WOTLK raid progression.

[Oban]

My GM spoke very nicely to us, saying that we need to really need to study up on the game, l2p etc.  Screw that.  I'm addicted enough, I'm not going full catass.  Plus raiding is just not fun for me.  It feels so much like work.  I work hard enough in RL.

A real raiding guild does not feel like work, it is fun because everyone is there to have fun.  A fuck up guild feels like work because you are not having fun, you are spending your time teaching people what to do and when to do it over and over again.

Find a new guild.

[Modern Angel]

A real raiding guild does not feel like work, it is fun because everyone is there to have fun.  A fuck up guild feels like work because you are not having fun, you are spending your time teaching people what to do and when to do it over and over again.

Find a new guild.

I cannot stress this enough. There are so many misconceptions about the investment to be "good" at raiding at this point it's not funny. The most hardcore thing you can do in this game is suck. With few exceptions you can do everything in this game raiding no more than two nights a week. Do you play two nights a week? For about two to three hours each of those nights? Thought so.

To compare: my old guild is wiping on Malygos, has cleared everything else and is struggling with Sartharion+2. They raid four nights a week, sometimes five. My guild has cleared everything (with my particular raid group doing Sarth+3 probably tomorrow) and we raid two nights a week.

It's fun because I don't suck and I'm with other people who don't suck. If I miss out on dope lootz it's no big deal because I'll be there with no problems later. Old guild? Constant loot arguments because they deep down never know if they're going to get a boss down without wipes. Are they progressing? Sure, but at what cost?

Just don't be bad and find other people who aren't bad.

[Sjofn]

That's assuming raiding is your big goal, of course. Our WoW guild, I'd say most of us are decent enough, and I enjoy raiding with most of them. We have some other members who are nice enough, but ... not good. Either they have zero attention span, hyper focus on their one job so much they don't notice when they're hip deep in lava, or completely out of it because they're on a morphine drip. But I've been playing with just about all of them for years, and I would rather struggle through an encounter that seems designed to fuck up, say, hyperfocus dude specifically than try to find another group of people I get along with so well.

We don't have loot problems, unless you count "Everyone passes just to be nice" a problem. Which sometimes I do. 

[Paelos]

I like everyone I play with as well, but I've had to cut the people that can't figure out where they are in the past. I'm sorry, but if you are so fundamentally bad at the game that you literally never make it out of "glowing shit on the ground" mechanic, you're hopeless and you're pissing on everyone's fun. It's one of those things that's been consistently in every raid instance since MC, and it's unlikely to suddenly disappear in the future. Time to hang it up and go play Bejeweled or Solitaire. Either that, or start over in your gaming career with some NES or Atari games.

Sure, people fuck up and die in it once or twice. Sure, people may have an issue with it and only make it 50% of the time. All of that is acceptable. It's the people who get broken-legged immediately when you enter combat, and don't move even after you tell them.

[Ratman_tf]

Paladin healing straight up makes me angry these days. If I level one of my healers, it'll be my priest. And she will be disc. And my guild will LIKE IT.

Y'know. Aside from Anub'arak, I have few problems healing as a Paladin. I think a full out Holy Pallie should be as desirable as a Holy Priest or whatever, but we're no slouches. We just really feel the pinch in 5 mans.

I really want a version of Consecrate that heals instead of harms.   

[Sjofn]

Paladin healing straight up makes me angry these days. If I level one of my healers, it'll be my priest. And she will be disc. And my guild will LIKE IT.

Y'know. Aside from Anub'arak, I have few problems healing as a Paladin. I think a full out Holy Pallie should be as desirable as a Holy Priest or whatever, but we're no slouches. We just really feel the pinch in 5 mans.

I really want a version of Consecrate that heals instead of harms.   

