- Another week, and still avoiding the LFR for the most part.
- I ran my main through all bosses so I could get reputation but only my rogue went through there as well and only the last part at that.
- Oddly enough, my rogue had a fantastic run.
- On an early sunday morning at that.
- I came in on the last boss with 2 stacks, not a good sign right?
- We one shot it when I was there.
- Must mean it was a half way decent group that was close to begin with.
- Had to do it again for the first two bosses because I wanted to finish it on my rogue as he had never done it yet.
- One shot both of them.
- I did not stay for the third boss.
- I got lucky last time, was not about to press my luck.
- I have so many alts that need gear but I refuse to do the new LFRs at this moment.
- Blizzard needs to understand that their player base can not handle this type of content.
- Look how many times you get to all four puddles up and no place to stand on the first boss when mostly the better players are doing it mixed with a few slackers.
- Now imagine that with all people doing 30K and 40K as "those" people wander their way into there more often and there are fewer 120K+ people in each group.
- Even the first boss is not getting done in LFR when you start getting groups where the top DPS is 60K and second is in the 40s.
- You will need 10 stacks with people are doing sub 50K.
- The only people that should be sub 50K at 480 item level on a normal fight are the tanks, and even that is questionable if they are really skilled. Or a DK.
- And this is not a normal fight, it is a buff fight, so most people being sub 50K is a crying shame.
- And that is the problem.
- The LFR should be designed to be super easy as is, not super easy with 10 stacks.
- And don't say it, I know it is super easy.
- For anyone that actually looks up anything about wow it is super easy.
- For anyone that would look up wow on the net to read things, it is super easy.
- That means for anyone that wandered so far into the wow universe online to even find this post, you most likely know how to read, are interested enough in wow, that even the absolute worst player to ever find this post, it is super easy for them.
- Most people do not even have DBMs.
- Most people have never visited noxxic, elitist jerks, mmo-champ, ivy veins, and maybe, at most, have once stumbled upon wowhead.
- Lets face it, the game is easy when you use outside resources and have the ability to read.
- Have you seen some of these people typing in trade?
- Most are barely capable of communicating via typing as is, I don't think reading is their strong point.
- And designing the LFR for that person will make it easier for us people.
- And it would make everyone happy.
- Well, not me.
- There are a few things that are certain in life.
- There is always something to be grumpy about is one of them.
- I did some alt work this weekend while taking time off from the LFR.
- Got another character to 90, a warlock, so I guess my time is well spent.
- Hit 90, 2 hours later I was LFR ready.
- Not one single piece of gear purchased, no major materials wasted on crafted PvE gear, no dungeons ran, no scenarios ran, nothing.
- Just hit 90 and was 461 in no time.
- Not saying it was easy and it absolutely would not be possible for the average player.
- But for someone that has a few 90s, some drops, some finds and a plan, hitting 460 the moment you hit 90 is easy.
- Like I said, a new player or a less active player can not do it, but here is how I managed to get to 460 item level shortly after I hit 90 without doing any dungeons or the such.
- First off, finish all the quest lines in townlong and the wastes.
- Several 450 pieces are offered from end of the line quests.
- The reason I hit 460 shortly after 90 instead of as soon as I hit 90 is I had to finish the wastes quests, I was 90 before before I was done with them.
- So a whole mess of 450s from quest rewards were a nice start for anyone and thanks to the increased reputation gains I get being this is an alt, I was well into revered with the klaxxi.
- Did that first set of klaxxi dailies and used three tokens I got from warbringers for that last 6K with the klaxxi and I found myself exalted.
- Bought the 463 caster weapon and did the exalted quest line for the 489 ring.
- Had my BoA 463 offhand and BoA 463 trinket I dug up with archeology, both upgraded to 471 from earlier when we could upgrade stuff.
- A BoE 442 intellect helm with slots for gems and a BoE 450 intellect ring that both dropped in the process of questing for other characters and made their way over to my lock.
- The 458 alchemy trinket, because that character is an alchemist.
- 476 sha boots, because all you needed to do was throw in a shot when someone else was fighting him now.
- A 450 BoA intellect neck that I got while collecting items for my relic hunter title.
- And last but not least, for three of the slots remaining under 450 I crafted some 458 gear, as that character is a tailor. Cloth only, no spirits. Just for the cheap and easy route.
- And tada, 461 as soon as I hit 90, and finished off the klaxxi quest line.
