Blowing in the wind

How many wipes will it take till he knows that too many people have died.  The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind (Apologies to Bob)

To state the obvious, I am not on the bleeding edge of raids (or oh no - yet another gold making blog with 'guild' posts)

Last weekend Arozcaldo (all 4 of us that were on) took some associates (from Death's head aux and More than raids) into Throne of the four winds.  My aim for the raid was to have a look, and see how far we could get.  I can read strategies and watch videos, but for me nothing replaces doing as a way to learn.  Only one of us had even stepped into the raid before.  All the rest of us were 'virgins'.  Some of us are undergeared, and we are underperforming for the gear we have. 

We are following the strats from wowpedia. The diagram from the almost identical wowwiki page was also useful (even if the diagram and description disagree on what toons to bounce between the east & north platforms). 

On Saturday, we made it into the first transition, with many avoidable wipes.  Wipes due to lack of knowledge are OK.  We are learning.  Wipes due to lack of concentration are regretable, but also are expected; especially as the evening wears on.  I am as guilty as others. We also rotated many players between initial starting platforms so that players could see what was required.


The ultimate aim is to down the 3 bosses, with at most 1 minute between boss 1 and boss 3.  However, we are wiping soon after the first transition.  So our next 'task' is to survive multiple transitions.  We are struggling on healing, with only Daakoren feeling 'sufficient to the task'.  Also, next time I try to heal 6 toons, I will do so as holy (not disc).  To address this, damage taken/healed will be everyones responsibility:

• Check your enchants and gems.  I will randomly check to see if you are a bimbo.  Basic enchants (even northrend if you dont yet have the shoulder/head reputations) and basic cata gems are acceptable.
• 6 wipes of consumables: + 90 food, cata guardian elixir (preferably prismatic for DPS & healers, but a flask is OK).  These are optional for the first pull of the evening, and for the a pull after changing toons, but otherwise are mandatory.  I will NOT be providing barbeques, as it is only +60 food.
• DPS on the west platform : Allow tanks to establish agro, both on the boss and on the adds.  This is dungeon 101 stuff.
• At the first transition, you need to take more responsibilty for your own health.  This includes DPS as well as tanks.  You will be expected to have healing potions and use them.  Use damage reducing abilities (eg tanking stance, hyperspeed, stoneskin, iceblock) or off healing abilities (bandages, gift of naru, boomkin healing).  Is there room in your talent choices for additional damage mitigation?
• I may experiment with 2 tanks, 4 healers, 4 DPS. 
• Arozcaldo will provide guild repairs to guild members.

I have a 525 cook and alchemist (well, most professions).   I am happy to help with consumables before the run.  I will also stock the Arozcaldo guild bank with a supply upon request.

Calendar invites have already gone to all Arozcaldo members, and all members of last weekend's raid.  Calendar invites will also be issued to interested toons.  Foofixit or Voladan will calendar invite anyone who shows an interest (whisper, in game mail, or Arozcaldo vent).  The raid will start 8:45 pm Saturday Caelestrasz server time (AEDT), with raid invites being issued from 8:30.

Initial raid invites will be issued to those that accept the calendar invites.  You will not be in the initial invite list if you are still tentative at 8:30 server, though you may still be invited according to available spaces.  If there is an excess of certain roles (possibly healer?) then guild membership and known role effectiveness (includes bringing consumables) will be considered.  For the record I consider Foofixit - my toon - to be the weakest of the guild healers, but he has a shadow spec too.

The intended initial raid makeup will be 2 tanks, 3.5 healers and 4.5 DPS.  I expect to move this back to 2 + 2.5 + 5.5 later.

If you accept the calendar invite but are not on at 8:45, you are risking not recieving future calendar invites.  I will provide my mobile number upon request if you are worried about last minute real life issues.

If you would like a raid invite (and do not already have one) and have an 85 toon on Caelestrasz Alliance with heroic dungeon experience, please whisper/in game mail Foofixit or Voladan.  This applies to old friends and to those that wish to become new friends, or even those that just want to raid.  Casual raiders are welcome.  Guild invites are available but are not required.

Consumables, or healers can't heal stupid.

Why are you contributing to wipes?

I am not a top 5 guild progression player.  I never will be.  However, I try to read up on where I am going, and to be gemmed, enchanted, and take consumables.

I also personally feel that the hardest role in the game today is healer.