It's less "I can't do it" and more "This is a stupid way to have to heal" for me. I like the priest better because I have lots and lots of tools to use. The paladin, not so much. Really, it's probably more burn out than anything, I've healed as a paladin for a long time and I'm pretty sick of two heals + gimmicky band aids from a personal playstyle standpoint. Plus I am annoyed holy shock is apparently my third heal for no rational reason. <3

[Merusk]

Paladin healing straight up makes me angry these days. If I level one of my healers, it'll be my priest. And she will be disc. And my guild will LIKE IT.

Y'know. Aside from Anub'arak, I have few problems healing as a Paladin. I think a full out Holy Pallie should be as desirable as a Holy Priest or whatever, but we're no slouches. We just really feel the pinch in 5 mans.

I really want a version of Consecrate that heals instead of harms.   

I feel for you.  I have a pally healer that's very good who I do heroics with.  That is the ONE fight we striaght-up can not beat without an off healer.  It's fucking stupid. He has a choice, cast a heal or cast a cleanse, but not both.  The venomancers wtfpwn him as he's healing or cleansing the rest of the group, or he keeps himself and the tank up while the rest of us die and then it's game over.  Pallies need either the lovely AOE healing or the pulsing cleanses/ totems that the other classes get to deal with it. Right now they're just kind of fucked on that fight.

[Azaroth]

Take your Pally healer to H HoL and enjoy the fact that it's not just very hard, but kind of impossible.

[Gobbeldygook]

Take your Pally healer to H HoL and enjoy the fact that it's not just very hard, but kind of impossible.

I once did Heroic HOL with a pug pally healer in blues and DPS that were mostly below me, the warrior tank.  We one-shotted loken.  He really is not hard at all as long as you aren't trying to make it hard on yourself by using bizarre back and forth kiting strategies or all stacking on top of him or all spreading out too much or telling the healer to 'heal through lightning nova'.

[SurfD]

My Mage is done raiding.  Went to 10 man Naxx the other nite and we couldn't kill bosses.  My GM spoke very nicely to us, saying that we need to really need to study up on the game, l2p etc.  Screw that.  I'm addicted enough, I'm not going full catass.  Plus raiding is just not fun for me.  It feels so much like work.  I work hard enough in RL.

More power to those folks who like raiding.   Maybe I'll try again once my Priest hits 80.

Couldnt kill "bosses" is kind of vague.  What bosses were you having problems with?  Did you fail to kill ANYTHING? Or did you only fail to kill a few end of wing bosses?

I have assisted in running near complete pugs through 10 man naxx, and most often then not, we at least end up with only Gluth and Thaddeus left up if they are only moderately bad.  Most of the rest of the bosses in Naxx 10 should only require about 3 or 4 minutes of explanation for people who have never done the fights before.  After that its 1 or 2 wipes while people get the hang of some gimmicks, like MC tanking Instructor for the first time, or Dancing With Heigan.

Unless your group is, i hate to say it, REALLY bad, you should at least be able to full clear the spider wing, kill Noth, Instructor and Gothik, and Patchwerk and Grobulous

A moderately good group can add 4horsemen, Heigan and Loatheb to the list as well.

The only nasty fights are usually Gluth (kiting can be hit or miss) and Thaddeus.

Sapph is actually pretty easy if you can get to him.

And KT is only a bitch if your group composition is strange (for example, very mele heavy groups just dont do KT)

[SurfD]

Take your Pally healer to H HoL and enjoy the fact that it's not just very hard, but kind of impossible.

I once did Heroic HOL with a pug pally healer in blues and DPS that were mostly below me, the warrior tank.  We one-shotted loken.  He really is not hard at all as long as you aren't trying to make it hard on yourself by using bizarre back and forth kiting strategies or all stacking on top of him or all spreading out too much or telling the healer to 'heal through lightning nova'.

Im a bit confused, as you seem to have basicly ruled out EVERY accepted strategy for doing Loken.   Usually, you stack together, and move together during Nova, then move back to meet the boss as he comes to the tank.

You only "eat the nova" if everyone has a decent HP pool and your healer is a good AoE healer.

