Luckily our schedule is Sun/Mon/Tues/Wed/Thurs. These days we seem to do BT/MH ( ) Tues/Wed/Thurs, and then either have the rest of the week off, or go back on Monday for an attunement run (often SSC, though hitting TK isn't unheard of). There are two guilds (that I know of) that have been kind enough to give/loan us their instance (usually SSC) with 3-5 bosses already down on Monday night (what I assume would be an off night for them as well). In repayment, we've had a couple members (usually a raid leader) tag along for the kill and ocassionally get a loot drop (if it was going to be sharded; they follow the usual "Raiders before Apps/Guests" rule) to help them with their own progression.
It's just an unnecessary hassle compared to "Okay, you seem really promising, here's your attunement; show us what you've got".
Forar on
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
Don't Hate this, but don't know if I like it or not: I finally took a few runs at Eye of the Storm.
It isn't nearly as annoying as Warsong Gulch. Mostly because of the "timer" effect that makes it so much like AV or AB. I know that the match will end soon, I know that I won't be stuck there for 90 minutes or more so I can stand sticking it out.
Don't Hate this, but don't know if I like it or not: I finally took a few runs at Eye of the Storm.
It isn't nearly as annoying as Warsong Gulch. Mostly because of the "timer" effect that makes it so much like AV or AB. I know that the match will end soon, I know that I won't be stuck there for 90 minutes or more so I can stand sticking it out.
EOTS is pretty fun, by my standards at least. I know alot of people get flustrated though, since the way to win is blatently obvious, however, somehow people are stupid enough to not do it.
But by god it is the easiest place ever to steamroll with a premade.
That's pretty pointless. The TK Attunement quest was a huge hassle, since most of it didn't involve any sort of raiding aside from killing Mag. BT and Hyjal involve SSC and TK only, and while it may be a hassle to run someone through SSC and TK, does someone without any T5 experince really deserve to jump straight to Hyjal and BT? I've heard you talk about nerfing bosses in the end so people see the content, which I agree with, but I don't think they should get to skip all of SSC and TK.
The main problem with the current attunements as they stand is that it makes recruiting as a Hyjal/BT guild rather painful. You can either hold out for recruits with both attunements done (good luck with that if you're not the top guild on your server, we have one guild under us with both Kael and Vashj down, and two more with just Vashj... that's a potential in-server recruit pool of 120 people at best, and how many of those are a) needed in our guild and b) even interested assuming no guild breakups). Alternatively you can recruit unattuned folks and run a mass attunement run every so often. However, that takes raid time - we only raid 3 days a week, so spending a raid and a half going back to old content means we have little or no time left for progression content that week (or alternatively have some but sacrifice either BT or Hyjal). We got a very strong resto shaman recruit recently with good enough gear not to be a burden in T6 content (some vengeful/merciful glad gear, maxed out kara and some early SSC/TK drops, and actively working on some of the new badge rewards) yet he's just been sitting on the sidelines while we try to find a holy priest so we can attune them at the same time. We had exactly 25 people available for today's raid, so if we lose a couple people we're going to be hurting.
This is pretty much exactly it.
Also, I fail to see your point about them skipping T5 content. How are they not skipping T5 content by having a crew of 20+ experienced and potentially T5/T6 geared raiders pulling them through the instance? (possibly just a handful of bosses at that, depending on who the guild is friendly with >.> )
The only difference is that it'd save us from having to pull people in on what would otherwise be an 'off night' and make them clear through content they are sick and tired of. The gear isn't a draw, the trash and bosses can be frustrating depending on how vital the role of the applicant being played is, and at least as far as I've heard from the grumbling of my crew, they'd rather see the person in relavent content proving their worth and gearing up at that level, rather than slumming through crap when they could have better things to do.
My guild is also down to 3 nights a week from what would be 5 official nights (ZA and Karazhan are often run on the weekends for enchants, alts and just the hell of it), so tacking that 4th night on "to go attune more people" isn't nearly as much a morale booster as "good job clearing BT/Hyjal in 3 days, see you next Tuesday, and let's see if we can get that down to 2".
Now, having killed Vashj, Leo, FLK, Al'ar, HAS and KT only a handful of times apiece, I don't mind the boss fights much, but the trash.. oh god the trash. T5 level trash is way worse than T6 trash, and even with a partially empty instance, it just drains people. "Okay guys, now let's clear to KT. Get ready for the violation!"
I don't think there's a single BT mob I hate as much as some of those "LOL WHIRLWIND FOR 12K!" fuckers in TK.