• Tanking is really not much different from Northrend. Good tanks already know about fire, and how to get out of it. 
• DPS are asked to CC, interupt single target or may be dot up a couple of mobs instead of AOE, and get out of the fire. With the exception of having to learn that fire hurts, it still isn't that hard.  
• Healers have been hit - hard.  They are not meant to keep everyone at 100%.  Their spells have been played with and re-organised.  They are meant to run OOM, and to let DPS die.  Some healers are enjoying the challange, but many others are daunted by the task (I am both daunted and enjoying it).

Unless I am running farm content (and I rarely farm), I will personally provide group consumables, applied at the start of the run, and after every wipe:

• Drums of the wild where there is no druid : Cost - negligible.
• Runescroll of Fortitude#2 where there is no priest  : 100g per use
• Goblin Barbeque (or equivilant) : 50g per application.  Alternatively you can pick up good food for 5g per use.

I also use two elixirs; one guardian, one battle. at 15g each per application.  I also strongly prefer that other players take these too. A cataclysm battle elixir is there to help you in your primary role.  A cataclysm guardian elixir is to help your healer

A wipe costs very roughly another 15g for personal repairs. So, a run on my healing priest with a druid tank will cost me 80g to start, and 95g per wipe. If you are in Arozcaldo (recruiting for DPS), I will pay for a wipe with guild repairs, and I will provide group buffs.  It is not that expensive to take a few elixirs.

Does it matter much if you are missing a single buff or enchant?  Probably not, unless you miss a kill by 1%
Does it hurt if you are missing 5 buffs or enchants?  (Wild, Fortitude, Food Stamina + Stat, Guardian elixir, Battle Elixir)  Not always, unless you miss a kill by 5%

There is already some farm content.  I don't usually run normal dungeons on my tank or healer, but when I do, I don't bother with personal consumables.  If your content is truly farm, I don't expect you to use consumables either.

Consumables also make for a faster run.  More DPS, less healing required both mean less time watching a healer drink.

Healers do not currently have the tools to heal stupid.  A death in a heroic instance is due to too much damage taken for the healer to heal.   Wipes start with toon deaths.  When you have died in a run, can you honestly say that you did everything you could to help your healer? 

Yes?  But no food buff or guardian elixir? You died because the healer was busy or OOM.  Without buffing with consumables, you directly contribute to the healers problems.

You can pay for food buff (5g) plus Guardian elixir (15g) plus Battle Elixir (15g) easily and quickly:  Two daily quests, or 1 stack of gathered mats will cover this.

If you have time to run dungeons or raid, you have time to pay for consumables.  Slackers don't bother with consumables.

Vent is my minimum raid requirement

Apparently, I am rude.  I got called a nasty name. I got my first ignore.

As a raid leader, I have what appears to be an unusual set of rules.

• I don't use gearscore.  
• I don't care about achievements.
• I do not have an attendance requirement.
• I do use elitist groups, and care about your enchants and gems.  Your average ilvl is something to consider, but is not a pre-requisite.
• I have a Raid etiquette
• I raid once per week, rarely repeating content.
• I like wiping. It generally means we are stretching ourselves. (Either that or some of us are being slack.)
• I require vent, especially for new players.

Saturday just past, we did an Ony10 run. It was likely to be messy. (More so than usual, and my expectations were fulfilled.)

• One regular tank was interstate, replaced by a DPS player in an offpec, slightly undergeared as tank. 
• One regular healer was at a sports (drinking) BBQ, replaced by a DPS player on an inexperienced and undergeared (elitist group said Ilvl 192) healing alt.
• One regular healer is on the cusp of burning out, so brought a very undergeared DPS (average Ilvl 180), replaced by a DPS on an experienced healing alt.
• One regular DPS was off doing Insane in the membrane
• My nearly teenage son was joining us as DPS.  This was the third time he had raided.
• Very ranged heavy.

My preference when we are short on players is to fill tank and healing spots with regulars, and pug DPS. So, I ask in trade "LF 2 dps Ony10, Vent required", and immediatly got 2 DPS, and soon after got whispered by a third.  One of the pug DPS didn't even have vent.  It ended up like this

That invite was for the DPS that did have vent.

It was messy.  We died on the starting trash, twice. (Note: we are on vent, check that the trash has died before entering the instance).

To be honest, we struggled.  It may not have been the best night for PUG's.  I caused a wipe running to the boss, by running out of the healer's range.  (One pug left, replaced by a casual DPS who sometimes runs with us).  We struggled on the end of phase 2 (2nd wave of whelps and too many guardians.  The other pug left, replaced by a guildy's spouse that raids as much as my son).  In the end, against the advice of the raid, army of the dead spread damage enough to keep us all up.  Phase 3 went like a charm.
  
