OT: When did Naxx go from 'requiring flawless execution' to only requiring "40 people to be playing relatively well"... did I miss a memo?
As your gear improves encounters like Patchwerk, Maexxna, and others become a lot easier. But Gluth, Thaddius, Loatheb, Four Horsemen and some others all are still very much encounters where flawless execution is key.
OT: When did Naxx go from 'requiring flawless execution' to only requiring "40 people to be playing relatively well"... did I miss a memo?
Even without gear, Naxx has never required flawless execution. It just requires everyone to be much better than they have before in earlier encounters.
As an example, we just killed Thaddius for the first time on Tuesday a few seconds into the enrage. A month from now, I'm sure we'll be killing him well before the enrage. Not because we're going to upgrade our DPS gear by 20% or something like that, but simply because everyone will understand agro control and position control that much better a month from now.
This thread, while mostly about EJ's 4H kill now, has touched on something I have dubbed Pre-expansion Fatigue. Basically, I think its everywhere in the game now. There isn't much to do, and people are looking to the expansion as a cure all. It's having the following effects that I can see.
* People expect gear obtained now to be replaced in the expansion.
* Raiders are less inclined sticking it out on a tough raid. An hour or two of sleep is worth more than an hour or two of wipes.
* Marginal attendence raiders are even less likely to show up at all for raids.
* Non-raid content is exhausted. All the is left is leveling alts, or taking a break until the xpac. PvP is still the same grind it was months ago.
As for this, I think it's kind of understandable. I think that if you're pretty deep in Naxx right now, you're a fool not to keep going. If not for the loot, which probably will last you all the way to 70, then for the experience of playing through a masterfully balanced zone that's the pinnacle of the pre-expansion content cycle.
But if you're in a guild that's wiping on Huhuran right now? Well, yeah, that's a bit different. It's pretty clear that ilvl70ish epics are going to be surpassed by TBC gear quite quickly. and there's just so much content still left at that point that "finishing it all before the expansion" stops being a realistic concern. At that point, I can understand why people would find something else to do with their night rather than wipe to a random boss.
God, it's good to hear that it's not just us, or our server. We've had 2 Alliance guilds in Naxx crumble due to guild drama and membership issues. A third (the best PvE guild on the server) nearly collapsed, but picked up the shards of the previous 2 and is able to do about 2/3 of what it used to do in Naxx.
Then there's my guild. We had attendance issues over the summer that made our progression bumpy, but started to pick up a little as school went back in session. Then we had about 8 seriously geared players (including 5 officers) in 6 weeks. 3 quit WoW entirely and will probably never return. 3 burned their bridges so well in their departure that we'll never invite them back. The remaining 2 are on indefinite hiatus, which suggests they'll probably pop up a week or two before the expansion goes live.
Needless to say, this has dealt a serious blow to our raiding team. Every departure, particularly the officers, makes the remaining guildies wonder if the guild has foundered and it's time to abandon ship.
The loss of gear and experience means bringing in less of each and we're often coming up 2-3 people short of a full 40-man.
Two weeks ago we downed Faerlina and got Maexxna to 16%. But in the last 2 weeks, even Razuvious and Anub are requiring multiple wipes to get past. We've still never managed to get C'Thun down and even our BWL raids take an hour longer than they used to.
As one of the remaining officers, I keep feeling like I'm trying to hold the guild together with my bare hands. I have difficulty believing that we're in any shape to either down C'Thun or progress further into Naxx. (The latter particularly troubles me; having been so dubiously fortunate as to acquire our guild's first Splinter of Atiesh, I do not anticipate ever possessing the Staff itself end product unless we continue to run Naxx well into our mid-60s.) As such, my continuing anxiety is that the departures will continue. Though our 40-man progression has sgagnated, I believe that we retain the solid core for a 25-man team; so long as we can retain those members, our post-BC progression looks promising.
The question is what to do in the meantime. We've continued to throw ourselves up against Naxx, no telling whether we'll break through our current stall. Ditto for C'thun. But will giving up on those send a greater message of failure than continuing to wipe on them? *shrug* For now the other officers assume the former and keep the raid schedule moving. Myself, I'm not sure.
My solution? Find another guild either at your level of progress, or just below you, and join forces until the expansion. If you are running AQ40/Naxx, find a like minded guild working on BWL/MC and cross fill each other's raids. Its really stupid for two guilds to each field 25 people/week, and struggle in raids, when you could toss each other 10-15 people to fill out your raids.
And when the xpac hits, both guilds are still viable.
