I am not saying that heroics don't adequately prepare people for Kara in terms of both skill and gear. It is more that there used to be something you could do in a group larger than 5 that did not have the difficulty level of Kara. Keep in mind the people I am talking about are a long ways from being ready for a heroic, yet they were able to do UBRS back in the day.
Keep in mind the people I am talking about are a long ways from being ready for a heroic, yet they were able to do UBRS back in the day.
Rose coloured glasses on your part?
I remember 20+ man wipes in UBRS, I remember it been reduced to 15 Man and the tank getting conflagged and dieing over and over until trash respawned and you walked away.Nobody was using that new fangled hunter kite and some people thought it wasnt allowed plus most hunters seemed incable of doing so anyway. I remember needing yet another alt attuned for Onyxia when it was reduced to 10 Man, and haveing to pug it 4 times before I got a group capable of killing General Drakkisath. The main failure being hunters utterly incable of kiting Drak. and tanks incable of tanking Drak. + 1 add. I remember at least 6 wipes and abandoning the instance because people had pulled the adds from the top at Rend. or wiped on Rend. , I remember groups wiping to adds on the Solakar Flamewreath event and abandoning the run at that point.
Pretty much every Pug Heroic I have run, and your looking at a dozen has completed the heroic. The single failure being Underbog with a tank who could only hold aggro on 1 mob at a time.
I am not saying the person your talking about doesnt exist, but if they havent been to Karazhan after say 6 months at 70, they are going to have difficulty in any raid with any sort of meaningful Reward to difficulty.
Here's a thing: I'm not been in a guild since TBC, don't want to / can't be in one, and as such I've never seen any of the TBC raid content. It just isn't available if you don't do guild raids. At level 60, UBRS was.
When the game had been out for a year, sure, there were plenty of UBRS PuGs. When the game had been out for six months, not so much.
I think you'll see Karazhan PuGs show up before the end of this year.
My comrades are my weapons, and I am their shield.
A 10 person group in 5 man instance blues can enter Kara and work on Attumen and Moroes. If some members need basic raiding skills, head to UBRS and practice. Hell, with 10 go to ZG and practice. If they can learn the fights in the 5 man instances that are required for attunement ( SL, SV and BM) I don' t think you're walking into Karazhan unprepared. It's not that hard.
Yes I'm pretty excited about it. I really want to know more information on this Timed quest that seems to be aimed at the T5+ raiders from what I've read.
I can't see them adding skill books here though, not sure why. I think belt enchants are much more likely.
=Groat;418587]My biggest hope from this place is that they attempt what they did with AQ20: Non-bop Skillbooks that teach new ranks of class skills and a whole new set of enchants for slots (a caster cloak enchant please? I've got Subtlety to Cloak from AQ40, but that's the "best" PVE caster enchant to cloak to date).
No, absolutely not on the spellbooks.
If they put skill books in ZA, this FORCES every single raiding guild to run the living crap out of it until they have all the books they need. I do not want to have to schedule ZA raids just because i need tome of random skill 15 and it just refuses to drop when I could be spending my time in BT/Hyjal instead.
This is one thing they got completely right about kara. There are only 1 or 2 genuinely difficult to replace items in that entire instance that you can't replace pre-BT. This is exactly what it should be. Its where guilds that are not hardcore can go to get nice gear without spending days on end raiding, while hardcore guilds can quickly move on to bigger and more challenging content.
The one thing I am afraid they will do is put some absolutely broken must have items in there that drop like 5% of the time so that everyone feels like they HAVE to run it to get that item, then all the sudden never wants to go again once they get it cause they ran it 20 times for that one item.
Enchants for belts is an excellent idea, I would love to see that as long as its not overly expensive, etc.
Basically, if they are going to make 10 mans, they should be largely optional after the first one, and mostly for personal enjoyment. Any REALLY good rewards should be rep based so that there is a clear goal where you get what you wanted and not just a dice roll of the bosses loot table with junk odds after 3 hour clears.
If they put skill books in ZA, this FORCES every single raiding guild to run the living crap out of it until they have all the books they need. I do not want to have to schedule ZA raids just because i need tome of random skill 15 and it just refuses to drop when I could be spending my time in BT/Hyjal instead.
This is one thing they got completely right about kara. There are only 1 or 2 genuinely difficult to replace items in that entire instance that you can't replace pre-BT. This is exactly what it should be. Its where guilds that are not hardcore can go to get nice gear without spending days on end raiding, while hardcore guilds can quickly move on to bigger and more challenging content.
The one thing I am afraid they will do is put some absolutely broken must have items in there that drop like 5% of the time so that everyone feels like they HAVE to run it to get that item, then all the sudden never wants to go again once they get it cause they ran it 20 times for that one item.
Enchants for belts is an excellent idea, I would love to see that as long as its not overly expensive, etc.
Basically, if they are going to make 10 mans, they should be largely optional after the first one, and mostly for personal enjoyment. Any REALLY good rewards should be rep based so that there is a clear goal where you get what you wanted and not just a dice roll of the bosses loot table with junk odds after 3 hour clears.