Once the boss was down, Aphona (experienced raider, but lets the inner child out sometimes), decided that playing whelps would be fun.  I still took my screenshot.

Arozcaldo raid etiquette

Last night there was 'angst' in the run, and this post is to try and clarify some of my expectations:
Raid sign ups

• No one is expected to sign up for an event.  It generally takes 10 players to run a 10 man dungeon (certain acheivements aside).  It is OK if you are unavailable on an evening, or do not wish to run certain content at a given time.
  
• If you do sign up for an event, and can't make it, an apology ahead of time is expected.  Real Life sometimes intervenes, but wherever possible send a message by whisper, mail, phone, or carrier pidgeon.
• Turn up on time.  If 9 people are waiting 5 minutes each, that is 45 minutes lost.  If you think you might be cutting it fine, leave your toon at the summoning stone.
• Turn up equiped.  This includes gems, enchants, flasks/elixirs, potions, scrolls, food, reagents, repairs.  In Arozcaldo, you know that gold isn't a problem.  While I will badger you into making your own gold, if you "Need", then "Need".  But please need well before the raid start time.  In game mail is a great way to send mats.  I can organise for vellum enchants.
• Read up on fights.  I expect that you have read up or watched boss strategies.  Some guilds run 'blind'.  We do not.  I expect that you will read up on the next two bosses.  I would appreciate you reading up on the next four.  Some good sources include wowwiki.com and tankspot videos.  Use the sources that work best for you.

During the raid

• Be polite.  This means you.  No swearing at (or in the general direction) of other players either in writing or via voice.  No racism/sexism either.
  
• Fail better.  I expect we will always be able to do better.  I don't want to stay in a raid untill we get it perfect.
• Lag happens (think of it as a special hardmode).  Some of us do not have perfect connections.  That's how we roll.  It will sometimes cause wipes.  Some of us have 200ms latency, I have average 550ms, and others have 1200ms.  If you are willing to raid with your latency, I am willing to have you.
  
• Lag is not an excuse for wrong targets, or continuing to stay in the fire.  Ideally you will respond in 400ms of an event (200ms latency + 200ms reaction time).  I personally will normally respond within 850ms.  Some of us won't be able to respond for up to 1500ms.  Regardless, follow the instructions.
• Acknowledge that we don't all have the same skill level.  
• This raid is not your other raid, it is not your work.  If you need to kick something, there is a boss just over there, and is a more appropriate target for your frustration.
• Emotions are contagious.  
• People's reactions are better when slightly stressed, but still in control and concentrating.
• Making people overly stressed causes them to freeze
• Too much sillyness prevents concentration.
  

Before a pull

• Ask questions, make suggestions, disagree (politely)
  
• Say what you will do/want done differently, simply and explicitly.  Consensus is preferable, but not required.
  
• PlayerA use tremor totem in phase 2
• Everybody move around the outside of the ring, not through the middle.
• Foo should heal PlayerB; HealerC should heal TankD.  HealerE  is on raid.

During a pull

• We probably are too chatty.  I am as guilty as the rest of you.  This will leave room for more useful information
  
• Call out things we are struggling on.  'Run to totems when you have snobalds'.  'All DPS on adds'

After a wipe

• Everyone run back.  Healers need mana too, and it is just easier all round.
• Group together, it makes buffing that much easier.
• Eat the feast or your preferred food
• Buff
• Discuss the cause of the wipe.
• You have more time during recovery (buffing etc) to discuss than during a wipe.
  
• Everyone ask yourself 'What can I do better?'.  It doesnt matter if you are carying the raid, if there is something you can do better, then do it.
  
• If you caused the wipe, fess up.  It makes it much easer for the raid leader.  Either say what you are going to do next time, or ask for assistance.
• If someone did not do their role, call it, but with neutrality.  If you are frustrated, you should whisper someone else (probably me). eg. : If you get paralytic poison, you need to go to the player with bile.
• Everyone pay attention to how to prevent the wipe.  Understanding is expected the first time.  However, the group gets grumpy if a different player causes the same wipe.

After a success

• Smell the roses.  Enjoy the moment. 
• Congratulate the group if you have previously had problems.  Congratulate anyone who specifically showed improvement.
• Allow others to enjoy the moment.  If someone wants the screenshot, give it to them.  People who don't are being unpleasant.

Giving constructive feedback.
Sometimes another player will need to do something different.

• They will listen better if you also provide positive feedback.  Give this first.  If you cant give positive feedback, talk to your guild master.
  