So basicallly, yeah, I would like to see Scrolls of Attunement drop from Illidan and Archimonde, because there's no more reason for people to have to reclear old crap time and again just attune a few people every couple weeks. As a matter of fact, I'd argue that because the only part of the SSC attunement was to kill Magtheridon (which can be done in 20-30 minutes), there's significantly less reason to have provided a workaround for that attunement without doing so for the one that requires clearing a pair of instances that are going to take up 1-2 days no matter how you cut it.
TK Attunement has to do with killing Mag. SSC Was about killing Nightbane and Gruul.
And I have a feeling TK was taken out due to its hassle, and that Mag is a more or less out of the way boss many guilds don't really care about (Until later).
The trash is terrible, I'll agree, but I don't think that has much to do with attunement as much as Blizzard poorly designing portions of their instances, and I'd much rather have them change the trash to be less terrible for all the guilds trying to progress, then having them convinience BT Recruiting guilds.
SSC/TK is also an excellent place to look at new recruits and see if they're good enough to join. As I recall you joined your guild 1-2 months ago, and competed with a Rogue of slightly better gear. What if they'd just decided to take him because of his gear, and unless I'm wrong those attunement scrolls weren't 100% drops, so they wouldn't have the scrolls to spare to even recruit him.
I dunno, skipping content like that, when placed in such a linear fashion, is missing out on Lore (though admitedly mediocre lore), experience, and just something they'd put there for the purposed of being done before BT/Hyjal.
TK Attunement has to do with killing Mag. SSC Was about killing Nightbane and Gruul.
And I have a feeling TK was taken out due to its hassle, and that Mag is a more or less out of the way boss many guilds don't really care about (Until later).
The trash is terrible, I'll agree, but I don't think that has much to do with attunement as much as Blizzard poorly designing portions of their instances, and I'd much rather have them change the trash to be less terrible for all the guilds trying to progress, then having them convinience BT Recruiting guilds.
SSC/TK is also an excellent place to look at new recruits and see if they're good enough to join. As I recall you joined your guild 1-2 months ago, and competed with a Rogue of slightly better gear. What if they'd just decided to take him because of his gear, and unless I'm wrong those attunement scrolls weren't 100% drops, so they wouldn't have the scrolls to spare to even recruit him.
I dunno, skipping content like that, when placed in such a linear fashion, is missing out on Lore (though admitedly mediocre lore), experience, and just something they'd put there for the purposed of being done before BT/Hyjal.
My mistake. I know this is going to sound dumb and arrogent, but I did those attunements so long ago that I'd forgotten what I killed for what. I do, however, hold pride in the fact that I completed both the SSC and TK attunements before Blizzard lifted them.
My point on the trash wasn't that Blizzard was actually concerned with their difficulty, so much that I (as a player) feel that it's asinine and ridiculous that Blizzard seems relatively comfortable with the satus quo, which it's just a big headache for players and guilds. Yes, I'd be happy (even in retrospect) if they fixed that discrepancy, but the discrepancy exists, and as such, I find it to be a point of contention.
SSC/TK would be a fine place to test people if that content hadn't been utterly abandoned by many of the guilds deep in T6 content. As noted, it's an extra night (or more) of raiding that's unnecessary when they could just test (and gear) those people in relavent content. Sure, a tank in T4 may well get smoked by many of the bosses in T6 content, but upgrades will be significant, will come, and it's more about testing a person's attitude, availability, and skill at that point. From the perspective of an officer in my old guild, I wouldn't care if a tank grabbed a mob that had gotten out of hand and gotten smoked, the important point was that they grabbed it in the first place, gear level notwithstanding.
The scrolls were a 100% drop, as I recall. The initial shenanigans came from the vials not being a "Quest Item" drop, and instead like 2-4 dropping, proving (again) that Blizzard learned NOTHING from a previous experience; the Onyxia Attunement chain. "Hey guys, remember how much people hated that only a few Drak blood items dropped? Let's do that again!" (originally I think it was 1 or 1/2, and then was changed to 2-4, and then a quest item)
As for my case, I've now been a member for a month, and had been applying for about a month before that, though I waited a significant period before I got an invite or a test run due to their focusing on killing Illidan and then repeating that kill. I was tested on damage output, survivability, availability, attitude and a variety of other factors. While I didn't get to see my application thread (and believe me, that's the first thing I looked for when I was granted member access on the forums), without being immodest, I wasn't surprised to have had an edge, as I do keep track of SWStats, and I typically had equal or fewer deaths, and did equal or better damage. He was a good guy, a good player and from all accounts, it was a very close race (hell, apparently they came close to just taking both of us), but from what I saw, I don't think it would've been a case where they saw a T5 helm and granted him full raider status. Whether it would be in another instance, or a case where they'd just have to "scroll us both" and see where things went, something would be done. Hell, maybe even an SSC or TK:TE run, but it'd by choice, as opposed to being required in order to bring those applicants up to speed.
