This might be a bit dated... but my guild is finally going to team up with another guild, and try and take on Gruul's lair. I've healed it, but never seen how it works from the perspective of, say, a lock that's got to enslave those felhunters. (we're short on locks for some reason, or at least, locks that don't work nights).
Anyrate, my question is, do those felhunters despawn when Olm dies? Or do we have to keep them enslaved the entire fight?
As far as I'm aware they don't exactly despawn (certainly not right when he dies) but I just send it in to the mage or Maulgar and it gets itself killed.
Keep it enslaved, their damage is massive. I generally send mine after Maulgar to help out, until it gets killed in his whirlwind.
If this isn't viable due to lack of locks or whatever they do despawn, it just takes a long time and it'd be better to dps down any extra ones.
Far as I know, my crew will be using the same DKP for Sunwell as we use for Hyjal and BT. Hate clearing some of that as many might (I still enjoy it), earning points there towards Sunwell clout will keep many people coming back well beyond the point which they need things, and due to some Illidan drop oddities, he's still a popular source of drops, even with much of the Sunwell loot table known.
Hoarding points isn't a big concern either, given that we use a "silent bid, bid once, pay 2nd highest +1" approach, so I suspect the days of seeing things go for 10 (the bare minimum, about one night's worth of raiding) will go away quickly as people start bidding in the hundreds. Sure, a little manipulation or collusion may be possible, but I like it thus far, and it just takes one person not playing exactly to their part to throw any such ambitions astray.
While much of the Sunwell stuff is indeed valuable, and ranks highly in ilevel, I'm not sure starting a whole new tier of DKP for 6 bosses + trash drops is really necessary, though I'd be lying to say that I wasn't factoring in new stuff in my bidding these days. Why go 'all in' on an item (and potentially pay that) when I intend to upgrade it with an early boss drop? I've used Shadowpanther and my own preferences for gearing to determine what is 'best in slot' (and some BT gear does remain best) to figure out what I want to pick up badly (or make people pay for heavily), and what I can afford to let slide a little. Right now I'm trying to beef my +Hit back up (277 unbuffed currently, would like to hit at least 310 by Sunwell, which should only take a couple upgrades of the 6 or 7 things remaining that I'd like to snag).
Oh, and pray that we see some more damned warglaives in the coming months. Specifically, 4 of them.
Edit; while I agree that some crews will likely hibernate until WOTLK comes out, and some will continue shenanigans like gearing out Alts in T6 (and eventually Sunwell gear), I suspect that these will be only the most advanced of the most advanced realms, since whole realm participation is necessary to unlock the latter bosses, and every reset window that goes by without a full 6 boss kill clear means potentially wasted drops. Hunters missing out on their bow (and eventually warriors and rogues even, the damned thing is HAWT for melee dps), people without their full T6/Crafted/off set drops, etc.
Forar on
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
It basically just depends on how long the gap between Sunwell and the expansion is. I mean, I like raiding, but I don't necessarily want to be farming the same old instances for months on end. I'm happy to farm to get my stuff, and to gear the rest of the mains up, but after that, meh.
Eat it You Nasty Pig. on
hold your head high soldier, it ain't over yet
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
0
Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
That's funny, my awesome guild just killed Illidan.
BECAUSE IT'S NOT LIKE YOU DIDN'T JUST SAY "WE'D LOVE TO HAVE YOU, BUT YOU WON'T GET IN ANY OF OUR RAIDS TOUGH LUCK CHAMP BETTER NOT TRANSFER"
NOT LIKE THAT AT ALL
YOU SODDING GIT
Oh, sorry, I just assumed that was another one of your "ALL RAID GUILDS ARE FILLED WITH ASSHOLES WHO HATE EACH OTHER SO EITHER JOIN THE BEASTS OR ENJOY RAIDING WITH DOUCHEBAGS" things. :rotate:
As lord chief of semantics around here, you should realize how carefully calculated that post was.
Roboface's guild isn't on illidan.
You guild doesn't want him.
Mine isn't raiding 25 mans.
Also your guild sucks dick. In italics.
Munkus Beaver on
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
is pvp gear all that terrible for pve? I imagine it's worse for some classes than others. how desirable would a priest and a warlock in full pvp gear be to a mid-tier raiding guild?