- But did I enter the LFR?
- Nope. I would not do that to other people.
- I am currently doing between 33K-39K DPS and that is quite sub par.
- I feel 40K at a 460 item level is acceptable and if I can not be skilled enough, I need to over gear it until I can do 40K before I enter MV.
- I want to get a little feel for my lock before I bring it into random content.
- I can do a lot better than 33K-39K and I would not push that on others by doing content the character is not ready for even if his gear says he is.
- Perhaps if everyone else was as considerate as I am, the LFR would be a much better place.
- But on the other hand, if we waited for only the decent people and good players, the queue time would be 6 hours or more.
- There are just way to few decent people and good players in the game from what I see.
- And that is why I keep preaching that the game needs to be made easier.
- We might not be able to make people be decent people but we can bring the game down to the level where they appear to be good players.
- I'll take whatever I can get at this point.
- Anything that will keep the random community from wiping in the LFR multiple times before they down a boss.
- Have a great day.
Blizzard Watch Podcast: WoW Winter Veil rewards we must have
48 minutes ago
I'm glad you had such an easy time getting up to LFR-level gear, it's definitely close to trivial for someone with a full server worth of resources, it was relatively easy for me as well with partial resources (commendations are great) but I did have to game things a bit to get into LFR.
ReplyDeleteLong story shortish, after about 8 hours of play on my alt server DK this weekend (who has access to commendations from my main server) over 3 days/nights, I got him from i443 (quest gear + i480 holiday boss neck) to i465 just from a few heroics and LFR.
Main pickups to this point that, for the most part, anyone can get, quickly for anyone with a main (commendations!):
i476 belt (new daily faction, after first day of dailies, with commendation)
i522 neck (new raid faction, no rep required, 1250VP required... might require a 2nd week for some)
i476 pants (LFR drop, the only one I got)
i476 eng helm (had some spirits from when I was doing the Tillers rep)
i458 PvP crafted gear (full set)
i450 JC rings (only used these to game iLvl, rings don't add much stat-wise... selling them now)
Did pick up a couple of i463 pieces from heroics while running them daily for the 80 VP and the Klaxxi rep.
I'm a couple of days behind on Klaxxi Exalted since my guild on that server only has the 5% perk... otherwise I'd also have the i489 ring at this point.
Nobody was running any of the world bosses so I don't have the i476 boots or other random drops.
I decided to game the iLvl to run LFR a bit earlier than I would have otherwise but was top 5 on 5/6 fights (you'd think a frost DK would do well on doggies but was only #8 on that one) so I have no regrets. #2 on Gara'jal with 49.7K with i455 gear and an i450 weapon. Yeah, some classes do better with less gear than others. :)
Net result - didn't quite get to my i470 prediction by the end of the weekend but not too far off... should have it tonight. i480 by the end of next week is looking doable but may be a bit challenging if I don't get a shot at some world bosses.
Yeah, for someone without resources it becomes near impossible to do it quickly. With some resources, it is easier. A lot easier.
DeleteEven buying the PvP gear could be downright impossible for a player with one character that is not focused on making gold. PvP pieces are 1500+ each on my server, some parts in the 3K range. So someone would need a nice bit of gold to even get those.
Not to mention the double rep thing really gives a boost to alts. That is what made the klaxxi a day one exalted for me almost as much as the three tokens I used. Even if I had not used them I could have done dailies for 3 days and been at exalted just the same.
I do well on dogs on my DK, mind you I have only ever played frost in the LFR because I refuse to tank them. So I am not very good at it. I can pull over 40K on all bosses but not much more. I think of 40K as the minimum. I want to be doing at least 60K consistent before I even think of ToT however. Not sure how people go in there doing 25K and think that it is fine. It is not.
Nice work getting up so quickly. More proof that with previous know how and some resources, it is not really all that bad.
Unless you step into the LFR that is. ;)
Your points are valid but I'm specifically theorizing that gearing up an alt is easy... with a main who has already done the content, commendations should be in place and there should be enough gold to buy some cheap pieces here and there... the gear is going to have to be gemmed, enchanted and reforged, those are often more than buying the gear, especially for the PvP crafted gear. If someone doesn't have the gold to do that they should be worrying about that first, not gearing up a new toon.