ZA is going tobe a 2/3 hour clear, why on earth would you not want 3 new ranks of spells/abilties? After all another rank of x would probably make hyjal/bt alot easier than any other 2/3 hours spent elsewhere.
At first I was a bit surprised when I heard that ZA would only require 2-3 hours. Then again...we clear Kara in 3- 3,5 hours and that's not really rushed yet. So this instance will be probably a little bit smaller than Kara but large enough to have some fun. I liked ZG a lot and I know I wasn't the only one. I guess Blizzard knows this as well and tries to duplicate that experience while including new aspects. That's fine for me. I also hope that the loottables close some gaps left open by Kara and the early 25 man raids.
To sum it up: I really hope to see ZA released rather soon, its going to be a lot of fun.
If they put skill books in ZA, this FORCES every single raiding guild to run the living crap out of it until they have all the books they need. I do not want to have to schedule ZA raids just because i need tome of random skill 15 and it just refuses to drop when I could be spending my time in BT/Hyjal instead.
If nothing else, I almost like the idea of spellbooks because it gives lower tier guilds a viable place in the raid economy. Upper tier guilds have the BOP recipes to sell on the AH. Lower tier guilds have the spell books. Worst case scenario you organize a trade and everyone is happy.
Agreed that having a 5% drop that's supieror to the point of mind numbing farming is stupid. I'd be happy with a token trinket or ring or some such being a nice piece of gear, however.
The thing I really disliked about spell books dropping in AQ20 was it was somewhat unfair on those who only wanted to PvP, and those who didn't want to or couldn't raid for whatever reason. The thing is they aren't "Only usable in a raid instance" or anything like that. You face an opponent of the same class, only their spell is hitting for 10% more damage than yours because they have the next rank, and you don't. The two biggest examples of this were Frostbolt and Corruption, which had massive increases in damage for just 1 rank due to the previous rank being level 56.
It just felt wrong that an opponent was basically always dealing more damage regardless of the gear they wore because of a drop that gave them a permanent buff. Granted, you could go and buy them off the AH, but back in the level 60 days they were about 1000g each and that's when 1000g was about a month of solid grinding. Maybe this is just a whine
In any case, I guess the spell book drops are going to happen at some point (seeing as they're already prepared, see wowhead etc) and I'll just have to bite the bullet and save up. Wonder what the level 70 price of those on the AH will be?
The spell books were a bad idea for AQ20, I don't want to see that again. However, it may happen, there are spells in wowhead that don't exist.
I love the ZA idea of killing things fast in order to get better items (perhaps adding a socket to an existing item drop from that boss), and maybe adding a belt enchant as well.
The only oddball idea I had was this: if ZA is more accessible than Kara (no attunement, possibly a shorter lockout, smaller size making one-night full clears feasible for even fairly casual groups once the fights are mastered), but a step up in difficulty and loot...
I'm pretty sure that's exactly what ZA has been discussed as:
If you want to do Karazhan and don't have a guild why don't you start a PuG of your own? People have been PuG'ing Kara on my server for a few months now. We've been taking alts to Kara for awhile now as well. Just do it, don't complain about how you don't have a guild and can't get a group, unless your server is vastly underpopulated, or you've got a terrible reputation (or reputation for being terrible) you will have no problem getting a PuG for Kara or maybe even Gruuls.
If you want to do Karazhan and don't have a guild why don't you start a PuG of your own? People have been PuG'ing Kara on my server for a few months now. We've been taking alts to Kara for awhile now as well. Just do it, don't complain about how you don't have a guild and can't get a group, unless your server is vastly underpopulated, or you've got a terrible reputation (or reputation for being terrible) you will have no problem getting a PuG for Kara or maybe even Gruuls.
Unfortunately, too much of this is based on server population.
On my realm, The Underbog, there isn't a single Alliance guild with Magtheridon down. The furthest progressed Horde guild (and top guild on the server, currently) has Mag, Void Reaver, and I think now 2 bosses in SSC.
A PuG Kara would be a nightmare on our server. As it stands, you're lucky to get into a guild Kara.
If you want to do Karazhan and don't have a guild why don't you start a PuG of your own? People have been PuG'ing Kara on my server for a few months now. We've been taking alts to Kara for awhile now as well. Just do it, don't complain about how you don't have a guild and can't get a group, unless your server is vastly underpopulated, or you've got a terrible reputation (or reputation for being terrible) you will have no problem getting a PuG for Kara or maybe even Gruuls.
In my experience, so-called "PUG" runs of raid instances usually consist of a combination of people who outgear the instance (they're only doing it because their guild has dropped it from a regular schedule), alts of people who outgear the instance, people in raid guilds who aren't on a timer for whatever reason, and friends of those in the former 3 categories. It's really not your typical PUG. The "true" PUGs - you know, the ones who would NEVER be able to do a 45-minute Baron run and who struggled in UBRS - would never be able to get past Moroes. Period. For these people, there is no endgame past possibly some of the easier heroic 5-mans.
So no, I don't think you'll see real PUGs of non-dedicated raiders going into Kara in 5-man blues before the end of the year. It's puggable like BWL was - only if you considered anything less than a full guild run a PUG.
