WOTLK raid progression.

[Sheepherder]

Can't they make raids challenging without turning them into gear or latency checks?

Yeah, no durability loss (the 10% on death part) and no consumable loss on death.  Then they can make it so hard that your eyes bleed and people will still PuG it and slam their heads against the wall without getting bitchy about their 50g repair bill.

But this will never happen.

[Fabricated]

Naxx is a lot more fun than Kara was starting out since the trash distribution feels a lot more balanced (none of Kara's shit where you have small amounts of trash between the first 5 bosses and then an hour+ of the shit), but fuccccccccck a couple of the gimmick fights. Heigan is easy after you get used to it (or just use the safe spot if you're lazy/pressed for time), but you better not have any lag.

Gluth is what's currently infuriating us the most since we have only one active raiding mage and he raids with another group. We have one semi-active shammy too, so we're stuck with hunters or DKs for kiting. This means we've been clearing the military/spider/plague wings and then stopping on Gluth repeatedly.

[Kirth]

Naxx is a lot more fun than Kara was starting out since the trash distribution feels a lot more balanced (none of Kara's shit where you have small amounts of trash between the first 5 bosses and then an hour+ of the shit), but fuccccccccck a couple of the gimmick fights. Heigan is easy after you get used to it (or just use the safe spot if you're lazy/pressed for time), but you better not have any lag.

Gluth is what's currently infuriating us the most since we have only one active raiding mage and he raids with another group. We have one semi-active shammy too, so we're stuck with hunters or DKs for kiting. This means we've been clearing the military/spider/plague wings and then stopping on Gluth repeatedly.

Any palys? we use a ret pally in some tank gear. Though he is backed up with a shaman, however a hunger with the aoe freeze trap would do just as well.

[Hawkbit]

A hunter/DK team can kite it better than any other class, imo.  Hunter keeps frost trap down a few yards behind the healer/dps core near the boss.  DKs drop death and decay on top of the healers whenever it refreshes.  Since the mobs spawn and go right for the healers, as soon as they hit them they get a DnD tick, head to the DK but get caught in the frost trap in between the healers and the DK.  Both the DK and hunter should be kiting as they can, any aggro on the healers needs to come off. 

It works perfectly for us. 

[Paelos]

I'm honestly shocked at how hard Patchwerk is hitting ppl in 25 man. I didn't expect it and he was hitting me for over 22k at times. We wiped because I don't think our healers are there yet, but damn if that wasn't a bit ridiculous as an encounter compared to it's 10 man counterpart.

[K9]

Are you MT or hateful tank?

edit: Also, how many priest and shaman healers do you have? If you're not getting Inspiration or Ancestral Healing that will make it harder.

[Hawkbit]

They should also be prehealing as you go into the fight... that took us a try or two. 

[Lakov_Sanite]

It's sad but true, my guild powered our way to server first because our MT at the time was a bear and bears right out the gate are beasts in pve raids. Now, later on their threat gen doesn't seem to scale as well as a warrior but when you have a tank with 40-50k hp, it's REALLY hard to die.

[Paelos]

Are you MT or hateful tank?

edit: Also, how many priest and shaman healers do you have? If you're not getting Inspiration or Ancestral Healing that will make it harder.

Hateful, 3 priests, 3 druids, and a pally. We lost our shaman healer to Final Fantasy. And yes, I realize they should be prehealing, but I don't think they are remotely in the gear range for the fight yet.

[Gobbeldygook]

Gluth is what's currently infuriating us the most since we have only one active raiding mage and he raids with another group. We have one semi-active shammy too, so we're stuck with hunters or DKs for kiting. This means we've been clearing the military/spider/plague wings and then stopping on Gluth repeatedly.

We have had two successful approaches to gluth.
A. Hunter with a gorilla pet+a mage.
B. Me saying "I am not going to wipe on fucking gluth again.  Retadin, put on some tank gear and put righteous defense on your bar!", respeccing to piercing howl and kiting the little bastards myself.  This is what we did last time since we were 8 manning it.  I am terrible at kiting since I am a warrior and I typically do not kite so I had 73 stacks at the end, but it got done.