DeleteIf someone doesn't have a toon that can craft the gear personally, doesn't have any friends and isn't in a guild, and if the AH is overcharging, just bark for someone to craft them for you, buy the base mats in advance and offer a 250g tip, pretty sure any crafter will jump on that... you'll end up paying ~750g total for a full set of cloth or plate and maybe twice that for leather/mail. That should be a trivial amount of gold these days. That's with zero personal resources, hopefully anyone actually playing the game will have access to SOMEONE who can craft them, or at least some of them.
In terms of continued gearing progress, despite only having an i462 equipped iLvl (my i465 previous comment was apparently high, must have had a tank piece or two equipped at the time, I tend to quest as Blood), I decided my MV numbers were high enough to warrant giving HoF a shot. HoF went well enough that I finished off Terrace as well. Average damage position for the 10 bosses - 5.5th. I did take full advantage of bosses where knowing what you're doing can be unusually beneficial (Amber Shaper (#1, by 40K... seriously, how hard is it to press 1 when you're converted?), Tornado guy (#3), Garalon (#2, by about 15K over #3)). Was 10th on 2 bosses, those were my lowest finishes. Only slightly below average on even those ones.
It'd be easy to argue that I was only doing as well as I was this week due to low dps groups but the bosses were dying without incident, none seemed to take unusually longer than usual. As you say, as long as the weakest folks can do 40K, there'll be plenty of dps to get it done.
Poor drop luck again, only 2 upgrades in 10 bosses... total for the 16 bosses (19 rolls) - 3 upgrades. Should have gotten 6 or 7 based on the 35% estimated drop rate.
Up to i467 equipped now. Almost i470, so not bad, but picking up another i13 next week will be rough without being able to get enough VP for another i522 piece. I'll likely park that toon until the weekend and will report back again afterward.
Also, agreed, I'd want to be doing at least 60K sustained single-target to step into ToT. My DK is close to that now, actually (did, I think, 61K on Sha of Fear) so that won't be an issue but I've mentioned before that Frost DKs seem to do better than average at lower gear levels. I'm not sure my Warlock is doing much better than yours but I haven't run him in a while. I might give him a bit of attention this week to see.
In the end it all comes down to effort rewarded, which is why I say that this expansion is not casual friendly.
DeleteLet me explain.
Even if you have only one character, no money making skills and no useful professions to make yourself gear, even without tokens it will take you no longer than 3 weeks to get all the original factions to exalted. (as long as you are doing your one dungeon and one scenario for AC as they take the longest).
In that time you can spend some valor to buy a few pieces. And the shieldwall / domination point / isle areas will also give you options for better gear than those original factions would.
But the reason I say do them all is this. Those first few weeks of the expansion when I was just questing my ass off I was making near 5K a day just from questing and selling the junk I got while questing. That is on top of the fact I was getting rep, valor and coins.
But it is effort = reward. I put in the effort and I was rewarded with everything including making money.
Then there is the put in time to kill rares angle. If you happen to be an enchanter, even better. Kill rares, disenchant, collect bags, sell everything. You can do rare killing for 2 hours if your class and skill allow and easily make 20K in that time if you catch a lot of them and get lucky with drops and are an enchanter and perhaps 5K in that time if you are not very lucky, only catch some and are not an enchanter. Once again, effort = reward.
But does the casual player really have the time to grind all those dailies never the less rare farm? Does the casual player even think to sell stuff on the auction house?
I know a hard core player that was always broke and told me he had to vendor off all this crap food in his bag because it was taking up space. I told him, dude, I sell jade lungfish for 300-700g all the time, food sells well.
He started listing, started rare hunting and then one day gave me a darkmoon rabbit he bought off the AH for 25K as a gift and I said it was too much. He said, it was a thank you for teaching him how to make gold and it was no biggie, he makes 25K a day now.
So yes, if you put in the time and effort you can get everything but it is absolutely not casual friendly to do so.
If anything, this is a very casual unfriendly expansion. I think that is blizzards one big mistake in their otherwise stellar expansion.
I again see your point but you're viewing it as not casual friendly from the perspective of someone who has put in the effort, and is willing to put in the effort, rather than putting yourself in the shoes of the casual player. In order for someone to get to where YOU are now, sure, it'll be difficult or impossible for someone playing casually. But that's the point - someone playing casually isn't going to care about most of that that.