Forar on
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
My mistake. I know this is going to sound dumb and arrogent, but I did those attunements so long ago that I'd forgotten what I killed for what. I do, however, hold pride in the fact that I completed both the SSC and TK attunements before Blizzard lifted them.
I intend on doing the Trials (would already have 2 of the first 3 done by now if I'd had the quest at the time), then sneaking into some guild's Gruul and Magtheridon kills just to do the attunements the old-fashioned way, just to have done them that way. And because I want that title.
Fun: my 2v2 - me paladin, and a warrior, vs paladin and shadow priest.
They clearly intend to do ye olde "mana burn their healer then kill their DPS".
So I lead the shadow priest for a merry chase ten laps around the arena with the warrior up his butt until their paladin goes OOM and the priest got warrior'd.
I barely tossed a single heal since I just got the occasional mana burn which is crap damage.
On my 3v3 I did that, sort of. I was on my mage and I was kiting a warrior, while my rogue and retadin friend killed their healer. Their other DPS guy went unaccounted for. Arena, fun times.
Hate: Being in class rendering my damn movie and NOT playing WoW.
Hope: I can get a flippin' Mana Tombs group sometime this week. I want me those healing pants!
Edit: Out of curiosity I checked my armory page. I need to replace almost all my gear. DAMMIT!
TK Attunement has to do with killing Mag. SSC Was about killing Nightbane and Gruul. And I have a feeling TK was taken out due to its hassle, and that Mag is a more or less out of the way boss many guilds don't really care about (Until later).
Except Mag can be done in 20-30 minutes, Gruul in 30-40. Nightbane is a 10 man crew and everything else is either soloable or a 5 man. While the overall chain was worse per person, you only needed an hour of raid time to attune folks, which is much easier to schedule than 6 hours.
SSC/TK is also an excellent place to look at new recruits and see if they're good enough to join. As I recall you joined your guild 1-2 months ago, and competed with a Rogue of slightly better gear. What if they'd just decided to take him because of his gear, and unless I'm wrong those attunement scrolls weren't 100% drops, so they wouldn't have the scrolls to spare to even recruit him.
Pretty sure the scrolls were 100% drops, but the other advantage is that they give you a choice. Have one guy to attune? Give him a scroll. Have 6 people? Attunement run. As far as player evaluation, I'm not sure one T5 run with a completely overgeared raid gives any information that can't be gleaned from Heroics/Kara/Gruul/Early T6 content. Also, what about the case of alts, whether a player trying to attune a healer alt for Bloodboil/etc or a main trying to switch characters after the initial push through T5 content is complete. Those players have already experienced all the fights, just not on those characters/
I dunno, skipping content like that, when placed in such a linear fashion, is missing out on Lore (though admitedly mediocre lore), experience, and just something they'd put there for the purposed of being done before BT/Hyjal.
Personally, I consider any user experience that is seriously hindered by "lore" to be really bad design. Lore should be used to add depth and content and a secondary source of entertainment, but as soon as lore starts impacting gameplay in a negative way, it should get sacrificed or adjusted. Why can't forsaken be shackled or exorcised?
Anyway, what if they made it so that you had to kill C'thun to go do SSC? All these new raiders missed out on the AQ40 lore, we should force them to go do it once even though it has little to no tangible benefit for anyone (but learning the C'thun fight would definitely be a good skill check for new recruits!).
Hate: Being a paladin tank. I can't think of a single other role where gear is the sole contributor to my success as a tank. Once you've mastered cycling your cooldowns, which is incredibly easy to do, all you can do to improve yourself as a tank is gear up. Did I mention how doing gear spreadsheet comparisons is probably the most wretched aspect of RPGs?
I can't imagine that pally tanking is easier than druid tanking. It seriously is the spamming of three buttons in 95% of all cases.
