People always claim that gear makes all the difference in the world and that their 8-16 hour MC runs are because of lack of gear. As a guild that seems quite competant at clearing MC (1.5 hours), how long do you think it would take you if you were back in instance blue gear, fresh out of Dire Maul and Upper Blackrock Spire?

I believe that a guild of skilled players could do it in 4 hours or less, but usually by the time people get skilled they are epiced out. Because tests are unlikely to happen, I thought I would ask some of the better raiding guilds how long they think MC would take in all blues? What sort of times should a guild new to raiding strive for before they get geared out?

domo may put a bit of a crimp in that and rag would squash your goal of victory if you were basing your raid on a minimum of gear. That being said you are right in that experience can make a world of difference. BTW EJ did not finish MC in 1.5 hours.

:edit: if you could get by the requirements gear puts on your raid when you get to a fight like rag though I think your estimate of 4 hours is pretty close. Now that being said you really cant set that as a goal since it will take ya atleast 4-5 weeks to really get to where you are attempting rag on a regular basis and that is being friendly. In that time you will be gearing your guys out.

What about ZG gear though?

If you're in Pre-MC gear, maybe some ZG items, I'd say your looking at a solid 4-8 hours. Not only do you not kill as fast, you also die more, and require more time to drink, which leads to you having to fight more repops, etc.

not to mention loot distribution in the beginning is a pain.

I think an experienced non-MC-geared group could probably clock in somewhere around 5 hours through 'domo. Maybe a bit faster. But not sub-4.

If you truly mean ALL blues (i.e., no crafted FR gear, etc.) then I honestly don't know if we could kill Rag.

When my guild first started, we were mostly in greens / UBRS blues (except our MT, he was in full Might) and a smattering of random tier 1 epics.

We spawned Ragnaros on our 2nd run as a guild in about 4.5 hours (no wipes, I believe).

However, Ragnaros was a completely different story. We lacked the damage and FR to take him down at that point.


Edit - To clarify, the vast majority of our guild had prior MC experience but didn't have the items to show for it.

Axemen from the EU servers, I believe.

just out of curiosity if your guild is just starting out why are you setting time goals. The first goal should be low deaths. Take your time initially and dont wipe. Respawn will cause you alot of issues but they will cause you even more if you are trying to rush.

I think it was more an academic question.

When first going into MC and learning the end bosses, I think it makes far more sense to do Luci-Shaz on one day, and then Sulf-Domo plus Rag attempts on a second day.

Doing it otherwise is far too long a block of raiding in my opinion, and leaves people tired and off their game by the time they get to Ragnaros. Then after you wipe, if you want more attempts another day, you have to clear all the way back to Majordomo with no promise of loot.

Save full clears for after you've downed Rag.

I suppose I should have been a little more clear on my question.
First pull to Majordomo down.
No ZG gear, no epic gear, just 5-10 man instance gear.
Hypothetical group would be a skilled BWL group that decided they wanted to go re-aquire all their level 60 blues and try to clear MC with them. This means a group that doesn't wipe, knows the pulls, chain pulls when mana allows it, doesn't waste time distributing loot, etc.

Basically I am looking for a "Goal" for guilds that are new to MC. Currently most "months behind" guilds feel that 8 hours is a good time for blue gear, I don't think that is a very good time at all and I want some feedback from guilds with more experience in running MC very quickly. Of course, I don't expect people to be able to jump into MC strait out of 60 and be able to make this time, but it let's them know that better is possible, and there are always things they can improve other than gear (unless they reach this theoretical speed through MC).

the 5 hour mark sounds good but seriously first stepping in dont set time goals. All it will do is hurt your raid with unneeded wipes. I would establish place in MC goals instead. the first week goal should be to down luci. Next week down luci-garr. next week clear through to domo(seperate days ofcourse). Kill domo then kill rag. If you set time goals you put too much pressure on yourself cause to be honest the first weeks you will spend 5-6 hours in a night but not get near a sniff of domo.