[Fabricated]

A hunter/DK team can kite it better than any other class, imo.  Hunter keeps frost trap down a few yards behind the healer/dps core near the boss.  DKs drop death and decay on top of the healers whenever it refreshes.  Since the mobs spawn and go right for the healers, as soon as they hit them they get a DnD tick, head to the DK but get caught in the frost trap in between the healers and the DK.  Both the DK and hunter should be kiting as they can, any aggro on the healers needs to come off.  

It works perfectly for us.  

Eh? Can't a DK only slow with desecration which requires melee range? I guess if Gluth goes down before the disease stacks too high it'd work.

[Fordel]

I think the DK is just there to collect them, not snare them.

[Rasix]

Plus an unholy DK likely has +15% runspeed.

[Hawkbit]

Any DK has 15% runspeed in Unholy presence.  You're kiting and shouldn't be getting hit, right? 

Yes, the DK isn't snaring them, rather using DnD to get snap aggro off the healers.... but the mobs head straight into the Hunter frost trap so the DK only has to kite in a large circle around the trap.  We killed him on first try in 25man, didn't realize how many more zombies there are in 25 compared to 10man.  It's a lot more.  So we adjusted on the fly and owned him. 

[Fabricated]

Hopefully one of our 600 DKs will be on tonight so we can test that out. People were late and we were tired so we only knocked out the Plague, Military, and Spider wings.

More shammy loot and DPS leather everyone already had. Yay. Fucking RNG.

[Hawkbit]

We've had the same shit luck over the past month.  It's to the point where I'm thinking of calling it quits.  I'm not much of a loot whore myself, but we're seeing so much gear sharded because the shit drops for classes that aren't there or for off-specs that people will never, ever use. 

Hell, we ran heroics one night for six hours and not one single upgrade was looted.  20+ badges later, sure... but it's so demoralizing to see that shit go to waste. 

[Fabricated]

I'm getting pretty fucking irritated at this point really. Nearly a month and a half of running Naxx and I've only gotten my chest token. We've had to shard or off-spec loot 80% of all the drops roughly. If there's a shammy piece you bet your ass it drops.

[Azaroth]

Here's my luck:

I don't have one piece of 25 man loot equipped at the moment, but have been raiding every week.

I have seen one two-hander drop, which I was muscled off of because I was in a guild run. It went to a DK tank.

I finally won Fury of the Five Flights tonight, only to have two rogues and their friend literally scream and nearly cry in vent for half an hour until the raid leader let them roll between themselves. Because the trinket is better for rogues than for Ret Pallies. Maybe. If you theorycraft it.

I know the feeling about considering calling it quits because your loot luck is so miserably bad that everything you do in the game just turns into a massive waste of time at the end of the day.

[Azaroth]

20+ badges later, sure... but it's so demoralizing to see that shit go to waste. 

Heroism badges are fucking useless.

And funny story relating to that, and to bad loot luck - I had 99 badges of heroism before getting one purple to drop for me from Heroics. Completely true story.

[Sheepherder]

I finally won Fury of the Five Flights tonight, only to have two rogues and their friend literally scream and nearly cry in vent for half an hour until the raid leader let them roll between themselves. Because the trinket is better for rogues than for Ret Pallies. Maybe. If you theorycraft it.

Wait, what?

It's a fucking AP trinket, it isn't magically better for one physical class than another.

[Selby]

It's a fucking AP trinket, it isn't magically better for one physical class than another.

Judging by the whining and crying described, you would think it was.

[bhodi]

Time to find a new guild. Those people are bad news.

[Gobbeldygook]

It's a fucking AP trinket, it isn't magically better for one physical class than another.

Judging by the whining and crying described, you would think it was.

It is.  It's still second (or possibly third; working with retadin spreadsheets is worse than sucking satan's asshole) best in slot for retadins next to the obligatory darkmoon card, but all other physical DPS (particularly rogues) will gain more because they can build a 20 stack way faster.  This isn't too big a deal on Patchwerk, but on Sapphiron you will almost certainly be forced to rebuild the stack after every bomb phase.  It'd take many retadins a solid 40 seconds to build a full stack, leaving them just 20 seconds to DPS at full power, whereas a muti rogue could plausibly build a full 20 stack in under 10.

Also relevant: Who beat who on the meters?

