Friday, September 2, 2011

Raiding Is Still Fun

While lately I've been at a loss of things to do there is one thing that does hold true.  Raiding is still fun.

As I mentioned before, the difficultly level is a bit much for most of the player base.  Even the nerfed 20% difficultly level of T11 normals is still too much for the average raiding community.  That is the reason why lower progressed servers like mine can still not pug that "old" content. 

So even if I do enjoy raiding I don't see things getting better over all because there are no pugs going around.

To get people back into the swing of things we started off with TotFWs.  It took roughly 15 minutes and one shot to down it.  WoW, what a difference some time makes.

It was only that quick and easy because everyone there knew the fight except one person and that one person had seen it so it was more of a quick once over and then at it.  Just because we did it in 15 minutes does not mean that it can be pugged.  A pug would never make it past the first boss (3 bosses?) so the last would be impossible when you ask pug people to move from the wind and even more of a dream to think you will do it in one shot.

It was kind of funny that it took us longer to assemble the raid then it actually took us to do the raid.  Hence the reason I hate these short raids.  I also hate the whole air phase thing but it is what it is.  Sad part is that this raid is perfect for helping people gear up being it is quick so we are going to be stuck doing it once in a while, like it or not.  Even if it was that simple, I still think it needs to be nerfed, a lot more.  I don't care about difficultly.  It is annoying.  Annoying does not equal fun.  Someone should explain that to blizzard.  Find a way to add "difficultly" without making me go into the air and I will be a happy camper.

Being we finished it quickly we went over to BWD and figured we could knock that one out quickly as well.  A few people had never been to that one however so it took some explaining time.  We had a few people come and go, the bane of a casual guild, it is rare we do a whole raid night with the same people the whole time.

Either way, we ended up wiping a few times on Nef by the time we called it a night.  Once was because I missed an interrupt.  Got stuck on the freaking platform.  That ever happen to you?  Makes me feel so bad when stuff like that happens and I know it was all my fault.  Another time, one of the other interrupters got stuck under the platform and it was an instant wipe.  One time.  God knows, we wiped spectacularly.  I think it was all of 20 seconds of a fight.  Not sure what happened there.  That time the rouge that had never been there vanished after the wipe and said he would wait down there for us.  I told him it won't work.  It didn't.  I waited outside until I saw he died.

We all had some fun laughs and all had a good time even if we wiped a few times on nef and did not get it down.  At least a few new people now know the fight including a brand new boomkin that really has no gear but seems to be dedicated enough that they might become a good player in the near future.  10K with no real gear on a fight they never even heard of before shows that they have potential.

We could have downed that one too and it could have been a really fast run just like TotFWs was but those one shot mechanics ended the dream of 2 end bosses in one 2 hour raid night.  Even outgearing the content can't help against one shot mechanics.

This is also why this is not puggable.  I have a member in my guild that has been doing it whenever he sees a pug come up.  He laughed when I told him we always seem to have someone miss the interrupt because of something stupid and that is the whole fight right there.  He said, what interrupt.  I said, the one in the second phase.  He said, Oh, I've never made it that far.

He has been in at least 20 different pugs that where on Nef and has never seen phase two.  I was not even sure that was possible.

I like raiding.  I like getting stuff down quick and easy like we did with TotFWs.  I don't mind not getting things finished like we didn't in BWD.  Either way, when you are with people that are willing to learn and show they are adapting, raiding is fun. Lots of fun.

Too bad I can't do it again on my healer tonight or my mage the day after and then maybe my druid tank on sunday.

Back when raids where puggable, back when fun was more important, I would have been able to pug on 5 different characters the current top tier raid.   Now I can not even pug a raid that is the last tier that has been nerfed and is mostly outdated unless you need a choice piece here or there.

Raiding is still fun.  I still love it.

It just is not what could be considered fun content any more.

Unless you are in a raid group or on a well progressed server that might pug once in a while you will never see the inside of a raid.

I guess the next time I log in will be Monday for the next raid (or Saturday for an old time raid for achievements) maybe finish off Nef and knock out Shannonx on Monday.

Until then, no reason for me to log in.  It is not like there will be someone pugging raids so my other characters have something to do.

Raiding is still fun.

I just wish I could do it more.

5 comments:

  1. Yea, we really should have downed Nef...My poor priestess hasn't got a lot more tricks to pull out to contribute to our chances of success. I didn't always perform perfectly on each try, but I was pretty close to it most tries--save for getting trapped under the lip of the platform once. Ah well, chalk it up to a learning experience.

    Regarding our new druid, yes, the youngster has a lot of potential I think. I especially admired the fact he took sitting out well on vent and didn't rage-quit over it or even simply log out. Instead, when we needed him as a fill in, he filled in. I want him to be a keeper for sure, as I do see a lot of potential in him.

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  2. I would have to say that the main joy in raiding currently is the people who I raid with. The content, although clearly challenging, is actually of secondary importance next to the fun had with the group. There's a lot of PuG-ging going on Server wise but because of the people factor, I am not interested.

    Am still trying to work out whether this is the fault of the content or just a symptom ^^

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  3. TBH is it a bad thing that the last boss in BWD is still difficult for PUGs?

    I've found that, since the nerfs, PUG groups with minimal experience are easily able to faceroll 5/6 in BWD; with Nef really being the only challenge.

    Mind you, I'm playing on Twisting Nether, which is not a very well progressed server. These aren't Blackrock PUGs or anything.

    And again, few to none of them have problems until Nef.

    I do not really see that as a bad thing per se. And I'm confused as to why you perceive it to be bad.

    You may want to try to PUG those instances with the characters you feel you currently cannot PUG them with. If you know the mechanics and have 340+ ilvl PVE gear you will not have issues.

    I'm not sure which server you are on, but again TN is not a hub of progression. Outside of a single guild working on Heroic Rag, our leading 25 man guilds are like 3/7h.

    I see PUGs for BWD and BoT constantly...most of them do fine.

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  4. @OWB

    My server only has the rare pug but over all you can sit in the city for 4 hours and never see even one person posting LFM anything whereas on another one of my servers they are already pugging firelands heroic content, even heroic rag (not that they have downed it in a pug, but they try).

    Of course I could fix that problem and run my own pugs but I do not want to. I just want to sit back and do my job. I hate leading a group of people into battle that I don't know. Perhaps that is the problem on my server, to many people like me that do not want to lead.

    I see no issues with them not downing the last boss. I have issues with them not even getting to the last boss. 90% of the rare raids that do happen end on the first boss.

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  5. Suppose you can't have everything at once, while encompassing the whole player-base I.e; Challenging/Fun Content that is also easy to PuG on your alts more often but not too easy to roll over.

    Though, I can also say that I am having a blast raiding XD

    - Jamin

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