[Tannhauser]

We couldn't clear the two spider bosses.  GM said our dps is low.  I dunno, don't have a meter.  I have decent gear, I've done all normal and half heroics. Then again I'm almost all blue gear.   I am Arcane so maybe that's a problem, but it's getting buffed next patch, at least Arcane Blast is.  Also we only had two healers and he said we needed three.

Our guild has cleared the spider wing before, just so ya know. 

Here's my dude http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Gilneas&n=Rivengrave

[DraconianOne]

I am Arcane so maybe that's a problem

Yah! You should have specced Warlock. :P

[K9]

If you're learning encounters with two healers you really need good DPS, as shorter encounters mean healers can be less frugal with mana and cooldowns. However if your DPS is bad, your healers will get ground down. Naxx is fairly forgiving, as very few fights have any form of hard enrage, so you can take three healers and go slow and steady until you get some gear, and your DPS get their rotations down better.

My guild is at that frustrating point where we only need 2 healers 80% of the time, but there are odd moments in fight where we need some extra heals, and we don't run with any classes well suited to off-healing. (I don't want to use our ret paladin for off heals as he's one of our top two DPS).

[Ratman_tf]

The only nasty fights are usually Gluth (kiting can be hit or miss) and Thaddeus.

Sapph is actually pretty easy if you can get to him.

And KT is only a bitch if your group composition is strange (for example, very mele heavy groups just dont do KT)

Our 10 man made it to Kel'Thuzad last night. Didn't get him, but we knocked out abomination wing and Sapph, so I'm pretty happy.

We could make it to phase 3 pretty easily, but not very far into it, and usually lost at least one person in phase 1 or 2.

[Modern Angel]

We couldn't clear the two spider bosses.  GM said our dps is low.  I dunno, don't have a meter.  I have decent gear, I've done all normal and half heroics. Then again I'm almost all blue gear.   I am Arcane so maybe that's a problem, but it's getting buffed next patch, at least Arcane Blast is.  Also we only had two healers and he said we needed three.

Our guild has cleared the spider wing before, just so ya know. 

Here's my dude http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Gilneas&n=Rivengrave

Your hit rating is 24 and you skipped each and every one of your +hit talents. That's why your dps is likely in the toilet.

[Gobbeldygook]

Im a bit confused, as you seem to have basicly ruled out EVERY accepted strategy for doing Loken.

That's because those strategies are all suboptimal.
A. Back and forth kiting strategies: It's way too easy for someone to go the wrong way and everyone has to spend a lot of time running around him to get back into position for the next kite.
B. Stacking together on top of the tank is asking to be smacked around by his chain lightning.
C. Spreading out too much is asking to be eaten by the aura.
D. Asking the healer to heal through nova: wut.

So what should you do?
1. Spread out somewhat - But not too much!  If someone gets chain lightning, spread out more for a bit so it stops jumping.
2. Kite in a straight line away from his starting point; establish which way you're going around the pillar if necessary.  By kiting in a straight line, no-one needs to run away from Loken and then circle BACK around him so they can run back the other way after Nova.  Back and forth kiting strategies are the self-inflicted wound that makes Loken hard.

--

Three healers is a luxury, but a really great one for your first Naxx clear and highly recommended by me.   The only bosses with meaningful hard enrages are grobb, gluth, noth, and patchwerk (4H and Sapph also have hard enrages, but I can't imagine hitting them without sitting down and trying to).  The fights that will have you really lusting after three healers are 4h, sapph, and KT, maybe loatheb depending.  So if it's a problem, just save DK wing for last, have a hybrid respec, and do the rest of the instance with three.

I am Arcane so maybe that's a problem, but it's getting buffed next patch, at least Arcane Blast is.

Let's imagine you are fighting patchwerk, a boss with no movement and the only meaningful 'phase' being that at very low health he does somewhat more damage.  How do you do damage?  Walk us through it, step by step, cooldown by cooldown, explain what you do on each proc.