I'd love to see at least some of the current raid content beyond Gruul before the expansion comes out and I miss my chance to see it forever -_-
Speaking as a rogue, S3 in particular (and one might imagine, S4) is pretty damned good if you're sitting on T4 or worse. The hefty amount of the item's budget spent on excess stamina, resilience and set bonuses like more resilience won't help your dps much, but they're not utterly useless either (stamina is good for a great many encounters, though perhaps not in quite that heavy an amount, and not to the point of ignoring actual dps stats).
Assuming the warlock and priest sets are even remotely similar, they'd be a damned fine start until you started getting into the T5/T6 content I'd imagine.
I briefly raided wearing my S3 helm, as it was better than my T4 helm, and was replaced by T6, as an example.
Forar on
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
0
Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
edited March 2008
I always heard that the gladiator gear was trash for rogues, lacking any hit at all.
But as a lock? You'd get some mileage out of that in PvE for certain. And as a ret pally, you can't get better than S3.
Munkus Beaver on
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
I always heard that the gladiator gear was trash for rogues, lacking any hit at all.
S3 rectifies this a bit, and you can always gem for Hit to make up some of the deficit, you'd just need a few quality +hit pieces to make up for what the gear lacks innately, like the poison vial from Karazhan, and/or perhaps a WSC (if you don't already have a DST, that is).
I agree, a rogue in full (or 4/5, 2k+ pending) S3 is going to be hurting a bit on Hit and AP, but the excess crit, survivability and armour penetration aren't utterly wasted either.
Forar on
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
For Feral Druid bears (and to a lesser degree, cats), Vengeful Gladiator's Dragonhide and Vindicator's Dragonhide are best-in-slot, with the sole exception of T6, and even then only marginally until you get 4T6 (the bonus for which is phenomenal).
For Feral Druid bears (and to a lesser degree, cats), Vengeful Gladiator's Dragonhide and Vindicator's Dragonhide are best-in-slot, with the sole exception of T6, and even then only marginally until you get 4T6 (the bonus for which is phenomenal).
Which means to advance in PvE... I have to PvP.
Er, the pvp sets, as a whole, are best in slot? Uh, really?
Certainly not better than keeping 2 pieces of tier 4, but I wouldn't have thought that those items were tops for dps.
Of course, after the Sunwell comes out that's all out the window because the Plateau leather is the fucking bees knees.
is pvp gear all that terrible for pve? I imagine it's worse for some classes than others. how desirable would a priest and a warlock in full pvp gear be to a mid-tier raiding guild?
I'd love to see at least some of the current raid content beyond Gruul before the expansion comes out and I miss my chance to see it forever -_-
well
honestly... a mage in full A1 (season 1 gear) socketed for +hit or +stam would be ideal for tanking Kosh (mulgore's mage). Thats what i was wearing first time i did it on my mage and i had around 12k hp and 850 spell damage (169 hit). Also, the caster dagger is still amazing.
As for rogues? shit... the Season 1 weapons are STILL better than anything from kara (i just posted this). 30k honor is a small price to pay for 2 weapons which wont be replaced til MH/BT. GG blizz itemization team.
For Feral Druid bears (and to a lesser degree, cats), Vengeful Gladiator's Dragonhide and Vindicator's Dragonhide are best-in-slot, with the sole exception of T6, and even then only marginally until you get 4T6 (the bonus for which is phenomenal).
Which means to advance in PvE... I have to PvP.
Er, the pvp sets, as a whole, are best in slot? Uh, really?
Certainly not better than keeping 2 pieces of tier 4, but I wouldn't have thought that those items were tops for dps.
Of course, after the Sunwell comes out that's all out the window because the Plateau leather is the fucking bees knees.
a lot of melee T4 is shit. A lot of people i know still wear season 1 and season 2 gear over their t4 cause Feral druids and Rogues got hosed. Hell, Dungeon 0 level 70 BLUE shoulders are better than t4 rogue shoulders.... I really dont understand that.
/my rogue uses t4 shoulders/leggings with 2 season 1 swords and gets laughed at
As for rogues? shit... the Season 1 weapons are STILL better than anything from kara (i just posted this). 30k honor is a small price to pay for 2 weapons which wont be replaced til MH/BT. GG blizz itemization team.