• Expect someone to learn one thing only.  
• If you think they should learn more than one thing, see the line immediately above.  
• If you still think they should learn more, see your guild master.
• In the feedback you need to provide:
• What needs to improve
• Why it is important.  
• How it should be done better
  

 Giving destructive feedback.

• Any feedback given to a player should be constructive feedback.  
• If  need to be destructive, talk to your guild master.

 Edit: Blessed blogger removes some formatted text, and fixed a couple of typo's

Arozcaldo answers the Call of the Crusade

Foofixit (my healer) and our regulars from Ulduar, answered the Call of the Crusade.  I had been told that Toc10 was easier than Ulduar, but I did not realise by how much.

Not only did we clear it, but we did it in one evening.  We wiped at least once on every boss, and I already know I fail at PVP, so being focused fired as a healer left me wanting.  I have been instancing so long that I forgot about Psycic scream.

I thought this meant I would finally head off to ICC.  However, our resident king slayer (and a couple of others) informed us that we should do better on ToC10 before attempting ICC.  Mean mean people (Even if I suspect they are right).

So next week back to ToC.  We will be play with the mix a little, going back to something looking like our Ulduar group.  (With the exception of one player who will remain DPS for a bit. You are nearly as good as you think you are.  But a dirt nap because you pulled agro at the start of a fight it is a fail.)

Arozcaldo uncovers the Secrets of Ulduar

Yogg-Saron you Drive me crazy

I have struggled as a tank. I am stubborn.  I run content in order. 

• Original 5 Man "Heroic's" : 19 Dec 09
• Fall of Naxxramas : 17 Jan 10
• The Spellweaver's Downfall : 9 Apr 10
• The Secrets of Ulduar: 21 Aug 10

We are hopelessly overgeared.  We run most Saturday nights, averaging 3 hours per night, historically pugging the last two spots.  The raid composition changed a lot between our very first Flame Leviathan kill in April (was it that long ago?) and finally downing Yogg.

If I recall, we reset Uludar 4 times.  But we still found some bosses ... tricky.  Some bosses are designed to test a toon or two (generally tank or healer).  I still fail at kiting adds on Ignus.  Other bosses test the weakest player in the raid.  Hodir was interesting.  Yogg tested us, and mostly found us wanting.  Then we tried.  Then we won.

Many (other) people like easy progression.  I enjoy failing better than last time.  Last night we had one player with 2000 ms lag and another with 3500ms.  We fought bosses.  We fought with each other.

At the end of the day we downed Yogg with an approach of : To each according to need.  From each according to Ability.  (Despite being goblinish towards the auction house, small groups do work with a social environment). The successful Yog raid makeup was 1 tank, 2 heals, 3 Melee, 4 ranged, with only Foolich (me) taking a dirt nap towards the end of phase 3.

I take this opportunity to thank those on our run: Those that could not understand why we were failing; Those that improved (and no insanities means we did improve); Those that swapped toons and roles. It was fun.

We are now off to answer the Call of the Crusade. My prediction : the first few bosses will be easy, and the last few will feed on our tears. We will be changing some of the toons that we bring. It looks like we have an over subscription of tanks, so I will be healing on Foofixit. It will be fun.

More to raiding than ICC

I am seeing a number of ... compaints that Blizzard are not planning on releasing another raid.

For example this forum post:
...
Guilds generally wont do anything else, pugs wont do anything else, not even togc. Its rare you find one of those.
Ulduar forget it... Naxx... oh hell no...
All we have is one instance atm.
RS is new but doesn't really count because its really short and most pugs dont even run RS due to the low medium to high skill/communication factor needed to win. 
...


I am a late arival to the raiding scene.  I found that tanking was the role I failed most in 5 mans, so I made my tank Foolich my raiding toon.  I have run OS, Naxx, Ulduar in order, only repeating a few bosses, currently wiping on Yogg Saron.  I have another regular tank, never have problems getting DPS, and only occasionally have problems getting heals.  Foolich rarely does 5 man instances.

There are many players that want old raid bosses, whether they be WoLK, BC or vanilla.

We raid Saturday nights.  We have a core of raiders, semi-regulars, and usually pug one or two.  I will admit it took me a while to assemble the core raiders, with most of the group starting as pugs.  The first few runs were hit and miss, but we have raided every Saturday for a long time.  I have not stepped into ICC 10/25 at all.  I have only once stepped into TOC on any toon.

If you are only raiding ICC, its your choice.  Do you have the hard mode achievements on older instances.  Make a blues run (ilvl 200 - no epics).  Find 2 tanks, 2 heals and pugs will come.  Herding players brings it's own rewards, and you will be a better player in Cataclysm for having done so.