My solution? Find another guild either at your level of progress, or just below you, and join forces until the expansion. If you are running AQ40/Naxx, find a like minded guild working on BWL/MC and cross fill each other's raids. Its really stupid for two guilds to each field 25 people/week, and struggle in raids, when you could toss each other 10-15 people to fill out your raids.
And when the xpac hits, both guilds are still viable.
Some guilds (two) have gone this route (one with great success thus far; basically right back to where it was. The other was a dismal failure). Unfortunatly there just isn't a good match for the guild in question. Due to server transfers, members from the guilds that have collapsed have simply jumped ship, leaving the rest of the guilds on the server with essentially no recruitment pool.
Deciding "to do something else" for 2 months before the expansion every night basically means the death of most raiding guilds.
I would be hard pressed to recommend to any guild to just "take it easy and not try to progress" before the expansion.
Oh, absolutely. I think there's a difference between "not try to progress" and "not do extra nights and not farm flasks for everyone to beat something".
I simply just don't understand the whole "the expansion is going to invalidate all current gear asap" concept. Sure there will be massive mudflation and of course you will be raiding for new shiny epics at level 70 but to think that the gear (and more, the co-ordination) that you have now won't matter is just silly. Sure, it isn't all designed perfectly for soloing but really, even a healing specced/geared priest can do pretty well compared to Timmy in greens/blues. Far more importantly though, I think that the gear gap between T3 and T4 is unlikely to be as insane as expected. Sure we'll upgrade every slot eventually but I doubt strongly that we'll be sharding everything for "of the Greater Osprey" greens in the first month.
Besides, even without the 5-person content, there are going to be lots of interesting ways of garnering exp points. Healers in uber healing gear that don't like soloing? Come AE trash with me please! Protection tanks can also apply anytime they like indeed and hell, we could knock out some Elite quests at the same time I'm sure and more likely than not handle the early 5-person content. Even going back to beta I'd be hard pressed to think of any 2-3 person group that isn't more efficient in some way if the players are smart about it. It was setup and teardown and the lack of social contracts that was the pain back then even, not so much the inefficiency. Hunt with a guildie or four and I think you'll advance faster than you would alone, with the possible exception of a very few classes/specs. And frankly, no one likes warlocks and hunters anyhow.
One thing I must say is it's going to be very fun doing 5mans leveling up in really nice gear again. My brother and I did that last server, spent ALL our time in instances until we got every last piece of gear we wanted just because we thought it would be a blast. And it was. Too bad we're both dps classes this time, being healer/tank leveling up is so kickass, I definately recommend any tank or healer to grab a buddy of the opposite type and group through BC if they can.
My guild is a fairly casual raiding guild on one of the newest PvP servers opened in the EU. We're currently making Nefarian attempts and show no signs of slowing down before TBC despite the fact we're never likely to see the upper echelons of Naxx or even AQ40 probably (unless there are significant delays from Blizz which, lets face it, is kinda likely).
When I'm raiding I'm still picking up healing gear predominatly because I still want to achieve all I can before TBC hits. When it does hit I have no intention of powering my way to 70, I really want to savour each level, the same way I did on my first level 60 (this being my second).
I'm seriously looking forward to getting a rush out of 5 mans again the same way I did 18 months ago(?)
My raiding guild (meddle) recently imploded. We had one of those over-enthusiatic guild leaders (read, insane) who blacklisted everyone who left early from a raid for a 2 weeks period and then gkicked them. About 15 people got gkicked and a few more left out of principle. Progress-wise we were wiping on c'thun and had a couple of bosses in naxx down. Not cutting edge by any means, but khaz is a newer server and we were progressing reasonably quick. However, most people were burnt out and not showing for raids, hence the massive gkicking.
So, we reformed, and invited a few close friends. We know have 35 accounts of skilled, close knit, T2 or higher geared players. Perfectly sized for BC instances and we're currently chilling, PvPing and helping out 'lower' guilds. While it remains to be seen how much gear will help with levelling/playing at 70, having a guild of players who are eager to get back into raiding seems far better than a burnt out group of players who get to 70 a week earlier.
We had one of those over-enthusiatic guild leaders (read, insane) who blacklisted everyone who left early from a raid for a 2 weeks period and then gkicked them.
Just lol. There's strong, militant leaders and then there's those that fall into the "Let's ditch this foo" category.