[kildorn]

That's assuming raiding is your big goal, of course. Our WoW guild, I'd say most of us are decent enough, and I enjoy raiding with most of them. We have some other members who are nice enough, but ... not good. Either they have zero attention span, hyper focus on their one job so much they don't notice when they're hip deep in lava, or completely out of it because they're on a morphine drip. But I've been playing with just about all of them for years, and I would rather struggle through an encounter that seems designed to fuck up, say, hyperfocus dude specifically than try to find another group of people I get along with so well.

We don't have loot problems, unless you count "Everyone passes just to be nice" a problem. Which sometimes I do. 

Dude. You wiped on CHESS.

/snarky comment because he wasn't online that night

Really, our worst problems are entirely related to taking 15 minutes for everyone to figure out how much they really want a drop compared to everyone else.

And fire. For some reason our entire guild is cold, and likes fires.

[Draegan]

I cannot stress this enough. There are so many misconceptions about the investment to be "good" at raiding at this point it's not funny. The most hardcore thing you can do in this game is suck. With few exceptions you can do everything in this game raiding no more than two nights a week. Do you play two nights a week? For about two to three hours each of those nights? Thought so.

To compare: my old guild is wiping on Malygos, has cleared everything else and is struggling with Sartharion+2. They raid four nights a week, sometimes five. My guild has cleared everything (with my particular raid group doing Sarth+3 probably tomorrow) and we raid two nights a week.

It's fun because I don't suck and I'm with other people who don't suck. If I miss out on dope lootz it's no big deal because I'll be there with no problems later. Old guild? Constant loot arguments because they deep down never know if they're going to get a boss down without wipes. Are they progressing? Sure, but at what cost?

Just don't be bad and find other people who aren't bad.

I'll second this.  My buddy stumbled on a guild and I tagged along.  This group of people don't suck ass.  It's really a breath of fresh air.  My last guild that I raided with all really really sucked.  I ended up quitting because of it.

[Hawkbit]

We couldn't clear the two spider bosses.  GM said our dps is low.  I dunno, don't have a meter.  I have decent gear, I've done all normal and half heroics. Then again I'm almost all blue gear.   I am Arcane so maybe that's a problem, but it's getting buffed next patch, at least Arcane Blast is.  Also we only had two healers and he said we needed three.

Our guild has cleared the spider wing before, just so ya know. 

Here's my dude http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Gilneas&n=Rivengrave

Yep, the guy above that said your +hit is starved is fully correct. 

Also, the vast majority of your 'blues' are quest rewards.  Simply running dungeons doesn't make you better.  You have to run them enough to get the gear from them.  When you're in 2/3 rep or heroic gear, you'll see your dps and survivability spike upwards.  Good luck, and check out the wow mage stickies - even if the rest of the forums is a cesspool, the stickies are at least a base to get you started. 

[Ingmar]

That's assuming raiding is your big goal, of course. Our WoW guild, I'd say most of us are decent enough, and I enjoy raiding with most of them. We have some other members who are nice enough, but ... not good. Either they have zero attention span, hyper focus on their one job so much they don't notice when they're hip deep in lava, or completely out of it because they're on a morphine drip. But I've been playing with just about all of them for years, and I would rather struggle through an encounter that seems designed to fuck up, say, hyperfocus dude specifically than try to find another group of people I get along with so well.

We don't have loot problems, unless you count "Everyone passes just to be nice" a problem. Which sometimes I do. 

Dude. You wiped on CHESS.

/snarky comment because he wasn't online that night

Really, our worst problems are entirely related to taking 15 minutes for everyone to figure out how much they really want a drop compared to everyone else.

And fire. For some reason our entire guild is cold, and likes fires.

Hey man, post-3.0 Chess was serious business.

[Sjofn]

That's assuming raiding is your big goal, of course. Our WoW guild, I'd say most of us are decent enough, and I enjoy raiding with most of them. We have some other members who are nice enough, but ... not good. Either they have zero attention span, hyper focus on their one job so much they don't notice when they're hip deep in lava, or completely out of it because they're on a morphine drip. But I've been playing with just about all of them for years, and I would rather struggle through an encounter that seems designed to fuck up, say, hyperfocus dude specifically than try to find another group of people I get along with so well.

