Comments on: Casually Preparing for Raiding

By: erroll

erroll — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 01:31:40 +0000

i dont under stand the item level stuff. i come home and play. i read triple b on train.
im wearing 453 item level. but showing. 464 so say im raid ready. idk why. this weekend i plan to try my first lfr cause i can.
im low damage. very high dodge. dotn even know if built right. but im loveing heroics. they just fun too me.
for years. before tank bags and randoms. id go thundering into Stormwind. with tank lfgroup. my fave part of game.
good luck on first raid triple B. i plan my first lfr this weekend. as im sure you know tank fail the worst fail. ill prob be booted. but i will learn :)

By: Talarian

Talarian — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 00:58:41 +0000

That’s true. THere are definitely DPS gear checks. But in the same vein, a number of guilds cleared Normal Elegon in the first week, when LFR wasn’t available and at best those folks may have had 1 piece of valor gear and a couple pieces of crafted gear. Do the extra ilvls help? Maybe, and sure, I’ll backpedal and say they probably would help a gear check like Elegon if you’re consistently wiping at 1%, 2% or if you have enough extra ilvls, even 5%. But my argument that you’re better served improving your skills than trying to grab a few more ilvls still stands. Go look at LFR and see the wide range of DPS/damage dealt values between people, and start inspecting their gear. I guarantee you a lot of them are closer in ilvl than you think, especially given that there’s a minimum ilvl of 460.

In either case, it really comes down to what you (the generic you) want to do with your time. If you want to chain run heroics, or do dailies, or do none or some of those, find a group that supports that play and go from there. I’d argue you’re required to do *something* to prepare to raid, but you don’t need to do *everything*. If you want to do everything, though, all the power to you :D

By: Ngita

Ngita — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 23:00:18 +0000

Talarian, Elegon needs quite high dps, like really high, 3 weeks and 55ish wipes and still not dead.(in comparison we killed the first boss in HoF in 5 wipes. I agree with the bear in principle and yet I play differently, not 100% I would have ground out my exalted rep ring and neck if I did, I would done 6 bosses in lfr as heals this week instead of 5 bosses as dps and one as heals. Yet I still do that one boss as heals because I need a better shield and I can’t get one from valor.

I have already replaced 2 valor upgrades with drops and yet i will be capping valor for a long time yet, even if just for offset dps gear, LFR as heals perhaps not so much, yet lfr is a very quick way of capping valor and I want to cap my valor quickly again even IF just for my alts.

Bear at 470 you should easily be good for the first 3 bosses, but when you get to a real dps check its pretty hard to say I won’t do that little bit more just to get past the hump,in my case that little bit more is lfr+valor capping, but I draw the line at grinding exalted reps.

By: Navimie

Navimie — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 22:25:10 +0000

I think people forget that casual raiding does not mean you don’t give a toss about raiding – it means that you’re not going to grind every daily to get every piece of heroic gear before you step into a raid. You can even step into a raid with greens which we have had in our guild as well (last minute dragged in healer who was wearing quested gear and world event epics). I hope you feel skilled enough on your hunter to be able to raid – mind you the first fight is very tank oriented so BBB can rest a little bit. Wish you all the best BBB. Being casual doesn’t mean you don’t know your class, it doesn’t mean you don’t read up what gear to get or what rotations to use. Casual means that you only have limited time to play, and I hope it goes well for you this weekend Bear.

By: Talarian

Talarian — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 18:56:40 +0000

And BBB nails it again. Gear gives you an upper limit on your DPS, your healing throughput, or your effective health as a tank, but skill is the primary factor hat holds most people back, not gear. I see people in ilvl 470 gear barely doing 30k DPS, and I myself was in ilvl 460 gear pulling 55k DPS. If bosses aren’t dying and you aren’t hitting the enrage timer, chances are you’re geared enough and just need to get better raid awareness. Gear helps a lot, but if you don’t have the skill to get more out of your gear, it’s not going to help you to get more gear.

Granted, this turns on its head a bit if you’re racing for world firsts, but 99.9% of the WoW population aren’t racing for world firsts. And those world first folks ARE getting the most out of their gear because they’re VERY skilled, so a couple more ilvls might actually be the difference between a heroic kill and a heroic wipe. But honestly? Most of the complainers invariably aren’t at that skill level. They just like being vocal.

By: Theodoxus

Theodoxus — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 18:27:24 +0000

Last night was pretty magical for me. Finally got enough Valor to buy the neck from Klaxxi that put me over 460, then, as I was queuing up for LFR, a guildie asked if I wanted to do Sha of Anger. Heck yeah!

We get into a 40 man group, hear Sha bellow out, rush over to where he spawned, and the allies are pulling him. Sigh.

15 minutes later, he’s respawned, we’ve killed him and I’m wearing my magic nikes! So cool. Then, my guildie asked if I wanted to LFR – well, dur!

So we do the two raids I’m capable of doing. All I get is gold. I spent every golden ticket on a reroll and just got more gold. My guildie won new pants. I was happy for him.

I’ll do LFR every week, but it’s not the jackpot of happy loot like DS was, where I’d typically come out with two or three new pieces of tier the first time through. Not a fan of the new loot method – like someone posted last week, I too like the “drama” of loot rolls. At least it shows that things are dropping and that it’s not just a giant pinata of gold.

I also realized that I miss intimate raiding. Both the Sha and LFR were barren feeling. No chat, barely any text… no camaraderie. It was sadpanda.