I followed the short thread of last week (How do you make/keep your raid focused?) with some interest, as this is a question that has occurred to me a time or two. There were some very interesting points made by people in guilds who have been killing Illidan for a while now.

What I'm really curious about, and what I hoped to inspire discussion on, is the question of how to prepare for upcoming raid content, specifically in the context of Illidan -> Sunwell.

For the top-50 world Illidan kills, it will be over 8 months from Illidan down to Sunwell release. For those of you who have done this before, or who have thought about this since Illidan died, how are you preparing for Sunwell? Are there specific things you are doing to keep focus high, or to push your raid team to sync at a higher level?

Farming is boring. No-one truly enjoys farming. But it is useful, in that it:
1) provides content to keep you coming back (at least nominally)
2) provides upgrades, however slight, to outfit your toon to the maximum level

I personally see the farming time as a chance to min/max my toon the maximum level. I'd love to have every single slot equipped with the absolute best possible item before Sunwell. That is what I consider the purpose of the next few months. On top of that, I will probably start doing some farming in the next month, banking primals against the inevitable resist fight (because, let's be honest ... has there been a single dungeon in Blizzard's history that didn't have a resist fight of one sort of another?).

Are there other things I could be doing? That my guild could be doing? PvP is fun for a while, and it certainly provides a venue for our time, but for a guild who wanted to push content at a higher level than before in the next dungeon, what should we do?

I know parts of this discussion have happened in other threads (the one mentioned above, the Sunwell discussion to a certain extent). What I'm more concerned with here is the concept of going from farming -> high gear progression, and how to prepare for that. Many of you have done this multiple times, from Ragnaros -> BWL, from Nefarian -> AQ40, and from Twin Emps -> Naxxramas, not to even mention the pre-TBC -> SSC progression chain. Any suggestions, comments, or pithy tales?

Half of the guild is working on gearing up their second or third wave of alts with Karazhan / Zul'Aman gear now.

I would just chill out before 2.4 PTR comes up and then start to think about what is needed for Sunwell.

At start you'll hate farming the instances, especially only raiding 2 days a week. Then you'll start liking it. Near the end (which is for me around now) you'll be bored out of your mind.
I need maybe 2 items, then I'm done. The not having some item to raid for is going to drain me for sure. The only thing keeping me going atm is trying to beat my old dps records every week, but I'm guessing that ain't gonna work for a healer.

But like I said, I at some point loved the short raiding schedule... gave me time to do things I never had time for during a heavier raiding schedule; levelling alts (the new levelling speed is awesome!), PvP, Arenas, grinding rep with factions you like, ...

There's a lot to do in this game, trust me =P.

Mmmm, only semi-on-topic, but this is actually quite fun, in a masochistic way. For example, Bloodsail rep to max, then Steamwheedle back up (since Bloodsail grinding decimates goblin reputation) through endless Dire Maul runs.

In fact I find it pretty silly but fulfilling to work on all the old-world reps. Even Wintersaber isn't a ridiculous endeavour anymore. The only problematic reputation that can't be grinded solo would be the raid instance reps.

I think its gone to a degree where it stupid how boring farming the same instances for more than 6 months has become. It's also taken a massive toll on our core raiders - at the moment we have ~7-8 trialists, to make up for the wave of raiders who simply couldn't be arsed to clear the same instance time and time again, in the hope of getting the ~1 item they still needed.

Whine over (:P), I've begun playing with my alt priest, in a few irl mates guild. Leading some raids for them in my native language compared to the English I normally speak on raids, has proved a fun and exciting challenge. Likewise, I've set stupid goals for myself, a) getting a 5v5 arena rating of at least 2000 and b) earning 20k gold - I'd trade any of this for more PvE though, which is the primary reason I play WoW, but hey; I have to use my time on something.

Lvling an alt has pretty much been the only thing interesting for me in the past month; it's ridiculously fast pre 60 now which keeps it fairly entertaining in terms of 'hm how many levels can i do today?'

I would say my main is as good as it is going to get in terms of gear and consumeables ready for Sunwell; similarly to many I could use 1 or 2 minor upgrades from BT/Hyjal, but apart from the 2 raid days per week i only do arena on my main now.