DeleteRealistically, someone playing casually isn't going to care about having all reps to Exalted, capping VP and CP every week, gearing up one (or multiple) toons to step into raids at a moment's notice, having a 2200 (is that good?) Arena rating. They MIGHT care about one or two of those but any subset of those CAN be done casually, it's just that EVERYTHING can't be done. And that's how it should be, someone with limited play time SHOULD focus on doing what they want to do rather than doing everything.
I know plenty of people in-game right now who, basically, only raid. They log in 30m before raid, do the raid, deal with any gear drops afterward and log off. That's casual play to me and they're able to do it 100% successfully, they're getting everything out of the game that they want. Where's the issue?
As a side note, your friend who didn't know to sell Jade Lungfish makes me sad. ASE - Always Sell Everything... or at least try to a few times before deciding it isn't worth it. Reminds of people who sit in a city while waiting out 45m LFR dps queues rather than actually DOING something with that time, even if it's just fishing, dailies, etc, and then complain about not having any gold. Grumble. I'm not talking about efficiency, I'm just talking about activity. When in the game with limited playtime, do stuff!
I see your point where a casual player wouldn't be aiming for the things I am talking about. It makes sense. I guess that would come down to the argument of should they be capable of getting them in a casual time frame, which is another conversation all together.
DeleteI actually do know a bit about the casual approach. I've often made characters on different servers with no friends there, no heirlooms, no sugar daddy characters just to experience it "pure" and get them to max level. I've done it a few times. Usually leave them sitting there at level cap however because I do not like the idea of having to do everything I need to do without the entourage of characters I have become accustom to.
Even at that, I can never truly experience the new player feeling again even if I have tired to emulate it. It comes down to I know to much about the game. I can make gold, I know the best way to level, the best areas for drops and gear, what I need and will need, etc. That too will taint me new player feel.
I am like that on raiding character. The only time I am on it is for raiding. If someone needs a tank for a 5 man I might pop on as well. It does not do LFR, it does not do dailies, it does nothing but raid. When the raid is done it goes back to the inn and waits for the next raid.
I am with you on that one. I always do thing while in queue. Dailies, pet battles, fish, archeology, kill rares, etc. If I ever got to the point where sitting and waiting in the main city was my best option of things to do while in queue I wouldn't queue.
Yep. Ultimately, most things people do in the game just take a certain amount of time in hours... for someone playing casually, it will take longer in weeks, but not necessarily in hours. That isn't a bad thing. Blizz specifically and intentionally wanted to give us a TON of stuff we CAN do at max level so that folks who do play 40hrs (or more) a week can find things to do while, hopefully, people playing 10hr a week won't feel like they're missing out on anything significant, or at least they'll have those things to do later when they've done whatever they want to do first. Back in the later Wrath period, pretty much all I was doing was pugging ICC or chain-running the new 5-mans for gear. That got incredibly boring, there just wasn't anything else worth doing. Pretty much the same at the end of Cat, mostly just 5-mans and DS LFR. Now, there's other stuff that can be done, with SOME purpose to do so if purpose is required, if we choose to do it. Have enough time in the week to do LFR *and* do enough dailies to get enough lesser tokens to trade in for bonus rolls? Great! You'll gear up a bit faster. Only have enough time to run LFR, not for the dailies? That's fine too, might take a bit longer to get drops but if running LFR is what you want to be doing, you're getting to do it. Only want to run dailies? Fair enough, you'll have bonus tokens waiting for you if you do decide to run LFR in the future. It's all interconnected.
DeleteI'm in the process of transitioning to that, I'm at the point where my raiding toon doesn't really need anything from LFR and the only reason I've capped VP in the past was more for the 50% bonus for my alts to help them gear up and I like running LFR on my raiding toon... completely optional but I was willing to spend the time that way. This will probably be the first week in a while where I don't cap VP... and I'm fine with that.
Still, I enjoy playing that character and I'll keep running dailies once or twice a week for the lessers. Plus, soloing the island rares down in 30 seconds and ending up at full health is a lot of fun. I like the feeling of power.
Casual is also an extremely broad term. I am a casual player. Even though I do play 7 days a week I am still casual in my approach to the game although it might sound otherwise most of the time.
DeleteI just want to be the best I can be in the time I play and I can assure you that there are many people that play less, much less, that feel the same as I do. They want the best they can be in the time they play.
That is really why I call it casual unfriendly. If I were able to keep 4 or 5 characters in tip top gear and still have loads of time to do other stuff just for fun, then I would call it casual friendly.