Not to pick nits (or nitpick), but I daresay that S1 was indeed superior to T4 content gear and on par or replacable by T5 level gear. The S2 weapons, however, will indeed last you until MH/BT, and mine served me well. S3 are probably a tiny bit better than my current weapons, but arenas aren't for me and I'm rocking some pretty fine weaponry already. I should probably run the numbers again and try to get my 10 matches a week in, but my team mates never seem to want to play games at reasonable times, and I just can't be up until 2am on a weeknight for arena matches.
S1 for honour is fine if you can't be bothered with arenas, but I daresay S2 should be baseline weaponry for any raiding rogue.
I'll definately have to evaluate things with S4, but I don't think we even have the weapon models/stats yet.
Forar on
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
As for rogues? shit... the Season 1 weapons are STILL better than anything from kara (i just posted this). 30k honor is a small price to pay for 2 weapons which wont be replaced til MH/BT. GG blizz itemization team.
Spiteblade > S1 Mainhand.
EDIT: Heartless and Talon of Azshara are also better.
EDIT again: Spiteblade isn't better than S1, but it's too close to matter, and i prefer it for PvP. Bigger Ghostly Strikes/Hemos. (I know, it's the raid thread.)
So it looks like my guild is more or less dead, which is funny considering we had a lot going for us, we managed to shoot through TK in 2 weeks, and were focusing on SSC and then as soon as the guild learns we're planning on devoting nights to Kael attempts all the newfag raiders never log on again. I really hate the TBC generation of raiders that isn't willing to wipe to progress, they just kinda sit there complaining about how they don't get free loot or how they don't get invited to raids (we lost a tank who said he was not getting into raids when he was in them for the past month straight).
Wibod on
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Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
edited March 2008
I watched a video of a Ragnaros fight done by Millenium and wow god i wish i had been around for 40man raids.
40 people running through an instance looks so much more epic than 25.
I watched a video of a Ragnaros fight done by Millenium and wow god i wish i had been around for 40man raids.
40 people running through an instance looks so much more epic than 25.
My main complaint about 25 mans is that it requires everyone to be paying attention, be appropriately geared and especially in SSC have the perfect class balance. 40 mans really didn't require this as a means to proceed and it really gets tiresome having to call raids because random mage that is basically there for the sheep decided they didn't want to repair their gear.
Say what? Paying attention, having appropriate gear is somehow negative? Also what does having repaired gear have to do with sheeping?
In MC and BWL you could get away with people not paying attention at all times and could afford to bring in undergeared people, even in AQ40 you could do this if your core group of raiders were solid and dependable. In Naxx it changed a bit (olol slime room), but you could still get away to an extent. 25 mans in theory worked well in my eyes, less people means less retards, but then you run into other problems like perfect class balance which in my eyes really ruins a lot of the fun that I find in raiding (I despise ZA because of this). I think my main problem with this is the fact pre-tbc even if we spent months dieing on Vael people would still show up, while now if we say "Lets go and do Kael or Karathress tomorrow" it basically means no one is showing up aside from those who raided pre-tbc.
Mage not willing to wipe and spend money on repairing their gear means they don't show up and can't sheep.
Well as a tank not paying attention is not a luxury I can afford and I'll be damned if anyone goes ninja-afk during trash, after all trash killing speed is what makes or breaks a raid run.
Also the situation is not quite strict as you propose, if a non-ccing dpser slacks it's not a catastrophe and you can still bring in undergeared people, just make sure it's not a tank.
Those who don't show up to bosses are just slackers, also get better mages :P
Well as a tank not paying attention is not a luxury I can afford and I'll be damned if anyone goes ninja-afk during trash, after all trash killing speed is what makes or breaks a raid run.
Also the situation is not quite strict as you propose, if a non-ccing dpser slacks it's not a catastrophe and you can still bring in undergeared people, just make sure it's not a tank.
Those who don't show up to bosses are just slackers, also get better mages :P
Yeah I would if all the mages on the server didn't belong to MH/BT guilds or weren't Chinese (seriously FW has like half of Chinas population on it).
Wibod on
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ThomamelasOnly one man can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me! Registered Userregular
edited March 2008
One of the really, really nice things about MH pacing is that there isn't much down time to go afk except right after a boss kill. It makes the instance feel much faster paced.
One of the really, really nice things about MH pacing is that there isn't much down time to go afk except right after a boss kill. It makes the instance feel much faster paced.
From what I've seen and been told is that MH and BT are quite easy in Comparison to some of the hoops you have to jump through in SSC and TK.