I simply just don't understand the whole "the expansion is going to invalidate all current gear asap" concept. Sure there will be massive mudflation and of course you will be raiding for new shiny epics at level 70 but to think that the gear (and more, the co-ordination) that you have now won't matter is just silly. Sure, it isn't all designed perfectly for soloing but really, even a healing specced/geared priest can do pretty well compared to Timmy in greens/blues. Far more importantly though, I think that the gear gap between T3 and T4 is unlikely to be as insane as expected. Sure we'll upgrade every slot eventually but I doubt strongly that we'll be sharding everything for "of the Greater Osprey" greens in the first month.
The way stamina is given to gear has been reformulated (basically double the stamina on new items) so we are already seeing level 65 items being equivalent or greater than naxx items. We haven't even seen stuff from Tempest Keep, the level 70 5-mans or Karazhan, the first 10 man raiding zone. Suffice it to say if you see items from Hellfire Citadel (level 65) as good as naxx what do you think blue or epic items from instances 5 levels later will look like?
Either way I agree that the fun will be leveling with friends and enjoying all the new content. I'm debating whether to keep my current 60 as my main or reroll a bloodelf/draeni as a main and keep my 60 as an alt. Anyways I will continue to raid aq40/naxx to enjoy the content and for fun, with no expectation that the gear will last me longer than a few days once the expansion is out.
I simply just don't understand the whole "the expansion is going to invalidate all current gear asap" concept.
Due to class changes (hunters) and gear changes (stamina is cheaper, Agilty and AP at the same time is cool), blues from the level 62+ 5 mans beat/match Tier 2 and below. Now Tier 3 has much longer life (blues from 68-70 dungeons match it).
Of course the Arena gear and the level 70 raid dungeons destroys Tier 3 in power.
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Reading through the whole thread (which has taken many twists and turns :P ), I noticed talk about 5mans, levelling, and how the 5mans would need to be ALOT harder than the currect DM / Scholo etc, to be worth anything.
Am i misguided or aren't all instances in the xpac following a scaling system (easy, normal, hard, hardcore, or something similar) ??
I swear i've read this around many different places, or was it all just speculation, and nothing in stone yet?
No, you are correct, they did talk about this. Its unclear though exactly what gap its intended to fill. Is it to make the same instance re-usable at level 60, 65 and 70 by upping the difficult level? Or is it to provide a challenging instance for the elite players and make the same instance re-usable for those who are somewhat challenged at working together as a party? Or both?
I believe its done so that you can access the instances again at a higher lvl. So a lvl 62 instance would be turned into a lvl 70 instance with better loot. That way you are not "done" with the instance once you passed it in lvl. So instead of having 62, 64, 68, 70 instances (numbers made up), you have 62, 64, 68 and 4 lvl 70 instances. Now I dont know how the different lvls will scale. Thats what I've gathered anyways.
The biggest problem many people have with raiding is not the progress, its the outside-of-raid effort required to do so before the expansion will hit. Imagine guilds who are going into AQ40 who havent worked on NR yet. How much can you really do in just over a month to get enough people geared up to get past Huhu? Can you really convince AT LEAST 15 people to do the personal farming involved, and the GUILD to do the farming involved for mats? "Alright guys I know this stuff will be pointless in a month, but lets spend hours grinding those instances we're all sick and tired of because at this point we all have 4 60's in very good pre-ZG/MC blues/epics, but lets just farm them for 2 more weeks so we can get by Huhu in time to get in a few attempts at Twin Emps!"
Personally Im all for progressing in an isntance, I love the new challenges new content provides (or "old" content that isnt yet on farm) but I dont enjoy the hours of 5/10 mans to get my FR or NR up, or my Reputation to a level where I can get a nifty reward which will soon be outdated. And I hope anyone who has gone through Econ 101 understands why - the opportunity cost of clearing new content at this point in time is too high, compared to the new rewards that are just around the corner.
The biggest problem many people have with raiding is not the progress, its the outside-of-raid effort required to do so before the expansion will hit. Imagine guilds who are going into AQ40 who havent worked on NR yet. How much can you really do in just over a month to get enough people geared up to get past Huhu? Can you really convince AT LEAST 15 people to do the personal farming involved, and the GUILD to do the farming involved for mats? "Alright guys I know this stuff will be pointless in a month, but lets spend hours grinding those instances we're all sick and tired of because at this point we all have 4 60's in very good pre-ZG/MC blues/epics, but lets just farm them for 2 more weeks so we can get by Huhu in time to get in a few attempts at Twin Emps!"
Personally Im all for progressing in an isntance, I love the new challenges new content provides (or "old" content that isnt yet on farm) but I dont enjoy the hours of 5/10 mans to get my FR or NR up, or my Reputation to a level where I can get a nifty reward which will soon be outdated. And I hope anyone who has gone through Econ 101 understands why - the opportunity cost of clearing new content at this point in time is too high, compared to the new rewards that are just around the corner.