The "true" PUGs - you know, the ones who would NEVER be able to do a 45-minute Baron run and who struggled in UBRS - would never be able to get past Moroes. Period. For these people, there is no endgame past possibly some of the easier heroic 5-mans.
Maybe it sound harsh but i don't think that people who that bad in this game deserve any kind of end game content.
For people so bad that they'd struggle to clear UBRS (in its later 10-man incarnation) or in TBC would struggle with normal-mode SH/Arcatraz (yes there are some), surely they already have a wealth of content available? It was my impression that new content is created when you have nowhere else to go, for these people it would seem an exercise in futility to create even more content that they would struggle to beat. Making a 10-man or 25man so easy that they can beat it seems pointless beyond the "wow I get to play in a big group" aesthetic.
In my experience, so-called "PUG" runs of raid instances usually consist of a combination of people who outgear the instance (they're only doing it because their guild has dropped it from a regular schedule), alts of people who outgear the instance, people in raid guilds who aren't on a timer for whatever reason, and friends of those in the former 3 categories. It's really not your typical PUG. The "true" PUGs - you know, the ones who would NEVER be able to do a 45-minute Baron run and who struggled in UBRS - would never be able to get past Moroes. Period. For these people, there is no endgame past possibly some of the easier heroic 5-mans.
So no, I don't think you'll see real PUGs of non-dedicated raiders going into Kara in 5-man blues before the end of the year. It's puggable like BWL was - only if you considered anything less than a full guild run a PUG.
What a load of crap. There are plenty of decent players out there who for what ever reason either aren't guilded, or are in a guild that's too small to run even Karazhan. I think back to my old server Lightning's Blade where people on the Alliance complained that their guilds were too small to run MC until a NE Rogue named Suds came along and formed his own PUG group. Within months it had been expanded so much so that 400+ people who had no previous raiding experience had not only cleared MC they'd finished BWL and were into AQ40.
Unfortunately, it all comes down to willpower, effort and a little luck. The forums were littered with complaints about how unaccessable MC was and all it took was one person with a website (for DKP tracking), a list of strats and people willing to listen. Karazhan is no different, I guarentee EVERY server could form a similar (yet smaller) organization and could easily be at the Prince in a matter of weeks. Even on The Underbog, as someone previously mentioned that Pugging Kara would be impossible, there are 26 guilds with Karazhan kills (WowJutsu: World of Warcraft Guild Rankings: The Underbog I'm guessing that 26th place guild only has killed Moroes and one member just has Prince+ gear). If 26 guilds are doing Karazhan, that means there are plenty that would like to try but are short on people (say a guild of 15 people, 7 of which are level 70, those guilds are everywhere).
So I'm sorry, I just don't by the "real PUGs are full of mouth breathing key turners who can't kill the Critter Boss in Karazhan", it's been proven wrong way too many times in this game.
Right, as I said (I think), there are people who consider anything less than a full guild run to be a "PUG". I think this is a pretty bad place to draw a line, however. My first guild was part of a raid alliance - part of what you'd call a PUG, perhaps - and we had a consistent group that cleared MC, then BWL, then made it to C'Thun in AQ40. I'm sure if my kind of group were considered a PUG, then we could say that any encounter in the game is puggable, since there's no encounter that's so difficult that a dedicated raid alliance couldn't do it. However, clearly this kind of group is far more akin to a serious raiding guild than a "lf24m for Illidan, need MT and healers pst"-type PUG. A consistent, dedicated group that just doesn't share the same guild tag doesn't constitute a PUG in my book, and it should hardly be used as a representative example of what PUGs are like or could be like if only one or two people knew how2play.
ZA is going tobe a 2/3 hour clear, why on earth would you not want 3 new ranks of spells/abilties? After all another rank of x would probably make hyjal/bt alot easier than any other 2/3 hours spent elsewhere.
Only problem I see with a 2/3 hour clear is that most of that has to be trash.
Think about it, Kara only takes ~3 hours (I really can't remember last time I did Kara, but I believe the final guild run we did was around 3 or so hours) and it has what, 10 bosses?
Now if ZA has 6 bosses, how much of that time is going to be spent on trash! I can take a fast clear of boss after boss after boss, but it is less enjoyable when it's all trash.
Anyway, even if it is tons of trash, we'll still be going every timer to get the core our books if they are there.
I don't get how spellbooks are a bad idea. It will give the highest guilds (Illidan killers and such) a reason to actually go to this place besides a "lets just check it out" run and never go again. Regarding the speed runs for better items, I *highly* doubt that the best reward if obtained by an Illidan killing guild would be equipped over some of the BT loot.
My point is I guess the skill books would give me incentive to actually go this the place more than once.
Spellbooks are an excellent idea, along with providing the Illidan killing guilds something to do could also provide guilds that are not as progressed a chance to increase their effectiveness furthering progress.
The only thing they might want to consider, if they do implement spellbooks would be is the way the books are distributed i.e. each book has a chance to drop off every boss or fixed drops.
07/12/07, 10:45 PM
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