Wibod on
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ThomamelasOnly one man can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me! Registered Userregular
One of the really, really nice things about MH pacing is that there isn't much down time to go afk except right after a boss kill. It makes the instance feel much faster paced.
From what I've seen and been told is that MH and BT are quite easy in Comparison to some of the hoops you have to jump through in SSC and TK.
Blizzard has a design philosophy of overlapping difficulty. The last boss of any instance is harder then the first boss of the next. So it feels like a break. The really hard part is if you can control the trash waves on MH and then be ready to take on the next boss. BT has a very early gear check and if you meet it, it's not too bad.
One of the really, really nice things about MH pacing is that there isn't much down time to go afk except right after a boss kill. It makes the instance feel much faster paced.
From what I've seen and been told is that MH and BT are quite easy in Comparison to some of the hoops you have to jump through in SSC and TK.
Blizzard has a design philosophy of overlapping difficulty. The last boss of any instance is harder then the first boss of the next. So it feels like a break. The really hard part is if you can control the trash waves on MH and then be ready to take on the next boss. BT has a very early gear check and if you meet it, it's not too bad.
I watched a video of a Ragnaros fight done by Millenium and wow god i wish i had been around for 40man raids.
40 people running through an instance looks so much more epic than 25.
My main complaint about 25 mans is that it requires everyone to be paying attention, be appropriately geared and especially in SSC have the perfect class balance. 40 mans really didn't require this as a means to proceed and it really gets tiresome having to call raids because random mage that is basically there for the sheep decided they didn't want to repair their gear.
I would never want to go back to the 40 man days. I mean, I do miss bringing 5-7 people who entire job was to keep the rest of the raid entertained, but it didn't make the gameplay compelling.
You don't need perfect class balance to succeed in 25 man raiding, you just need something resembling class balance.
Eat it You Nasty Pig. on
hold your head high soldier, it ain't over yet
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
0
ThomamelasOnly one man can kill this many Russians. Bring his guitar to me! Registered Userregular
One of the really, really nice things about MH pacing is that there isn't much down time to go afk except right after a boss kill. It makes the instance feel much faster paced.
From what I've seen and been told is that MH and BT are quite easy in Comparison to some of the hoops you have to jump through in SSC and TK.
Blizzard has a design philosophy of overlapping difficulty. The last boss of any instance is harder then the first boss of the next. So it feels like a break. The really hard part is if you can control the trash waves on MH and then be ready to take on the next boss. BT has a very early gear check and if you meet it, it's not too bad.
Razorgore was a lot harder then lolnaros :P
BWL was a bit of an oddity that way.
Thomamelas on
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AegisFear My DanceOvershot Toronto, Landed in OttawaRegistered Userregular
edited March 2008
Heck, I wish they had more 10-man raids. It somewhat sucks having only Kara and ZA to run through for something more challenging than a Heroic but requiring not nearly as many people as some less-raid-focused guilds have.
Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
edited March 2008
ZA does require a raid-focused guild, just not many people.
its not like Kara where you can take any 10 random people as long as you have 2 tanks, 2-3 healers and 5-6 DPS.
Class balance is really important, and you can't have a single person who says "LOL ITS A CASUAL GUILD STOP TELING ME HOW TO PLAY" when he's a hunter putting out 400DPS in t4 gear.
Dhalphir on
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AegisFear My DanceOvershot Toronto, Landed in OttawaRegistered Userregular
edited March 2008
I suppose I was referring to more the fact that rounding up 10 people (even a good class composition which we tend to have even with low numbers as several people have other alts that they can switch to) is much more easier to get some content ran than hoping 25 people can show up at once.
Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
One of the really, really nice things about MH pacing is that there isn't much down time to go afk except right after a boss kill. It makes the instance feel much faster paced.
From what I've seen and been told is that MH and BT are quite easy in Comparison to some of the hoops you have to jump through in SSC and TK.
Blizzard has a design philosophy of overlapping difficulty. The last boss of any instance is harder then the first boss of the next. So it feels like a break. The really hard part is if you can control the trash waves on MH and then be ready to take on the next boss. BT has a very early gear check and if you meet it, it's not too bad.