As an individual and as a guild there is a serious amount of boredom sloshing about. Some are pvping, some are leveling their 3rd or even 4th alts, but in general Sunwell cannot come early enough. I think the best way to keep entertained at the moment is to play a different game or try the wonderful world of 'RL'

My guild has been around since MC but has only recently started pulling the strings together to down content before there was nothing new left to do. We were just finishing BWL when Nax was out and we didn't get much further than the first couple of bosses in each AQ40 and Nax before people started to lose interest in the days before the release of TBC. We killed Illidan a few months ago now and needless to say it is vastly different after you've "beaten the game". There are a lot of things I'm doing though to try and keep my guys interested.

1) Let them know that you may have beaten the game but there is always room for improvement. Take a look at WWS DPS reports. Is your guild anywhere on any of them in the top 50? If not then have them make that a goal each week for a specific boss and try to place somewhere in the top 50ish. Post stats for the previous weeks kills and try to beat them each week.. did Archimonde in 8 min? try to do it in 7.. etc. Just because you've done everything doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement, and pushing your guys will only make them better for Sunwell.

2) Sell old content. One of the things I'm doing (or attempting to do) for my members is provide them with free consumables and repairs come Sunwell. It's been a lot of work so far (more than I thought it would be) but my vision is slowly becoming reality. We will begin farming old content to sell epic drops to supplement our gold reserves and we are implementing a self sustaining trade market with collectors/farmers on our server to keep us in supply of needed items at below market costs. The thing with raiding old content is you will have a few that would rather kill themselves then do it.. but you will also have a few that either still need something (Dragonspine Trophy/Tsunami Talisman, etc) or who just want to raid because they enjoy doing it. A lot of guilds cut down their raiding days to 2-3 days and when you are accustomed to raiding 5-6 days a week some people just have nothing to do and they find other things to do besides logging in on raid days.

3) Get PvP premade teams going and encourage (or even require) that people have at least 1 arena team. PvP is a great way to get people to become more situationally aware of their surroundings. It improves reaction time and gets people to work better together. Plus it's a change of pace and nothing is better than taking 15 of your guys and steam rolling pugs.. boosts morale and we have a lot of fun doing it.

4) Do ZA/Kara runs for mains/alts and get people involved that way. Almost everyone needs 1 thing from ZA (either regular or timed event) and most don't mind having extra badges.

5) Form teams to discuss various aspects of the guild.. have the healers meet with one another.. maybe some of them have ideas that would improve your healing core, new mods, new strategies, new macros, vent keybindings, etc.. do the same with your tanks and dps crews. Are there macro setups that will improve someones ability to accomplish a specific task? Is there a new mod out that not everyone knows about? Is there a different strategy for tackling specific content that your crew wants to try? Is there something that can be done to improve the overall flow of the guild? Every little improvement will help and getting your guys talking to one another outside of a raiding environment will only increase their abilities to communicate while you are raiding and develop a better synergy as a whole.


There are other little things you can do as well, but the main thing is you need to keep the interest of your raiding crew for the game. You will lose a couple of people, but what guild doesn't as time goes on? The main thing is to let your guild know that you are doing all of this for the good of the guild because you want them to be a fierce machine come Sunwell. Let them know that there will be plenty to do and try to get everyone involved. Be wary of those members who don't participate in the other activities as they tend to be the ones who won't be sticking around to Sunwell and beyond.

Yeah, basically, use the farming time to min/max. Make roster changes. Leadership structure changes. DKP changes. Once all the drama that comes with doing progress is over with, use the farming status to handle everything else, rather than announcing a bunch of changes in the middle of a fresh wave of learning content.

Even farm raids will keep those who uh, well, like to raid, interested decently enough. You may not think so now, but if you go without raiding, even light 1-2 day raiding, for weeks, you'll be bored out of your mind! The holidays turned off our raiding schedule for like 3 weeks, and now we're eagerly awaiting the return date for raiding, having been out of it for so long.

The farming/stocking up thing is a natural choice any semi serious guild should take, people now have more than enough time to accumulate plenty of money and an excessively huge stockpile of any consumable they might need come progress. Raw gold isn't going to be the best to rely on for consumables because if the server is competitive, everything may be bought up rather quick.

As for the rest of the time, at least Blizzard accommodated the alt-leveling thing rather well, now's the best time to work on your own army of having 1 of every class and tradeskill!