We really only have 2 buttons, Consecrate and Holy Shield, and they are on 8 and 10 second recast timers
narv107 on
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ThomamelasOnly one man can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me! Registered Userregular
Hate: Being a paladin tank. I can't think of a single other role where gear is the sole contributor to my success as a tank. Once you've mastered cycling your cooldowns, which is incredibly easy to do, all you can do to improve yourself as a tank is gear up. Did I mention how doing gear spreadsheet comparisons is probably the most wretched aspect of RPGs?
I can't imagine that pally tanking is easier than druid tanking. It seriously is the spamming of three buttons in 95% of all cases.
We really only have 2 buttons, Consecrate and Holy Shield, and they are on 8 and 10 second recast timers
Hey, I judge things sometimes too, and reseal. Four buttons! With long cooldowns! Ha! I can't stop! Somebody just shoot me please!
I've done paladin tanking as well as warrior tanking. Warrior tanking can jog off and die alone. It sucks. It's hard work. Paladin tanking is easy and fun.
Hate: Recently reactivated, went Horde. Fresh start. Rolled an Undead Priest, jumped into a BG at 19. Not twinked, so I mostly stick to the back, tossing heals when I can and a few spells. First one runs smooth as silk, second in most damage healed.
Second BG, starts off with everyone talking about an Alliance mage who hacks. Sure enough, a gnome speed hacks into the flag room, grabs the flag, and runs/teleports out before I can even blink.
Hate: Recently reactivated, went Horde. Fresh start. Rolled an Undead Priest, jumped into a BG at 19. Not twinked, so I mostly stick to the back, tossing heals when I can and a few spells. First one runs smooth as silk, second in most damage healed.
Second BG, starts off with everyone talking about an Alliance mage who hacks. Sure enough, a gnome speed hacks into the flag room, grabs the flag, and runs/teleports out before I can even blink.
Like, why even bother?
I have seen people in both factions doing that. When alliance see that happen they figure the person is using swiftness potions.
Also, in both of the tunnels, there's a yellow dealie in the nook that doubles your movement speed. Usually, it's used AFTER getting the flag, not before, though.
Luckily our schedule is Sun/Mon/Tues/Wed/Thurs. These days we seem to do BT/MH ( ) Tues/Wed/Thurs, and then either have the rest of the week off, or go back on Monday for an attunement run (often SSC, though hitting TK isn't unheard of). There are two guilds (that I know of) that have been kind enough to give/loan us their instance (usually SSC) with 3-5 bosses already down on Monday night (what I assume would be an off night for them as well). In repayment, we've had a couple members (usually a raid leader) tag along for the kill and ocassionally get a loot drop (if it was going to be sharded; they follow the usual "Raiders before Apps/Guests" rule) to help them with their own progression.
It's just an unnecessary hassle compared to "Okay, you seem really promising, here's your attunement; show us what you've got".
Holy fucking shit, Forar, how do you do that? I play WoW almost daily, I have 3 70s and raid once a week. I have absolutely no clue how you pack so much progress in that you have a shit ton of 70s and raid five days a week. My mind boggles. (For clarity, this isn't an accusation that you play too much, just that I am amazed that you can do so much, even if you DID play too much). Out of curiosity, do you do pvp as well?
Happy for me is getting my pally a flying machine, mote extractor and the tankatronic goggles two days after dropping Blacksmithing for Engineering (A little late, this was a couple days ago). Hate is, Icecrown gas clouds are a myth. I really, really, really wanted to just find one and I spent 45 min flying around Nagrand and Zangarmarsh and never saw one. I have now harvested from clouds twice and both times were the cloud in SV near the second boss.
Another happy? My Paladin makes gold like nobodies business. Gotta love farming the geologists by Manaforge Bnaar. I should have my epic flying mount for both my priest (Hippogryph) and Paladin (Flying machine) in not too long a while.
I'm curious, this is prot tank AoE farming? I have been wondering about best spots for those (as the legion hold warlocks seem to favor DoT classes)
Yeah. It's all melee over there between the manaforge and the Heap. I use a Lichen Guard with a Thorium shield spike and just consecrate the groups into submission. You get an absolute ton of sunfury signets, arcane tomes, netherweave and of course about 1g a pull and plenty of greens for DEing.
Happy: Geting a guild pug to do Heroic Sethekk and get the druid her epic flying mount, and perhaps a chance at the epic. Not much time till servers go down. Two of the group members have never done sethekk, even normal.
Time winds on, we down the first boss on the 3rd try with a nonoptimal group, Holy pally, survival hunter, feral druid, shadow priest, and an assassination rogue. Have to stop and make a repair run eventually, but through the wipes we're having a great time on vent.