[Selby]

Also relevant: Who beat who on the meters?

This whole "best in slot" argument and fighting over loot drops is exactly why I don't raid anymore.  My current guild is trying to get there and is giving lots of grief over my lack of interest in pouding my head against the table for 2 hours a night while we wipe.

[Azaroth]

I dominated the meters through trash, and placed second on Sarth behind a boomkin who was aoeing the adds.

I think I ended pulling about 3400 on the boss, or thereabouts.

The rogues crying were 8th and 11th.

This was a PUG, by the way. Not a guild run where giving people best in slot items is benefitting the group.

[Gobbeldygook]

The rogues crying were 8th and 11th.

Here's how you deal with this sort of situation:

Whisper Rogue B (the one who didn't win) and say, "Hey <name>, someone told me on Vent that Rogue A finished writing his gold farming bot and sent it to you.  He says it's "better than pirox or glider" or something like that.  I'd never use it, the risk of getting banned isn't worth it, but did you try his bot out yet?"

[Montague]

Did our first Naxx raids this weekend. Cleared Spider, Plague, and Military, and got Patchwerk down. We're doing Sarth tonight and might try to go back in for a try at Grobbulus before the reset.

Quite the change from TBC Kara, much smoother learning curve. I'm not going to say its an epic vendorfest like the teenagers in the D&R forums bitch about, but even with our unorthodox raid comp we didn't have very many wipes. That said we took our time and everyone was heroic-badge geared, so that helped a lot.

[Ingmar]

Did our first Naxx raids this weekend. Cleared Spider, Plague, and Military, and got Patchwerk down. We're doing Sarth tonight and might try to go back in for a try at Grobbulus before the reset.

Quite the change from TBC Kara, much smoother learning curve. I'm not going to say its an epic vendorfest like the teenagers in the D&R forums bitch about, but even with our unorthodox raid comp we didn't have very many wipes. That said we took our time and everyone was heroic-badge geared, so that helped a lot.

So far I think the biggest thing holding back our raid, besides some undergeared/underexecuting DPS, is freaking AFKs.  If you can do all that stuff on the first try, Sarth will be a snoozefest for you guys, he's easier than anything in Naxx.

[Oban]

Lag beast destroys guilds, story at 11.

[kildorn]

Did our first Naxx raids this weekend. Cleared Spider, Plague, and Military, and got Patchwerk down. We're doing Sarth tonight and might try to go back in for a try at Grobbulus before the reset.

Quite the change from TBC Kara, much smoother learning curve. I'm not going to say its an epic vendorfest like the teenagers in the D&R forums bitch about, but even with our unorthodox raid comp we didn't have very many wipes. That said we took our time and everyone was heroic-badge geared, so that helped a lot.

So far I think the biggest thing holding back our raid, besides some undergeared/underexecuting DPS, is freaking AFKs.  If you can do all that stuff on the first try, Sarth will be a snoozefest for you guys, he's easier than anything in Naxx.

Oh yeah, well you suck, too!

Oh wait. You don't mean me. I think.  And yeah, Naxx seems a lot more of a pain than Sarth with no drakes up.

[Azaroth]

On the plus side, you no longer need to PvP for PvP gear. Just walk into VoA and ask Archavon for his PvP epics.

You don't even have to ask nicely, really.

[Soulflame]

Our guild downed Malygos10 the second night.  Not too bad a fight, although not as interesting as say, Zul'Jin.  Ah, memories of wiping after eagle phase.  Of course plate heal shoulders dropped, and I ended up with them.     At this point, my heal off set > ret main set.  This does not please me!

[Azaroth]

It's like that with every Ret Pally. It's because if there's no Holy Pally in the raid, guess where the only place that gear can go is (and sometimes, if there's no shammy.. etc).

And we all know that Holy Pallies don't exist anymore, so.

[Ratman_tf]

We downed heroic Naxx a couple of days ago. And last night, we got the "Safety Dance" achievement on Heigan 25.

 I guess after Malygos I can start calling myself a neckbeard poopsocker?  Or is that 3 drake Sartherion? (We still can't do Sarth with even one drake up. We've been trying, but it's too chaotic and WTFwipe!)

[Sheepherder]

I've seen 25 pugged without a single death.