I personally regret that there is no solo high end content. DAoC did this well with artifacts. I hope that Blizzard will learn from this lull, and implement ridiculously long solo grind type activities that a top end raider actually benefits from. Sure, you can grind reps or fishing now, but that doesn't benefit raiders in combat (for the most part).

While some aspects of the artifact grind in DAoC were mishandled, it at least gave people something *meaningful* to do when they weren't pve raiding in ToA or PvPing in the frontiers.

The nice aspect to this is that aside from a single raid-type boss (think 10 to 20 man) which dropped an artifact "husk", the rest of the grind could be done solo or duo, and could take a long long time. Better yet, your grind did not depend on having the husk to start with. You could get the follow up ingredients before it, and they were tradable. As a result, you could farm and sell the follow up parts, or keep them for yourself.

Once you created the artifact+ingredients, you would then have to level the item up (much like leveling a hunter pet) before using it to it's maximum potential. Yes, it's a grind, but at least you didn't have to have 25 on line to so so. That sort of thing would have me logging into wow again.

I realize this may sound like a whine or derail, but it's really just trying to get the idea out into the public consciousness that things don't *have* to be this way in the future of wow. If more people realize that after boss dead doesn't have to mean alt grinding, then hopefully there will be a collective push for a more enjoyable post-raid game.

Honestly as bad as people think the Trials of Atlantis expansion was for DAoC, I think it would be a step in the right direction for WoW. A few months ago on my old Rogue, I was in an SSC/TK guild with most of the best gear from those instances with just a few side- or up-grades available. I had all TBC factions exalted, 300 riding, a Netherdrake, and 2000+ arena teams. There wasn't much I could do to advance my character outside of a raid environment.

DAoC had its large raid content, shallow as Master Level and Relic raids were, but it also had a ton of great solo/8 man content. If nobody logged on for 8v8 or an ML raid, it was fine. I could run down to Green Glades and grind out a few levels on a new artifact or something. Before the artifact leveling rate was buffed ridiculously in some later patch (1.8x or something), some artifacts took a very long time to level. I remember taking a couple of weeks to get my Malice Axe up to level 10.

Honestly, I think an artifact-esque system would be nice to see in WotLK. It might be too late to patch it in for TBC, but it might be something Blizzard could consider going into this next expansion.

Bank consumables, as many as you'll need to perform at your absolute maximum for two or three weeks of full-time progression. Good numbers for a caster might be fifty flasks, fifty oil, five hundred food, and a thousand mana potions. Optimize your professions. For most people, this means Enchanting (ring enchants) and Leatherworking (drums). Fund your guild bank, just in case you need to buy a massive amount of stuff for Naxx-style attunements or resist gear or whatnot. Farm up a great deal of gold yourself, for all of the reasons listed above. Fortify your guild roster - remove the deadweight, and make sure that you have every class in enough quantity that you can stack your raid through any fight where stacking might make your life easier. Farm badges for fire resistance. Put epic gems in your offspec gear. While you are doing all of this, encourage everyone else to be doing the same, and, better yet, help them do it.

There's plenty to do, even beyond the items I have listed. That being said, I don't particulary understand the point of this thread, because if you've killed Illidan, you should have enough raid experience that the necessary preparations and optimizations are self-evident. Just think back to all of the things that your guild could have done better on the way to Illidan, and this time, do them better. At the same time, anticipate and prepare for curveballs of the sort that the designers have thrown over the past three years. Sunwell may very well consist entirely of encounters that require raid stacking, excessive consumables, and expensive resist gear, all leading up to Cthun 1.0. Are you ready for that?

Pretty much you dont have to cover every single class. Most people who want to buy gear are interested in the dps pieces and you dont have to bring each class to SSC/Gruul/TK. Tier tokens also cover it quite well. Ideally you will have 3 "tourist" to cover each type of set.

Also if the people who paid isn't complete scrubs, they should be able to contribute somewhat in the raid.

We've jokingly thrown around that we should be farming up some level 70 alts, so when sunwell does come up - we can unlock the sunwell bosses quicker, by doing 3-4x the amount of dailies possible with a single character only.

I can't believe I didn't think of that. Time to get to work.

Heel, I think Mannoroth should be fine as far as unlocking the stuff :P

I'm looking forward to getting down to a 2 day raid week so I can get a good handle on school this semester without needing to raid too much until Sunwell.