If you would like to join us, talk to or in game mail Foolich of Caelestrasz

Which talent tree is the right talent tree?

Here I am to discuss talent trees, we have all been there trying to squeeze out the best we can from healing to DPS back to tanking. But when we change our specs over to match the "theory crafted" best we may lose abilities/utilities that we may need or have wanted.

To start lets discuss DPS:

Is there such a thing as too little DPS? Some classes have talent trees that limit their DPS to the point they're avoided by everyone that is max level, and others increase there DPS so much they're universally accepted as the "only viable" spec. What does this mean? Are the other trees really that "bad"? Are they ever of any use? Were they there solely to add some leveling ease? Lets take a look at some under used specs.

For a Mage, frost is the plague spec outside of PVP despite having reasonable raid utility. Talents that allow replenishment (a % mana return for all raid members) talents that slow down adds, freeze them in place, and in some cases encase them in ice and stop them from attacking for X seconds.

For a Warlock Demonology is pretty much on the shelf after you are 80. Why? cause it's pet based damage and again is considerably lower than the others. Like frost this is avoided for the low DPS, despite having a raid wide (proc based) spell power buff from the felguard.

Yes I know my name is being cursed and your mashing your faces with your palms at each consecutive word. But Remember these spec still deal damage and in a 10man 3-4k is not overly low. Yes tanks can make 3k etc etc but the point being that some DPS are already pulling 8k so 3 toons getting 8k and you getting 4k but providing more mana other buffs etc may not be a bad trade off for a DPS "loss". There are heaps more than this I know, this is just to make you think, raid leaders should be aware of these advantages. Of course DPS is still gear dependent to a certain extent and at higher levels of gear the gap may close enough to make it viable again.

In 25mans would these become more viable? Not really, because your utility isn't really felt, as a Shadow priest can provide replenishment and they're not the only ones, but again its not likely to be used in a 10man either as no one will accept your utility for DPS losses. Basically these are lost specs, they are covered in so much hate in 10mans and do not stand out that much in 25's so is there a point to this post?

Well yes, the point I am making is that these are still viable despite the hatred. Why are they viable? Because your guild can still request this of you, and you should make them aware that you can provide a specific buff. It may be a one off thing or a permanent thing. The beauty is that dual spec allows you this freedom between boss fights so if you need a spec for one fight but not the rest then why not have an off spec for that fight? Why not have it for a fight you know your guild can easily beat with your lower DPS from a utility spec?

Healers, there is not much for healers you would think, but again there is. Healers have a few tricks in their trees for different things. They have raid/AOE heal talents to focus there healing through multi-target healing, or single target talents to push their single target heals as far as possible. A healer will spec based on what they are doing for there guild, or for how they heal, and others spec a cookie cutter talent tree. The problem with cookie cutter trees is they hover dangerously close to the point that people start hating the tree or their class. Specs for how you play have the opposite effect. You like your class, you have all you want, but you may let others down due to a few missed choices. Specs for how you heal again fall in between this and make you think about talents you want or talents that cookie cutters suggest. Tanks are in the same boat and many warrior tanks will sometimes take two talent specs in with one for AOE and one for single target. Why? because they cannot take both well enough, healers are the same and DPS falls on another scale where they have the ability to kill either way but can be substantially weakened in utility.

So to clarify what all that dribble means:

* The "best" spec is not always the right one
* Spec as a mixture of what you do and how you do it
* Tanks and Healers specialize between multiple or single targets
* DPS.... Raid contribution based on selective talents and trees
* WHO CARES WHAT YOUR DPS IS AS LONG AS YOU DID IT RIGHT!


Yes I know half the WOW community is now going to end me, the other half sees my point and the third half....hang on.... Anyway, the point being all trees are viable as long as you make them viable.

If you want more DPS there is going to be a more prominent tree, utility again has more prominent talents that may be missed by cookie cutter trees. So work out what you like and what everyone in your guild is comfortable with and have fun. Hell I play a frostfire mage and that spec died on release, so enjoy what you do and make it work. Remember, you can't dps if you're taking a dirt nap because you didn't give yourself utility talents. A healer with no mana is not a healer, its a liability. A tank with no.... HEALTH! is not going to save your DPS'n butt. You may be there to kill but you are all linked to each other.

Egamad...the SHAMAGE

Where did Foo go?

TO ULDUAR !!!

Thats right, after some help downing Malygos he has progressed himself into Ulduar.