Love: Downing Anzu on our 2nd try as the server shutdown countdown spams our chatlogs and I'm blasting The Final Countdown over vent.
Most epic fight ever, no real aoe so birds took quite a while to kill. We slowed dps after the first bird wave to regen some mana, then at about 5% got an untimely aoe stun and cyclone chain on me (healer) once it dies out I just barely get LoH up on the tank. Talk about an adrenaline rush.
I'm curious, this is prot tank AoE farming? I have been wondering about best spots for those (as the legion hold warlocks seem to favor DoT classes)
I like heading to the Black Temple area and grinding on Demon Hunter Supplicants. You can round up about 24 of them on the right side of the temple. Just beware the roaming 70 elite. Otherwise the supplicants are perfect: low hp & they strike fast. If you have a figurine of the colossus, they'll regen you to 100% health.
This nets you ~2-3g, a couple greens, several signets, a few tomes and a lot of netherweave cloth per pull.
If you mine, check out Access Shaft Zeon in the Netherstorm. There's about 3 adamantite nodes in there and it's a prot friendly cave.
Shmoepong on
I don't think I could take a class without sparring. That would be like a class without techniques. Sparring has value not only as an important (necessary) step in applying your techniques to fighting, but also because it provides a rush and feeling of elation, confidence, and joyful exhaustion that can only be matched by ... oh shit, I am describing sex again. Sorry everyone. - Epicurus
Everyone knows about the Supplicant spot. However, another good spot is just on the north side of the temple. Rows of fel orcs (with one large elite drakonid patrolling) that you can gather up and AoE down while waiting for the supplicants to respawn.
Strange
I was on my preist in STV at 4.00 a few minutes before the shutdown warning. When the goblin yells for the usual free for all in the Gurubashi Arena. I was in Booty Bay at the time and ran by to see if the chest was still there.
I walked up looking to see if there was anyone lying in wait carefully opened the chest and walked away with everything
I hope I still have the loot because to get the chest without anyone else around is just strange considering how often a certain guild hung out here
Holy fucking shit, Forar, how do you do that? I play WoW almost daily, I have 3 70s and raid once a week. I have absolutely no clue how you pack so much progress in that you have a shit ton of 70s and raid five days a week. My mind boggles. (For clarity, this isn't an accusation that you play too much, just that I am amazed that you can do so much, even if you DID play too much). Out of curiosity, do you do pvp as well?
I started playing in early January of 2005. I would've joined sooner, but the game was sold out everywhere in town that I called for weeks on end.
Early in my playtime, I realized that just having characters created saved time, as I could burn through rested exp on one while others were accruing it. It may seem counter-intuitive, but levelling multiple characters at once is, in some ways, more efficient than just focusing on one. So, two years later, TBC is released, and I had a full set of 8 level 60's. I admit that during this time, I played a LOT. Probably way more than I should've, but I also had built a large network of friends and associates, so between them, raiding and alts, there was always something to do.
Over the past year (well, 11 months) I pushed those 8 characters to 70, so while "omg 70's!" might seem like a lot of work, I'd really put in most of the time in the past having those at 60 and with some measure of gear on hand (most of those 60's saw action in MC, Onyxia, ZG, AQ20, and some even made it into BWL.
During most of that time, we raided 40/25 man content 3-4 times a week, although during one period I continued raiding with my crew, while dedicating a night or two per week to help another group learn MC with my paladin and a few other guild alts. Mistakes were made.
Anyway, about half a year ago, that group finally shattered to a degree, with about 75% of the guild moving on to form a new one. A few months later, after seeing progress in raid content and then stonewalling in the midst of T5 content, that group shattered again, this time to the four winds.
The group I joined has raided 5 days a week in the past, but currently it's more like 3-4, with an optional Karazhan here and a rare ZA there. I've cut back my playtime dramatically, though it's still moreso than many, and probably more than I should. I've been making an effort to read more, caught up on a few seaons of shows on DVD, and ocassionally even see sunlight! It's glorious, I tell you! GLORIOUS!
But seriously, without cheating, hacking or exploiting, it's really just a matter of doing things as efficiently as possible, and a large part of that is abusing the hell out of the rested bonus mechanic. Aside from my Rogue, most of those alts hit 70 in Nagrand, many of whom didn't even touch Terokar Forest, which puts them at 10 levels in 3 zones with a little instancing here and there. It takes more weeks/months on the Calendar to get to 70, but the time /played isn't very high in comparison. My goal now is just to keep up with the raid schedule, get my Shaman to 70, and then just take it a little easier while we await the Sunwell/WOTLK.