I find some pleasure in attempting to predict the future. Allow me to start off with some numbers:

Total amount of groups who have cleared all content today: ~800
1 month ago: ~600
2 months ago: ~400
3 months ago: ~200
4 months ago: ~100

Now, I don't know exactly how long it takes to have farmed T6 to death, but I think we can reasonably assume it is less than 4 months. Based on some pretty loose data and guesstimates, it seems like groups who have killed Illidan 1-2 months ago seem to have farmed "enough". So, we can expect perhaps 500 groups who will be fairly bored once the Sunwell comes online. What will they do? Here is my prediction:

#1 Jump on the nearest PTR and try to raid Sunwell when it comes up for testing => massive overcrowding on the PTR.
#2 Drop T6 and focus fully on the Sunwell => the Sunwell is cleared very very rapidly, unless the delaying mechanisms prove to be substantial.

So, in short, I would predict that testing the Sunwell on PTR will prove unprecedentedly hard to do, and that shortly after it is finally released, we'll have a lot of people back being bored, wondering when the expansion will come out. I doubt this will hurt the game as a whole to a large degree, but I wonder what will happen to top end raiding.

Pretty much people will still need loot from Illidan but most loot from other bosses will be DE and it is tiring to go through the motions to kill Naj for like the 20th time. It is also quite sad that bosses for us seems to like dropping items in streaks . Mother seems to drop the libram of DE every week and we have bulwark of Azzinoth drops from Illidan like every other kill , even two of our holy paladins have one.

I should perhaps have been clearer. After 1-2 months, a group would have T6 down to a couple of raid nights, and are likely to have several nights left over to go on the PTR. Also, in my experience, at that point people have begun collecting offset T6 sets, and the mid way bosses have likely stopped being interesting loot-wise.

Have the July-August guilds successfully transitioned to a "loot doesn't really matter" mantra as they continue farming BT/HS? I can see any group that still raids primarily *for* the purplez being in trouble if literally 9/10 items go to shard or waste.

I know one of the primary motivations for raiding (or at least the scoreboard we all use) is the epix, but is it truly possible to take a group beyond that, where the raiding is primarily about beating the content in as efficient / powerful a fashion as possible? I see Juggernaut continuing to post WWS parses of amazing kills, where people are clearly still trying their hardest, and they killed Illidan 16th in the US.

How do you develop this mindset, where the epics don't matter, but the raiding (as a team activity, if you will) does? Does it just require that people do it on their own? Or are there things you can do to push this forward (if people think it is desireable. Is this the case?).

I don't do bleeding edge in WoW, I did it in EQ, but I can tell you this about developing the mindset: it requires a great deal of maturity. Not the maturity I had when I was an 18 year old in a guild of 25-35's, but the maturity gained from real life.

In short: people develop it on their own. It's nearly impossible to develop while playing the game without some sort of event occurring to shake the core of your world, because it's not a mind-set that can exist in an immature head, for the most part.

If you're desperate to "push" it on your guild, the best way is one person at a time. A core of people with this attitude will be needed, and they'll slowly bring a realization to the other people in the guild. Specifically, people will interact with their guildies and notice that they get something else out of running instance Y every week besides the loot. It's not something everyone will develop, and that's just how it is, sadly.

Also: is it desirable? I would say so, as the people I know with this attitude play around and find new ways to be awesome at what they do. They bring their A game to everything, because... they know how, and they find it fun to do so.

Some guilds might also want to complete legendary sets, and well, it can be alone a good motivation to keep farming Illidan.

I think I'm looking at something *beyond* "farming Illidan". Farming is boring. Farming with wipes and lack of focus is stupid and frustrating.

What always excited me, and continues to interest me today, is constantly pushing the limits. Run the instance faster. Cleaner. Better kills. More synergy. Play with raid structure, play with raid balance. Run with 1 less healer for a challenge to keep your healers sharp. Have the tanks do more to keep them sharp. Force the dps to stop slacking and really start pushing dps.

There's a world of difference between "farming Illidan" and "clearing BT/HS in 7 hours". Motivation to run to Illidan just for legendaries is pretty slim for all but a handful of people, and even those people have trouble focusing on 12 bosses just to clear up to Illidan (assuming HS included). You need something more.