Razorgore was a lot harder then lolnaros :P
Razorgore was hells of easy if you had one good kiter. Oh God, that fight was made for me I'mcomingeverwhere
Munkus Beaver on
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
So DI people, I'm starting up a new kara a couple of weeks from now hopefully. I think I've got tanks sorted, and a token ret pally to put out some sub par dps (<3) but I need to fill it out a bunch. Theres a thread in the CTS dojo section of the PAA forums, so post there if you're interested in going, I'd like to have a semi-static group for the most part instead of finding 5 random mouthbreathers every week to distribute phat epix to.
Posts
If this isn't viable due to lack of locks or whatever they do despawn, it just takes a long time and it'd be better to dps down any extra ones.
I mean, after one more off-tier loot and hyjal exalted, I have no reason to show up to farm nights.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
Hoarding points isn't a big concern either, given that we use a "silent bid, bid once, pay 2nd highest +1" approach, so I suspect the days of seeing things go for 10 (the bare minimum, about one night's worth of raiding) will go away quickly as people start bidding in the hundreds. Sure, a little manipulation or collusion may be possible, but I like it thus far, and it just takes one person not playing exactly to their part to throw any such ambitions astray.
While much of the Sunwell stuff is indeed valuable, and ranks highly in ilevel, I'm not sure starting a whole new tier of DKP for 6 bosses + trash drops is really necessary, though I'd be lying to say that I wasn't factoring in new stuff in my bidding these days. Why go 'all in' on an item (and potentially pay that) when I intend to upgrade it with an early boss drop? I've used Shadowpanther and my own preferences for gearing to determine what is 'best in slot' (and some BT gear does remain best) to figure out what I want to pick up badly (or make people pay for heavily), and what I can afford to let slide a little. Right now I'm trying to beef my +Hit back up (277 unbuffed currently, would like to hit at least 310 by Sunwell, which should only take a couple upgrades of the 6 or 7 things remaining that I'd like to snag).
Oh, and pray that we see some more damned warglaives in the coming months. Specifically, 4 of them.
Edit; while I agree that some crews will likely hibernate until WOTLK comes out, and some will continue shenanigans like gearing out Alts in T6 (and eventually Sunwell gear), I suspect that these will be only the most advanced of the most advanced realms, since whole realm participation is necessary to unlock the latter bosses, and every reset window that goes by without a full 6 boss kill clear means potentially wasted drops. Hunters missing out on their bow (and eventually warriors and rogues even, the damned thing is HAWT for melee dps), people without their full T6/Crafted/off set drops, etc.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
As lord chief of semantics around here, you should realize how carefully calculated that post was.
Roboface's guild isn't on illidan.
You guild doesn't want him.
Mine isn't raiding 25 mans.
Also your guild sucks dick. In italics.
I'd love to see at least some of the current raid content beyond Gruul before the expansion comes out and I miss my chance to see it forever -_-
Assuming the warlock and priest sets are even remotely similar, they'd be a damned fine start until you started getting into the T5/T6 content I'd imagine.
I briefly raided wearing my S3 helm, as it was better than my T4 helm, and was replaced by T6, as an example.
But as a lock? You'd get some mileage out of that in PvE for certain. And as a ret pally, you can't get better than S3.
S3 rectifies this a bit, and you can always gem for Hit to make up some of the deficit, you'd just need a few quality +hit pieces to make up for what the gear lacks innately, like the poison vial from Karazhan, and/or perhaps a WSC (if you don't already have a DST, that is).
I agree, a rogue in full (or 4/5, 2k+ pending) S3 is going to be hurting a bit on Hit and AP, but the excess crit, survivability and armour penetration aren't utterly wasted either.
Which means to advance in PvE... I have to PvP.
Er, the pvp sets, as a whole, are best in slot? Uh, really?
Certainly not better than keeping 2 pieces of tier 4, but I wouldn't have thought that those items were tops for dps.
Of course, after the Sunwell comes out that's all out the window because the Plateau leather is the fucking bees knees.
well
honestly... a mage in full A1 (season 1 gear) socketed for +hit or +stam would be ideal for tanking Kosh (mulgore's mage). Thats what i was wearing first time i did it on my mage and i had around 12k hp and 850 spell damage (169 hit). Also, the caster dagger is still amazing.
As for rogues? shit... the Season 1 weapons are STILL better than anything from kara (i just posted this). 30k honor is a small price to pay for 2 weapons which wont be replaced til MH/BT. GG blizz itemization team.
a lot of melee T4 is shit. A lot of people i know still wear season 1 and season 2 gear over their t4 cause Feral druids and Rogues got hosed. Hell, Dungeon 0 level 70 BLUE shoulders are better than t4 rogue shoulders.... I really dont understand that.