We don't have loot problems, unless you count "Everyone passes just to be nice" a problem. Which sometimes I do. 

Dude. You wiped on CHESS.

/snarky comment because he wasn't online that night

Really, our worst problems are entirely related to taking 15 minutes for everyone to figure out how much they really want a drop compared to everyone else.

And fire. For some reason our entire guild is cold, and likes fires.

One of the Not Good people was the King. It is also Bad if he manages to get his hands on the Mage.

[Montague]

We're about to start 10 man Naxx with 3 Resto Druids.  

Anyone want to tell me how fucked we are?

[kildorn]

We're about to start 10 man Naxx with 3 Resto Druids. 

Anyone want to tell me how fucked we are?

Ahhhhhahahaha.

No seriously, after Patchwerk you should be fine. As I understand it, healing hateful tanks with resto druids is a pain however.

[Ingmar]

Patchwerk is pretty intense. With 3 druids though you might be able to get away with one druid rolling every HoT in existence on both tanks with the other two spamming HT on the hateful guy, maybe one of those guys splits time between the two? I haven't touched my druid since 70 so I'm not totally sure how things have changed, but if there was ever a time for HT...

Maybe a tranquility rotation. 

[Montague]

We're about to start 10 man Naxx with 3 Resto Druids. 

Anyone want to tell me how fucked we are?

Ahhhhhahahaha.

No seriously, after Patchwerk you should be fine. As I understand it, healing hateful tanks with resto druids is a pain however.

Yeah this is what our RL said. Our OT is a Death Knight, hopefully that self-healing crap they do is enough to help. Our raid comp could not be any weirder. No mages, no rogues, no priests, no shamans. Bring the player not the class? Heh, we'll see about that...

[Nebu]

This is a reminder of why I hate MMO raiding so much.  You should be able to do a 5 man with 5 of any class.  Similarly with a 10 or 25 man raid.  The fact that raids require certain classes for optimized performance is a daily affirmation of what's wrong with MMO's.

[Lakov_Sanite]

We're about to start 10 man Naxx with 3 Resto Druids. 

Anyone want to tell me how fucked we are?

Ahhhhhahahaha.

No seriously, after Patchwerk you should be fine. As I understand it, healing hateful tanks with resto druids is a pain however.

Yeah this is what our RL said. Our OT is a Death Knight, hopefully that self-healing crap they do is enough to help. Our raid comp could not be any weirder. No mages, no rogues, no priests, no shamans. Bring the player not the class? Heh, we'll see about that...

no priests/shamans/mages/rogues sounds like you aren't bringing ANY classes

[Paelos]

We're about to start 10 man Naxx with 3 Resto Druids. 

Anyone want to tell me how fucked we are?

Ahhhhhahahaha.

No seriously, after Patchwerk you should be fine. As I understand it, healing hateful tanks with resto druids is a pain however.

Yeah this is what our RL said. Our OT is a Death Knight, hopefully that self-healing crap they do is enough to help. Our raid comp could not be any weirder. No mages, no rogues, no priests, no shamans. Bring the player not the class? Heh, we'll see about that...

no priests/shamans/mages/rogues sounds like you aren't bringing ANY classes

So wait, you're running with warriors, hunters, DKs, druids, pallys, and a warlock? No fort, spirit, or intellect buffs, no mage food, and no real AE healing...

I'm intrigued by the possible results. Gearing three of the same exact type of healer will be a PITA. I would expect that yall will be sharding a lot of shit.

[Ratman_tf]

This is a reminder of why I hate MMO raiding so much.  You should be able to do a 5 man with 5 of any class.  Similarly with a 10 or 25 man raid.  The fact that raids require certain classes for optimized performance is a daily affirmation of what's wrong with MMO's.