Edit: to answer your question, I arena on the Rogue (though I gave up on getting a team for the first few months after 70, I've tried to keep up on it for the most part since then), and got all of my characters (aside from the Shaman, of course) to rank 3 or higher for the repair discount and their first pvp trinket. I believe all 8 of the 'old school' characters are also exalted with the Stormpike (AV), so yeah, they've all seen action, though some moreso than others. (the Hunter made Rank 9 'back in the day', and was an inch from 10 before I gave up the grind)
Forar on
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
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It's just an unnecessary hassle compared to "Okay, you seem really promising, here's your attunement; show us what you've got".
It isn't nearly as annoying as Warsong Gulch. Mostly because of the "timer" effect that makes it so much like AV or AB. I know that the match will end soon, I know that I won't be stuck there for 90 minutes or more so I can stand sticking it out.
EOTS is pretty fun, by my standards at least. I know alot of people get flustrated though, since the way to win is blatently obvious, however, somehow people are stupid enough to not do it.
But by god it is the easiest place ever to steamroll with a premade.
TK Attunement has to do with killing Mag. SSC Was about killing Nightbane and Gruul.
And I have a feeling TK was taken out due to its hassle, and that Mag is a more or less out of the way boss many guilds don't really care about (Until later).
The trash is terrible, I'll agree, but I don't think that has much to do with attunement as much as Blizzard poorly designing portions of their instances, and I'd much rather have them change the trash to be less terrible for all the guilds trying to progress, then having them convinience BT Recruiting guilds.
SSC/TK is also an excellent place to look at new recruits and see if they're good enough to join. As I recall you joined your guild 1-2 months ago, and competed with a Rogue of slightly better gear. What if they'd just decided to take him because of his gear, and unless I'm wrong those attunement scrolls weren't 100% drops, so they wouldn't have the scrolls to spare to even recruit him.
I dunno, skipping content like that, when placed in such a linear fashion, is missing out on Lore (though admitedly mediocre lore), experience, and just something they'd put there for the purposed of being done before BT/Hyjal.
My mistake. I know this is going to sound dumb and arrogent, but I did those attunements so long ago that I'd forgotten what I killed for what. I do, however, hold pride in the fact that I completed both the SSC and TK attunements before Blizzard lifted them.
My point on the trash wasn't that Blizzard was actually concerned with their difficulty, so much that I (as a player) feel that it's asinine and ridiculous that Blizzard seems relatively comfortable with the satus quo, which it's just a big headache for players and guilds. Yes, I'd be happy (even in retrospect) if they fixed that discrepancy, but the discrepancy exists, and as such, I find it to be a point of contention.
SSC/TK would be a fine place to test people if that content hadn't been utterly abandoned by many of the guilds deep in T6 content. As noted, it's an extra night (or more) of raiding that's unnecessary when they could just test (and gear) those people in relavent content. Sure, a tank in T4 may well get smoked by many of the bosses in T6 content, but upgrades will be significant, will come, and it's more about testing a person's attitude, availability, and skill at that point. From the perspective of an officer in my old guild, I wouldn't care if a tank grabbed a mob that had gotten out of hand and gotten smoked, the important point was that they grabbed it in the first place, gear level notwithstanding.
The scrolls were a 100% drop, as I recall. The initial shenanigans came from the vials not being a "Quest Item" drop, and instead like 2-4 dropping, proving (again) that Blizzard learned NOTHING from a previous experience; the Onyxia Attunement chain. "Hey guys, remember how much people hated that only a few Drak blood items dropped? Let's do that again!" (originally I think it was 1 or 1/2, and then was changed to 2-4, and then a quest item)
As for my case, I've now been a member for a month, and had been applying for about a month before that, though I waited a significant period before I got an invite or a test run due to their focusing on killing Illidan and then repeating that kill. I was tested on damage output, survivability, availability, attitude and a variety of other factors. While I didn't get to see my application thread (and believe me, that's the first thing I looked for when I was granted member access on the forums), without being immodest, I wasn't surprised to have had an edge, as I do keep track of SWStats, and I typically had equal or fewer deaths, and did equal or better damage. He was a good guy, a good player and from all accounts, it was a very close race (hell, apparently they came close to just taking both of us), but from what I saw, I don't think it would've been a case where they saw a T5 helm and granted him full raider status. Whether it would be in another instance, or a case where they'd just have to "scroll us both" and see where things went, something would be done. Hell, maybe even an SSC or TK:TE run, but it'd by choice, as opposed to being required in order to bring those applicants up to speed.