/my rogue uses t4 shoulders/leggings with 2 season 1 swords and gets laughed at
Not to pick nits (or nitpick), but I daresay that S1 was indeed superior to T4 content gear and on par or replacable by T5 level gear. The S2 weapons, however, will indeed last you until MH/BT, and mine served me well. S3 are probably a tiny bit better than my current weapons, but arenas aren't for me and I'm rocking some pretty fine weaponry already. I should probably run the numbers again and try to get my 10 matches a week in, but my team mates never seem to want to play games at reasonable times, and I just can't be up until 2am on a weeknight for arena matches.
S1 for honour is fine if you can't be bothered with arenas, but I daresay S2 should be baseline weaponry for any raiding rogue.
I'll definately have to evaluate things with S4, but I don't think we even have the weapon models/stats yet.
I know every rogue in my guild (all 5 of the little bastards) used season 2 weapons til they picked up MH/BT stuff.
The items themselves though are still crap compared to S3, but that bonus is absolutely critical and fully worth the statistical sacrifice
There's a MH upgrade over S1, and correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't the ZA OH be an upgrades over the S1 OH?
I'm just saying that S1, while good, aren't the Alpha & Omega of easy to find weapon upgrades.
S2 however, I totally agree with you on.
Spiteblade > S1 Mainhand.
EDIT: Heartless and Talon of Azshara are also better.
EDIT again: Spiteblade isn't better than S1, but it's too close to matter, and i prefer it for PvP. Bigger Ghostly Strikes/Hemos. (I know, it's the raid thread.)
40 people running through an instance looks so much more epic than 25.
My main complaint about 25 mans is that it requires everyone to be paying attention, be appropriately geared and especially in SSC have the perfect class balance. 40 mans really didn't require this as a means to proceed and it really gets tiresome having to call raids because random mage that is basically there for the sheep decided they didn't want to repair their gear.
In MC and BWL you could get away with people not paying attention at all times and could afford to bring in undergeared people, even in AQ40 you could do this if your core group of raiders were solid and dependable. In Naxx it changed a bit (olol slime room), but you could still get away to an extent. 25 mans in theory worked well in my eyes, less people means less retards, but then you run into other problems like perfect class balance which in my eyes really ruins a lot of the fun that I find in raiding (I despise ZA because of this). I think my main problem with this is the fact pre-tbc even if we spent months dieing on Vael people would still show up, while now if we say "Lets go and do Kael or Karathress tomorrow" it basically means no one is showing up aside from those who raided pre-tbc.
Mage not willing to wipe and spend money on repairing their gear means they don't show up and can't sheep.
Also the situation is not quite strict as you propose, if a non-ccing dpser slacks it's not a catastrophe and you can still bring in undergeared people, just make sure it's not a tank.
Those who don't show up to bosses are just slackers, also get better mages :P
Yeah I would if all the mages on the server didn't belong to MH/BT guilds or weren't Chinese (seriously FW has like half of Chinas population on it).
From what I've seen and been told is that MH and BT are quite easy in Comparison to some of the hoops you have to jump through in SSC and TK.
Blizzard has a design philosophy of overlapping difficulty. The last boss of any instance is harder then the first boss of the next. So it feels like a break. The really hard part is if you can control the trash waves on MH and then be ready to take on the next boss. BT has a very early gear check and if you meet it, it's not too bad.
Razorgore was a lot harder then lolnaros :P
I would never want to go back to the 40 man days. I mean, I do miss bringing 5-7 people who entire job was to keep the rest of the raid entertained, but it didn't make the gameplay compelling.
You don't need perfect class balance to succeed in 25 man raiding, you just need something resembling class balance.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
BWL was a bit of an oddity that way.
Currently DMing: None
Characters
[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
its not like Kara where you can take any 10 random people as long as you have 2 tanks, 2-3 healers and 5-6 DPS.
Class balance is really important, and you can't have a single person who says "LOL ITS A CASUAL GUILD STOP TELING ME HOW TO PLAY" when he's a hunter putting out 400DPS in t4 gear.
Currently DMing: None
Characters
[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
Razorgore was hells of easy if you had one good kiter. Oh God, that fight was made for me I'mcomingeverwhere