Eh, what else am I gonna do with my time? I could PvP... but that's kinda dull if you do it all the time. I could run 5mans... but I don't need anything there. I could take up fishing... but that's boring. I could grind gold. Well I could have a couple thousand gold by the time BC hits but other than that I'd rather spend my time playing with raid bosses.
It's not like I'm going to suddenly not be addicted to the game now that the expansionis coming out >.>
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The biggest problem many people have with raiding is not the progress, its the outside-of-raid effort required to do so before the expansion will hit. Imagine guilds who are going into AQ40 who havent worked on NR yet. How much can you really do in just over a month to get enough people geared up to get past Huhu?
Guilds that don't sit and around and whine about Huhuran, and instead goes out and farms Maraudon will have everything farmed in 1 raidday.. And this was prior all the cenarion stuff was in the game.
Your reply illustrates the whole issue. If your guild THINKS that progress isn't going to be made, then it won't. There is seriously still plenty of time to start and finish all of AQ40. However if your guild is going to sit around and mope that it's not possible, then no, there won't be.
Dojke I truly wish you could be on my server :-P Horde side has 2 guilds through BWL, and only one through AQ40 (C'thun downed in the last month)
Those 2 guilds constitute - for the most part - the entire pool of leadership, knowledgable players, and attitudes on the server.
Therefore my AQ40 example was a poor example, for 99% of the raiding guilds on my server the question is not in NR, but in well geared MT's for MC/BWL. And Im sure you will agree with me that getting tanks (out of an unreliable pool of players) up to 315+ FR, as well as the rest of the raid above 100, takes more than "one raid night" The weeks of farming MC for cores alone would take until the xpac comes out :-/
Personally I have an app into one of the two guilds ATM and spent 2-3 hours solo'ing RFD last night for NR gear, Mara is soon to come :-P
On another note - I seriously doubt there are many guilds who are just now making Prophet attempts who will get by Huhu before the expansion comes out, let alone Twin Emps. AQ40 requires a whole different skillset than Molten Bore and BWL and getting 40 people on the same page in that regard is enough of a roadblock for many guilds. For those who would be able to do it - they are more than likely already well past AQ40 and are probably playing with the monsters in Naxx :-P
The biggest problem many people have with raiding is not the progress, its the outside-of-raid effort required to do so before the expansion will hit. Imagine guilds who are going into AQ40 who havent worked on NR yet. How much can you really do in just over a month to get enough people geared up to get past Huhu? Can you really convince AT LEAST 15 people to do the personal farming involved, and the GUILD to do the farming involved for mats?
Um, it is obvious why your guild is not motivated to raid AQ/Naxx, and it has nothing to do with the expansion. It's because they don't care enough about raiding. On my server the gates to AQ aren't even open... no wait, I could push this back further. 1 week after the nef first died on our server, we had a few hunters and rogues with 250+ NR. We had a tailor, a LWer, and a BS both reverred with CC with none going after any reward but the NR recipes (and the BS was the only one with significant guild help). Our MT had every last piece of NR you could get outside of world dragons. Fast forward to today and AQ is still not open, but just about every rogue, hunter, and warrior has 250+ NR. I've even had quite a few casters getting me to make the full NR set for them, and a few warlocks have high SR for emps. Why? We didn't go all draconian on them, they just wanted to be ready for upcoming content. We had people asking what we would recommend for NR before we even told the guild to start gathering it. We're not even unique in this respect, the other 2 guilds up the top with us have similar gearings.
On a side note none of the top guilds are quite ready to farm up the last 250k linen bandages to finish off the war effort in spite of the other efforts being put forth. Funny how our minds work, "let someone else do it...". :P
Not to put down your guild, because there's nothing wrong with not wanting to raid strongly enough to do all the extra (boring) crap you have to do, but your guild is just not hardcore enough to care. Nothing to do with expansion. If you're worried about the lack of drive I'd suggest getting out and joining a guild that's more like how you like to play. The problem is beyond the expansion and will last through it.
EDIT: Ah, just saw your second post. Yeah... good idea on the apps. :P
Except, the obscene farming requirements for even stepping into Naxx would have had an affect on your guild, they wouldn't have been so eager. Not saying they would all stop coming online until BC, but they wouldn't be so enthusiastic about farming that gear.
Imagine the NR grind that never stops until you quit running Naxx altogether.
09/25/06, 1:28 PM
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