They clearly intend to do ye olde "mana burn their healer then kill their DPS".
So I lead the shadow priest for a merry chase ten laps around the arena with the warrior up his butt until their paladin goes OOM and the priest got warrior'd.
I barely tossed a single heal since I just got the occasional mana burn which is crap damage.
Hate: Being in class rendering my damn movie and NOT playing WoW.
Hope: I can get a flippin' Mana Tombs group sometime this week. I want me those healing pants!
Edit: Out of curiosity I checked my armory page. I need to replace almost all my gear. DAMMIT!
Heh, he was all "Waaait! Stand still! I wanna mana burn you!"
Except Mag can be done in 20-30 minutes, Gruul in 30-40. Nightbane is a 10 man crew and everything else is either soloable or a 5 man. While the overall chain was worse per person, you only needed an hour of raid time to attune folks, which is much easier to schedule than 6 hours.
Pretty sure the scrolls were 100% drops, but the other advantage is that they give you a choice. Have one guy to attune? Give him a scroll. Have 6 people? Attunement run. As far as player evaluation, I'm not sure one T5 run with a completely overgeared raid gives any information that can't be gleaned from Heroics/Kara/Gruul/Early T6 content. Also, what about the case of alts, whether a player trying to attune a healer alt for Bloodboil/etc or a main trying to switch characters after the initial push through T5 content is complete. Those players have already experienced all the fights, just not on those characters/
Personally, I consider any user experience that is seriously hindered by "lore" to be really bad design. Lore should be used to add depth and content and a secondary source of entertainment, but as soon as lore starts impacting gameplay in a negative way, it should get sacrificed or adjusted. Why can't forsaken be shackled or exorcised?
Anyway, what if they made it so that you had to kill C'thun to go do SSC? All these new raiders missed out on the AQ40 lore, we should force them to go do it once even though it has little to no tangible benefit for anyone (but learning the C'thun fight would definitely be a good skill check for new recruits!).
We really only have 2 buttons, Consecrate and Holy Shield, and they are on 8 and 10 second recast timers
Hey, I judge things sometimes too, and reseal. Four buttons! With long cooldowns! Ha! I can't stop! Somebody just shoot me please!
/cast [alt] Holy Shield; [shift] Judgement; [ctrl] Seal of Vengance; Consecrate
I can bind it all to one button if I felt anal enough.
Second BG, starts off with everyone talking about an Alliance mage who hacks. Sure enough, a gnome speed hacks into the flag room, grabs the flag, and runs/teleports out before I can even blink.
Like, why even bother?
I have seen people in both factions doing that. When alliance see that happen they figure the person is using swiftness potions.
Also, in both of the tunnels, there's a yellow dealie in the nook that doubles your movement speed. Usually, it's used AFTER getting the flag, not before, though.
Steam: pazython
Holy fucking shit, Forar, how do you do that? I play WoW almost daily, I have 3 70s and raid once a week. I have absolutely no clue how you pack so much progress in that you have a shit ton of 70s and raid five days a week. My mind boggles. (For clarity, this isn't an accusation that you play too much, just that I am amazed that you can do so much, even if you DID play too much). Out of curiosity, do you do pvp as well?
Happy for me is getting my pally a flying machine, mote extractor and the tankatronic goggles two days after dropping Blacksmithing for Engineering (A little late, this was a couple days ago). Hate is, Icecrown gas clouds are a myth. I really, really, really wanted to just find one and I spent 45 min flying around Nagrand and Zangarmarsh and never saw one. I have now harvested from clouds twice and both times were the cloud in SV near the second boss.
Another happy? My Paladin makes gold like nobodies business. Gotta love farming the geologists by Manaforge Bnaar. I should have my epic flying mount for both my priest (Hippogryph) and Paladin (Flying machine) in not too long a while.
Yeah. It's all melee over there between the manaforge and the Heap. I use a Lichen Guard with a Thorium shield spike and just consecrate the groups into submission. You get an absolute ton of sunfury signets, arcane tomes, netherweave and of course about 1g a pull and plenty of greens for DEing.
Time winds on, we down the first boss on the 3rd try with a nonoptimal group, Holy pally, survival hunter, feral druid, shadow priest, and an assassination rogue. Have to stop and make a repair run eventually, but through the wipes we're having a great time on vent.
Love: Downing Anzu on our 2nd try as the server shutdown countdown spams our chatlogs and I'm blasting The Final Countdown over vent.