Anyone who knows Foo, or has been in his guild or a PUG with him, will understand he is a calm methodical palyer. Most people like me have trouble with repeated wiping. Foo, while annoyed he may get, works on what went wrong throwing fish and buffs at everyone in his way.

Ulduar, the next great conquering plane for Foolich, Foo..... Oh there is to many. Foo, is one of few people that choose to do things in order, I recently started a ICC progression with my newly 80 mage (I had the gear) and have skipped alot of the early content that Foo revels. So as I do, I take my over geared shaman and heal his runs, or my mage and destroy what ever I get set onto.

I like the idea and concept of doing everything in order, but I do everything fast, and come back sautrdays and some other nights to do some less stressful (not always) runs of lower raids. It is surprising how much you can learn from Ignis, and how hard some fights can still become despite there relative ease. So for everyone pining for Kingslayer, just relax the buff will go up to a max of 40% and everyone will be a kingslayer so chill, and the titles you want like immortal and such, come from the lower tier 80 raids. So myself and a few others take it apon ourselves to clear these with what should be easy mode (with our high gear) toons, and farm the achi's for mounts or titles or hell the achi's themselves.

So after this brief carry on about raiding in lower tiers at 80, I'm off back to work, stupid short breaks...../sigh..

Do not disregard the lower tier runs as skills and gear still drop, and at worse aim for achi's and get the Ulduar Proto... or the Immortal title.... Did I mention the 400+ gold from BOE's? the gold for simply killing and looting? No... oh well now you know.

See you in Dal or shatt or whether my portals take me, or my raids.....

Egamad, Wizdom - Cealestrasz

DING! 80

Ok, here is the back story, I had a mage and rogue hovering and the 70's for a really long time accumulating millions worth of double exp, so I decided to level my mage as I already had an enhancement shaman to for melee.

So, now that you have the story, here is the point. 80 hurts! Getting to 80 is easy but can be costly if your like me and try avoid quest grinds. So when I dinged I realized I was 80, with no hit no spell no stamina and by god no gear ( all relative to what I should have of course). Foo helped out with some moonshroud gear, and I have grinded heroics day and night to get 3/5th's of my Tier 9 set. I have spent more time in the BG's as I have found honor can be faster to gain and is easier to get into a BG than a heroic queuing alone. So I have some PVP gear mixed with PVE, but hey who cares the stats where better and until I can suitably replace them they will stay. Now granted I will not be walking into ICC laden in PVP gear, however for heroics I think the Odd piece simply because it has better stats than a PVE counterpart you are able to use, is ok.

Maybe I am wrong, but my shaman started healing Heroics in the 78 PVP set, no one noticed or cared. Now my mage uses some hard earned honor to bolster his gear where I cannot find a tank or healer to chain with me to get the preferred items. So is this acceptable for a new 80? Is it ok to use PVP gear to help with stats while you chain heroics in the effort to get the right piece?

As far as I am concerned PVP gear only carries one useless stat in the form of resilience and maybe the abundant health, which in a raid is of negligible use. However as many are aware there is PVP style fights in raids today. For example the faction champs of Trial of the Champion are a PVP battle and I know that people bring there PVP sets to this fight. ICC also has some PVP battles (correct me if I am wrong but it is what I have been told by raid leaders) and yet PVP gear has no place in a PVE raid environment in many peoples eyes. While I do not believe taking a full pvp set rings/trinks and all to ICC is a great idea, there are times where it has some merit, or atleast a hint of usefulness. So for 80 as a DPS it is much easier and quicker for me to farm honor than triumph, unless I get a tank or healer I mite as well Quest for the 15 minutes I will wait.

If anyone has a view on this please let us all know...

Can PVP gear be used for stats in heroics?
Can PVP gear be used in any PVE raids?

OP, is there such a thing?

What makes a class/spec over powered (OP) ? A warlocks ability to easily dispatch mages, or a rogues ability to easily dispatch warlocks? These are class counters, and in many cases spec Dependant.

Examples of this is that a Subtlety rogue would suffer greatly against a Arms or fury, hell any to most warriors with half the brain power they should have, but a combat or mutilate rogue could go toe to toe a lot longer with more success. So does this mean that Warriors are overpowered because they killed that sub rogue with ease? Nope, does it mean warlocks are overpowered because a Chaos bolt critted for 15K+, surely not. A frost mage can kite a kill alot of melee classes but other casters, warlocks with felpuppy's and even other mages, or even a priest, can knock that mage down.