I understand the question now but I dont think you should look at MC as a time trial. Once you get the first 8 bosses down then you can look to establish time goals. I agree with gurg that till you really get everything on farm status split the instance into 2 days. try to get each day faster and faster till you are about 2-3 hours per day.

You may have posted your response before seeing my last two responses so this may seem redundant, but I want to be clear.

I don't want to set these time goals for my guild. First goal is to clear to Lucifron without wiping. Second goal is to clear Lucifron without wiping. Third goal is to kill Magmadar without wiping, etc. through Majordomo. Once we can clear through domo without a wipe then we can work on improving timing. My problem is simply that I want an idea of how fast we should be looking at once we can clear through Majordomo without wiping.

Obviously, once we are to that point we will be better geared, but it still gives a range to work with, somewhere between 4 hours (all blues) and 1.5 hours (all tier 2 epics). As I said, a lot of guilds think 8 hours is the best they can do without fully a epiced raid, I want to find out what a more accurate number is.

4-5 hours to Majordomo without epic gear is your answer, I think.

It absolutely should not take 8.

If you take 8 you are wiping or you are spending multiple minutes between every pull.

Thanks! :)

I think the point people are trying to make here is it isn't about the numbers, because they're largely irrelevant. If you read the previous threads on speed clearing they focus on things like doing the best you can as an individual in order to speed the clear along.

I agree, it's not about the numbers. I just don't want my guild to end up like a lot of the other "months behind" guilds who get to 8 hours and stop trying to improve, just claiming that it's their gear that is holding them back. Our guild still has a long way to go before we even think about trying to improve our time through MC, but I want to be ready when that time comes (should we ever stagnate in raid performance).

well that is actually up to the RL. Your raiders will follow along at your pace. You will master the art of chain pulling and multiple pulls and if the RL feels things are going slow perhaps body pull one or two things. The MT and RL are the ones that should be controlling the pace.

But even these things aren't about time, its about, Hey X with perd/CHT/full NS is doing less dmg than Y with all blues and a heartseeker WTF? Or, Hey idiot why do you have 75% overhealing, and are perpetually OOM, or most importantly, which idiots /afk time is 10-15 minutes.

That is exactly the reason. People think that improving beyond their current ability is impossible, so they don't look for ways to improve. By having a "4-5 hour" marker I can safely say, "It is possible for the raid to improve, now it is up to the raid members to figure out where we need improvement and offer suggestions to each other and the raid leader / puller on how to improve those areas."

well speed increase come whether you choose to or not. You just become more efficient no matter what. People learn to drink on the fly. Adapt to added mobs. Distribute loot on the fly. Dont require explanation on the bosses. Stuff like that will get you to a 4 hour run alone.

Argh this thread makes my head hurt, talk about circular. How to learn MC:

Phase 1: Macro-level Improvement
Step 1: Learn MC bosses. Learn how to not wipe. Consistently don't wipe.
Step 2: Master the trash pulls, the order in which to do them, and how to minimize deaths.
Step 3: Examine sources of delay, and try to reduce downtime. Write up explanations for each boss so you don't have to spend 5 minutes talking to newcomers before every other pull. Work on speeding up loot, and recognizing that it takes 30 seconds after a pull to regain mana, and not two minutes. Instill an ethos of speed = good.

Phase 2: Micro-level Improvement
Step 4: Examine the performance of individual players, DPS classes especially. Use DM, Recap, or similar mods to compare the damage output of your various classes, how many times they're using their skills, what skills they're using, etc. Try to understand why your #1 rogue and #1 mage and #1 DPS warrior, etc., kick so much ass, and impart those lessons to the other members of that class.
Step 5: Gear, gear, gear. Every clear's worth of gear upgrades should shave another few minutes off your attainable clear time, until you forget that MC ever used to take you so long.