To be fair to Blizzard, they're trying. Only at a few points did I ever feel that we "needed" a certain class along for heroics or 10 man. 25 is even easier, since you tend to have all the bases covered.

I do wish they'd put the mind control pedestals in 25 man Razuvious. We had mind control issues one time, which made the encounter unbeatable and had to try another wing that night.

[Paelos]

The Mind Control thing is annoying, agreed.

[pants]

My GM spoke very nicely to us, saying that we need to really need to study up on the game, l2p etc.  Screw that.  I'm addicted enough, I'm not going full catass.  Plus raiding is just not fun for me.  It feels so much like work.  I work hard enough in RL.

A real raiding guild does not feel like work, it is fun because everyone is there to have fun.  A fuck up guild feels like work because you are not having fun, you are spending your time teaching people what to do and when to do it over and over again.

Find a new guild.

I agree that raiding should be fun - if you dont enjoy it dont do it.  Its a game etc etc.  However, you should expect that raiding requires a step up in difficulty, and thus you need to step up your performance over a normal 5-man run.  And that means doing some research.  It doesn't mean you have to spend hours every day theorycrafting on elitist jerks, but you should at least know the basics of how to play/gear/spec your class in a raiding environment.

Saying 'I'll play my char how I want' is fine - but its like being in a football team that just joins a higher league.  You may have been able to get away with being fat and not practicing how to pass in the lower league, but you're playing with the big boys now.  If you don't bother getting fit while everyone has, you will stand out as the fat bloke in the backfield huffing and puffing and letting the side down.  And that will cause resentment with your team(guild)mates.  If you still dont want to go for a run, fine, but just accept that you won't be successful at the higher league (ie raiding).

And when you consider Blizzard has said that Naxx 10-man is Raiding 101, and Ulduar will be Raiding 201 (ie the next step harder), if you want to advance in WoW, you either gotta learn to enjoy doing some research on your class (and it doesnt have to be a lot - half an hour on wowwiki will be 80% of what you really need), get into PvP, or get really bored running the same 5-mans again and again.

[Montague]

We're about to start 10 man Naxx with 3 Resto Druids. 

Anyone want to tell me how fucked we are?

Ahhhhhahahaha.

No seriously, after Patchwerk you should be fine. As I understand it, healing hateful tanks with resto druids is a pain however.

Yeah this is what our RL said. Our OT is a Death Knight, hopefully that self-healing crap they do is enough to help. Our raid comp could not be any weirder. No mages, no rogues, no priests, no shamans. Bring the player not the class? Heh, we'll see about that...

no priests/shamans/mages/rogues sounds like you aren't bringing ANY classes

So wait, you're running with warriors, hunters, DKs, druids, pallys, and a warlock? No fort, spirit, or intellect buffs, no mage food, and no real AE healing...

I'm intrigued by the possible results. Gearing three of the same exact type of healer will be a PITA. I would expect that yall will be sharding a lot of shit.

3 resto druids, 1 ret pally, 1 hunter, 1 tank DK, 1 DPS DK, 1 prot warrior, 2 warlocks. The druids can at least both wear cloth and leather, so those won't go to waste. At least we have a good mix of melee and ranged, but the lack of buffs is a concern. I'll keep you guys posted on our progress (or lack thereof).

[K9]

The only bosses with meaningful hard enrages are grobb, gluth, noth, and patchwerk (4H and Sapph also have hard enrages, but I can't imagine hitting them without sitting down and trying to).  

Noth does not have any form of meaningful hard enrage.

The Mind Control thing is annoying, agreed.

Get an arcane mage.

[Ingmar]

3 resto druids, 1 ret pally, 1 hunter, 1 tank DK, 1 DPS DK, 1 prot warrior, 2 warlocks. The druids can at least both wear cloth and leather, so those won't go to waste. At least we have a good mix of melee and ranged, but the lack of buffs is a concern. I'll keep you guys posted on our progress (or lack thereof).

Well it could be worse - only HALF of your raid wants the same tier set armor tokens.