So OP, what does this really mean, and when can it be used? Well in the case of the Retadin, it can, Blizzard has themselves stated that Retadins are not where they should be damage wise. While a rogue is a glass cannon that can kill you quickly or control you quite well, they are a cooldown Dependant class, everyone can admit that there main abilities are on arguably long timers. So a rogue one shots half your health, a chaos bolt takes you to the grave, a divine storm messes up your hair, each class has a way to deal significant damage, just because it happened does not make them OP.....well not always... There is so many factors as it stands such as dodge, resilience, Health, block, crit, spell/attack power, expertise, hit, etc etc that if someone has enough of each and you lack in one, you could be facing a dire end.

PVP is all about that balance, you want to kill fast, but you risk the result of your EPIC PWN's to be a lack of survivability. So we stack, stamina, spell power, enchant for the flavor and so on to try to achieve enough damage to kill without it becoming a maim, and take a big enough hit to still have time to activate that fight or flight spell we all have. So balance it up we do, in arena this is more important, and also more varying than in BG's. In a BG you can get away with damage orientated stat stacks, where as arena you need to mix it up based on group composition, which will again change in 2's,3's and 5's and you may be there just to rain damage on a healer, or to survive and distract there damage dealer.

So back to the original Question, is there such thing as OP in PVP, there certainly is, some classes and specs are designed to over power some classes and spec compositions, where as others as is the Retadin, are really just a jack of all trades. Head over to WOW.com and have a look at there take on fighting a Retadin, there is also some blue posts about the Retadin and it's need to be beaten with the Nerf bat.

In PVE the OP situation thickens, as there is some fights like in ICC that are not friendly to all DPS, and as such people geared for ICC25 still struggle to get over 4-4.5k DPS on some bosses, casters mostly. However this can be spec Dependant as I have seen warlocks with over 5.5k GS (if you follow that) of different specs (destro and affliction) pull numbers that are 2-3k apart. So, in ICC affliction looks to be better for warlocks due to movement, or is Destro in need of buffs?

More later....

Time management?

I play wow for a couple of hours a night, most nights I like to relax after work by handing some horde there entrails. However this results in me losing gold, I try to farm, but have to be in the right "mood" to do it. I try to quests but its so monotone I log off.

So, managing my time to get Gold, level toons, kill those dark bastardly horde, and ultimately get to 80, is proving somewhat harder than I would like. My solution? Well basically I have a mage with herbalism and alchemy maxed, spend 1hour flying around northrend or even lower areas I can make a few 100 gold. I have a maxed miner, and again same situation 1 hour a few hundred gold. I do not play the AH game, I want that instant reward for my labor, so I have Foo now taking a cut, and selling everything for me.

Time management is not something I can do with an 80 two near 80 toons, and up and coming tanks etc, so I need to work out one thing per day to focus on, make a gold day a pvp day a this toon that toon day and so on. But..... I do not, I play for what I feel like, Killing horde on my rogue (the cooldown class, please head to wow.com to see what I mean) or freezing them to oblivion as my mage, Farming just is not on the books for the few hours a night I get. The weekend however after 3 hours of morning raiding, farming is just the ticket, still get to satisfy that craving to play feed the addiction if you will, and yet its not something that will make me so mad or stressed I want to uninstall. So I raid, I farm, and then when I get over farming, I PVP or quest, or move on to something else.

Managing your time on wow around goals, and real life can be more stress than its worth, playing for what you want helps yourself, but not the in game world. Even though you are there to hide from politics, money, religion and all of life's other BS, you actually just move from one active society to another. So if your not like me and can actually farm on queue that is great, however if you log on to PVP and then wonder what idiot has his headlights shining through the window at OH S**T IT'S MORNING!.... you are probably like me.

I Farm I have enough gold (if there is such a thing) but it never goes up for long, and never goes down for long. So like all my posts there centered around me and nothing.... that is right I do not help much with these ramblings.... or do I.... Think about it.

Egamad that anti gold farmer.

Raiding, A 101 on being prepared

Once again something has annoyed me, a shock to you all I'm sure.

Raiding, why is this a problem for me? It's not really except when the scheduled start is say 8 and you don't begin grouping till 10 passed 8, or your about to start and the raid leader has not brought the flasks for the run (In my guild thats what happens, the raid leader hands out the flasks).

So whats my issue? Well, if you are organizing a run to start at 8, start it at 8, especially a full guild run. Have everyone there on time, flasks ready, feasts stacked, scrolls, drums and anything else you need to bring such as mats for buffs, or shaman self rez etc. Why has this gotten to me so much? Well it is recurring, not a one off event, but pretty much every raid day, I'm using an alt of mine that isn't in the guild to make flasks right before raid is due to start, I've had an hour wait past due start to form up, 3 hours to wait to form up, and other various things that are unnecessary.

