

A week later, the same crew ask Dischord to tank their 25man Ulduar run. I also have my Protection paladin geared up and ready to go. I substitute Sindell and we rock the house.

A couple hours later, we get the 25man Ulduar Drake and I win the roll for the 25 man Celstial key. I get myself the the Astral Walker title, plus I'm Main Tank for my first full 25 man run!

Not a bad couple of runs in Ulduar.

For those of you naysayers, remember the fights are still deadly. Gearscore doesn't fix massive AoE and stupidity. XT-002 uses tantrum that removes 95% of your health. Not just a fixed number. Both drakes and titles feel well earned. I also got to team up with some people that I wouldn't mind hanging out with again.

I'm getting fed up with my own guild.

Starting Cataclysm with your ALT

You know who you are!

You're the kind of player that likes levelling, but not the grind of faction work and collecting Justice points for gear. You don't scour the Auction house for every available edge and you rarely ever use stat food or potions.

You play organically. You play for fun. You may just avoid instances and do solo content because the pressures of "group" play are kind of intense. Fight some. Skin some. Mine some. Do the next quest. Ohh look!!

Congratulations! Your character made it to level 80!

Lets move onto Cataclysm content..... And get your ass handed to you.

There is an ocean of difference between level 79 WotLK content and level 80 Cataclysm content.

There are alot of nasty nasty things with truly quick spawn times in the new Cataclysm zones. The water goblins and naga in Vash'ir or the twilight cultists and fire elementals in Hyjal. Both types will repop quickly and hit like a truck. I was getting beaten up.

Demonology spec helped. Crafted Emberweave helped. Getting out of my 200 iLevel gear helped. Apparently, my warlock was so far behind the curve, that the new expansion was daunting. My hunter was Tier 10 and ate up the mobs. My Tier 10 Enhance shaman was nearly immortal and had a blast. My DK was beastly in Tier 10.5 and never stopped.

ICC raiding "Mains" and newly minted level 80 characters are not equally sucessful against the Cataclysm starter zones. I would take Mt. Hyjal , personally. It's more player-friendly. For those of you who are making the jump from level 76 to level 80. Remember, gear gets a HUGE jump in Cataclysm but the difficulty has a HUGE hump as well.

Cataclysm Green items have 170 more STA and 170 more INT than Epics from Heroic LK instances. I have no idea why level 78-80 Icecrown blues even sell at the AH anymore. Once you outfit yourself with a full set of Cataclysm greens, you can resume dealing out dark cold justice from your fiery finger-tips. The difference is awesome.

If you can't get full crafted gear, do the first few quests until you replace at least 50% of your equipment. THEN hit the instances. You'll thank me.

Greatest Bank Alt of All Time!

My paladin Sindell was made back in the vanilla days. Patch 1.0 for those of you keeping count. I was pretty OCD about mining and gathering, so he was elected to keep all of my ore and excess herbs. He had a ton of 16 slot bags and spend a number of years in Stormind. As BC approached, he came out of retirement and leveled up to 60. For the next year, he sat in Ironforge guarding a mailbox. During the Lich King Era, he faithfully kept all the crafting materials and amassed a staggering amount of Saronite and Titanium. I leveled him up to 72 on those odd times where I was looking for a change. He leveled blacksmithing to 450 in Dalarn just crafting things for my other Toons. Sindell was there for paladin buffs and to trade at the Auction House. Extra items I crafted or BoE blue plate gear, went into his bank for later use. I’d get to use it, eventually. Over the months, Sindell sat patiently.

Cataclysm struck, and the 80 level cap was lifted. I got my Shaman, DK, and Hunter up to 85 exploring new content and questing. Even soloed a rare drake, while leveling. ( Aeonaxx is MINE suckas! ) Then I maxxed out my Jewelcrafting, Blacksmithing, and Alchemy. Eventually, I was talking to my son about ways to improve his paladin. His holy gear was mediocre. The ret set is also very average. His tank set has a lot of holes. He was running OOM during heroics and struggling with retro raids with his guild as a healer. During WotLK, he was never a Raider and geared enough to top the ret DPS charts. He’s young and very mercurial. He’d never play one character too long and always started up a new one. To his credit, he’s also BIG into Paladin PvP and nigh un-killable 1 on 1. He also has a couple other Horde characters he’s leveled as well. One blood elf paladin was a level 70 mirror of my Prot/Holy Paladin, Sindell. He was having a great time and crushing the PvE group encounters.

I figured I’d give my Paladin another lease on life. Man is levelling easy with 6 pieces of Relic gear and a 45% bonus to earned XP. Every quest and instance was a breeze. I also had a full set crafted armor, weapons, Blacksmith sockets, and gems waiting for me. Due to the glut of old world enchants and herbs, I was dominating solo content. I tried to Pug instances as a Tank and got non-stop instant ques. When you’re triple the health of your group members and doing double their DPS, you realize…. Dam Paladins are overpowered! I had every possible numerical advantage and WotLK content was nerfed to hell. Plus, this was my third plate tank class. At level 74, I had 24k health and could self-heal thru every trash pull. The damage mitigation was huge.

Crushed thru content up to level 80 and then ditched the Relic gear for Obsidian Plate forged armor. An hour later, I was back in instances and on par with healers/casters in 264 Tier 10 gear. I hit the Cataclysm dungeons at 56k and skipped up thru Hyjal, Deepholm, Vash’jir, Uldum, and Twilight. I was soon at 140k and poised to hit heroics.

Paladin tanking isn’t easy to learn but great fun when you do. I’ve taken as much advice as the EJ forums, wowpopular, and paladin Blogs can contribute. Plus, I pulled a Darth Vader on my son’s Obi-wan Kenobi advice on Paladins. Now I was showing him what to do and which glyph to pick. Arrogant, definitely. An improvement, maybe. I researched everything and tried to absorb every last tactic and strategy.

I hit 346 gearscore with my Tank set and started to even things up with my Holy gear. Instant ques are amazing. I was level 72 only three weeks ago. The big negative being a Paladin tank is that with my shaman - I got to finish all of my daily quests in a zone between ques. No such opportunity as a tank. I’m hurting for some factions, especially Tol Barad. The solution is to dedicate time to quest and ignore instance loot.

Other than that, my Heroic dungeon experience and tactics have never been sharper. I’m doing great on health and pushing mitigation to reach towards 102.5% avoidance. I worked my faction to exalted with Hyjal, and Ramkahen. Now moving onto Threzane and Wildhammer tabards. My son commented, “Dad, you know this paladin of yours now has a 350 iLevel? He’s now the greatest bank character of all time.”

Maybe I should assign some other toon to stand in Stormwind next to the mailbox and AH?