Most epic fight ever, no real aoe so birds took quite a while to kill. We slowed dps after the first bird wave to regen some mana, then at about 5% got an untimely aoe stun and cyclone chain on me (healer) once it dies out I just barely get LoH up on the tank. Talk about an adrenaline rush.
I like heading to the Black Temple area and grinding on Demon Hunter Supplicants. You can round up about 24 of them on the right side of the temple. Just beware the roaming 70 elite. Otherwise the supplicants are perfect: low hp & they strike fast. If you have a figurine of the colossus, they'll regen you to 100% health.
This nets you ~2-3g, a couple greens, several signets, a few tomes and a lot of netherweave cloth per pull.
If you mine, check out Access Shaft Zeon in the Netherstorm. There's about 3 adamantite nodes in there and it's a prot friendly cave.
I was on my preist in STV at 4.00 a few minutes before the shutdown warning. When the goblin yells for the usual free for all in the Gurubashi Arena. I was in Booty Bay at the time and ran by to see if the chest was still there.
I walked up looking to see if there was anyone lying in wait carefully opened the chest and walked away with everything
I hope I still have the loot because to get the chest without anyone else around is just strange considering how often a certain guild hung out here
Happy: Got all of STV to level with today.
Happiest: Secret Santa package waiting for me in the post office.
Because currently Monday and Tuesday are my days off some of my precious play time is wasted by maintenance
Also not being totally hated for being that guild who transfers and immediately becomes #1
That's a great feeling though... you're missing out on all the forum tears.
I started playing in early January of 2005. I would've joined sooner, but the game was sold out everywhere in town that I called for weeks on end.
Early in my playtime, I realized that just having characters created saved time, as I could burn through rested exp on one while others were accruing it. It may seem counter-intuitive, but levelling multiple characters at once is, in some ways, more efficient than just focusing on one. So, two years later, TBC is released, and I had a full set of 8 level 60's. I admit that during this time, I played a LOT. Probably way more than I should've, but I also had built a large network of friends and associates, so between them, raiding and alts, there was always something to do.
Over the past year (well, 11 months) I pushed those 8 characters to 70, so while "omg 70's!" might seem like a lot of work, I'd really put in most of the time in the past having those at 60 and with some measure of gear on hand (most of those 60's saw action in MC, Onyxia, ZG, AQ20, and some even made it into BWL.
During most of that time, we raided 40/25 man content 3-4 times a week, although during one period I continued raiding with my crew, while dedicating a night or two per week to help another group learn MC with my paladin and a few other guild alts. Mistakes were made.
Anyway, about half a year ago, that group finally shattered to a degree, with about 75% of the guild moving on to form a new one. A few months later, after seeing progress in raid content and then stonewalling in the midst of T5 content, that group shattered again, this time to the four winds.
The group I joined has raided 5 days a week in the past, but currently it's more like 3-4, with an optional Karazhan here and a rare ZA there. I've cut back my playtime dramatically, though it's still moreso than many, and probably more than I should. I've been making an effort to read more, caught up on a few seaons of shows on DVD, and ocassionally even see sunlight! It's glorious, I tell you! GLORIOUS!
But seriously, without cheating, hacking or exploiting, it's really just a matter of doing things as efficiently as possible, and a large part of that is abusing the hell out of the rested bonus mechanic. Aside from my Rogue, most of those alts hit 70 in Nagrand, many of whom didn't even touch Terokar Forest, which puts them at 10 levels in 3 zones with a little instancing here and there. It takes more weeks/months on the Calendar to get to 70, but the time /played isn't very high in comparison. My goal now is just to keep up with the raid schedule, get my Shaman to 70, and then just take it a little easier while we await the Sunwell/WOTLK.
Edit: to answer your question, I arena on the Rogue (though I gave up on getting a team for the first few months after 70, I've tried to keep up on it for the most part since then), and got all of my characters (aside from the Shaman, of course) to rank 3 or higher for the repair discount and their first pvp trinket. I believe all 8 of the 'old school' characters are also exalted with the Stormpike (AV), so yeah, they've all seen action, though some moreso than others. (the Hunter made Rank 9 'back in the day', and was an inch from 10 before I gave up the grind)
Hah, I keep doing that too. If I wake up early and can't go back to sleep, you know it's a maintenance day.
I'm sure it will come when all the other guilds fall apart because half their members app to us.
Hahaha. I woke up early on my day off because I forgot to turn off my alarm. Go to login...
Noooo.