Now, It seems like I am carrying on without a leg to stand on so here is my side. I have my own stock of the flasks, stoneblood, mojo, wyrm, rage, nearly all at a full stack, that I take for myself to every raid. Drums of kings and wild, and then I still carry Runescrolls (for priest buff) and a scroll for the Intellect buff and recently (2 weeks) picked up on fish feasts stocking as well. If I choose to play an alt leading up to raid time, I have my raiding toon outside the raid entrance all raid buffs, ready to go, while I play my alts, and make sure to log over 15minutes before "start".

I'm not sure if anyone else has this problem, but to me it's a bit off putting, having myself there and ready on time only to wait another half hour or more.

Interested to here other peoples points of view about this as well.

Stats, stats, swimming in stats.

I've been healing so long the that the only real DPS I do is on low level alts or my fire elemental.

Having decided to go for a Healing/Melee dual spec as apposed to the easier Ranged/Healer dual spec, I'm finding I don't understand anything about my melee brethren. Now I'm not poorly geared I can pull upwards of 4k DPS once I get into my rotations, and remember every little maelstorm proc and totem refresh. But I feel I've done something wrong and could do more.

I have ridiculous amounts of hit, I'm 19% on spell hit (yes I'm fixing it, changing out hit gems/chants that I used to need) and 15% or so on the melee, I'm not even sure what the expertise I require is (I'm at 9 or 2.5%) and everything I read is so much more confusing than helpful. I have seen sites saying to gem Attack power its worth more DPS, others say Agility is worth more to me, I really do not know what to gem. So I have done what anyone would do, and had a guess. 4K DPS dual wielding Nighttime seems good to me, I am yet to raid with this and that DPS value is just on heroic bosses that die before I actually get into the swing of the battle.

Now I've gemmed 40 attack power In a few slots, I would say it is my most used, other than that I have some Agility gems, some haste/crit, haste/hit etc. My main spec of healing is mostly 10 haste + 5 mana per 5, with around 3 20 intellect gems and a pure 20 haste.

I have found Healing easier to understand stat wise than DPS. DPS is a balance of all these tiny little stats that seem meaning less. Hit rating for example I need to have capped for spells as well as melee, expertise is not worth the materials to chant/gem for it, and the difference Between Attack power and Agility seems to be crit, which also has a cap and to me is not useful past around 30-35% crit chance.

So what do I need to get the highest DPS I can?
Should I even try to get the highest DPS I can?
Should I aim to have mid level DPS In my raids and use my shaman utility to help out?

There is so much thought involved in DPS as apposed to a tank or healer, where Def cap/dodge etc and spell power/haste are your respective priorities, As DPS I have to worry about Hit rating on spells as well as melee, on expertise, on Agi level to generate crit/armor, Attack power to hold my DPS constant between cooldowns and procs, and then my weapon enchants including self chants from shaman.

Stats apon stats, that either provide the same or similar results and there is still no really good site I have found to explain the difference between them on any significant level. Now I need to finish my addon Downloads and get back to the Target dummy and any heroic boss I can sink my axe into.

Egamad of Caelestrasz, Still a better Healer than DPS.

Do you have all your buffs? Yes I'm talking to you.

Imagine a priest not using fortification for a raid.  You know - the buff that gives you extra health.  Now - imagine that you had wiped the last 3 times you faced this boss and the priest still doesnt buff.

Imagine not beating an enrage timer because someone else forgot to change out festival cloths, and put on your DPS armour, again - not once but wiping three times.

Now - imagine that someone is you.  Are you really sure that you have all your buff?

Raid progression at my pace

I play too much warcraft.  Oh well.  But I mostly play it in bits and peices. I have kids and a life outside warcraft. I can usually raid Friday (for about 2 hours) and Saturday evenings (for about 4 hours).  I also want to approach content somewhat 'in order'.

With my first lvl 80 (foosecond) - before the days of dungeon finder (yes you young whipper snapper - and I had to walk 10 miles in the snow - just to get to the outhouse), I had a friendly healer who would invite me to 5 mans.  My DPS became fairly good, and we had mostly smooth runs.  However, at the time we didn't raid as a guild, she was after bigger and better things.  I discovered that asking LFM (tank and heals) does not make a 5 man, let alone a raid.  Sure, I picked up the odd Naxx spot, but really, what was needed were more tanks and more healers.  So, I roll a DK tank, and a priest heals.  I'm that kind of person.