I love soloing the island rares too. Nothing is better then seeing someone spam chat looking for more people and just running up and attacking. I can do that easily on my tank characters and my hunter. Would not even imagine doing them on others. I did solo 2 of them on my shadow priest however and wonder if I could do more. I only did them because I mentioned in chat they where there and no one came so I tried it. Quiet honestly I was amazed I did it.
Yeah, I hate the term "casual" but in that context I felt it fit... in really, really basic terms, to me someone who plays casually is someone who won't dedicate an unlimited amount of time to a pursuit, either they simply don't have the time to do it or their personal drive isn't high enough and they're willing to do it over a longer period of time. By that definition I flip back and forth betwen the two... generally I play casually but there are times I'll play hardcore (capping VP on a reset day, for instance). Generally I consider myself to be a casual but most others would probably consider me more hardcore since I play quite a bit and get a lot done.
DeleteUltimately, we're all shaded somewhere between the two... there's no absolute casual player, just like there isn't an absolute hardcore player, we're all somewhere between and how we see ourselves and others on that scale is based on our perceptions. Unfortunately, we don't have better terms, we have to make do. :)
By your "I just want to be the best I can be in the time I play", that's right in the middle of my imagined scale between the two... you stick to your time limits but you have little or no wasted time within it. "Hardcore casual". Based on that, I'm probably more casual than you are. I suspect others might disagree, though, so who knows.
That third paragraph is where we disagree again... you want 4 or 5 character in top gear AND still have plenty of time left over WHILE sticking to your time limits. To me, that isn't the goal of a casual player and I think it's far too high of an expectation. You *can* keep that many toons in top gear, plus have time left over, even on a limited play schedule, but you can't do it the way you're currently playing. If you were in a top guild on a top server, they're probably doing alt runs with quick full clears on a nightly basis, gearing up would be almost trivial... in that type of environment, you probably COULD do what you want. But you definitely wouldn't be considered casual.
I notice your recent post is about the 1.3M decline, I suspect this discussion will continue there. :)
My Atonement priest is probably my favourite toon for soloing those rares... his health never moves, plus he does about 50K dps on those fights. Takes a bit longer than on other toons but man, it's awesome. The only problem is that, far as I can tell, he doesn't have anything that can interrupt... might be a talent somewhere but not going to respec just for rares. Haywire is the only one who causes my non-tank toons any issue, having to almost constantly run out 40yds sucks and usually ends up pulling other mobs running around.
I am going to play devil's advocate for a moment: there is a miscomception in WOW that also exists in real life. That is the confusion between things that are optional and things that are mandatory. The only gate to LFR is I level and barring and angry group kicking you for doing nothing - doing anything at all is still optional. Only the Ilevel is mandatory. We use courtesy as a way of making optional things into "soft" madatory all the time. I laugh every time i hear someone bragging about carrying someone. Do you know what real working professionals call someone who works twice as hard and does other peoples work? A Chump! Carriers are chump enablers and 1/2 of the problem. You getting through LFR without a wipe?? Sorry friend: OPTIONAL! Your idea of DPS dummy "gate" to prove LFR viability was brilliant and turns optional into mandatory. Vote kick was another way for players to decide for themselves what was mandatory outside of the game rules. No one has any right to go around demanding optional things become mandatory to suit their own needs. That is a bitter pill for most people but completely true.
ReplyDeleteI'll go with the flow and try to make an analogy.
DeleteOwning a television is optional. You do not need to have one. But if you do have one it is mandatory that it shows the picture isn't it?
LFR is optional. But it is, or should be, mandatory that you pull your weight while in there. No one wants a broken TV and no one wants a player that doesn't do their share of the work. Simple as that, even if doing something optional, like watching TV.
As for the chump thing, that is modern american thinking. "If I can get someone else to do my work and still get paid for it, let the chump do it." It is the lazy approach that works in real life and in the game and I am one of those chumps that is guilty of letting it happen.
I have no problem with the healer doing less effective healing than the warlock if things are going down without a problem. I have no issues with Mr 25K DPS with a 510 item level (how is that even possible) as long as the boss died easily and more DPS was not required. I let things slide all the time which I admit makes me part of the problem.
But the only reason I am that way is because of the chump mentality. I will gladly be their chump if there are no problems because if I kick them I might end up with a mage that pulls mobs, or pops time warp on trash. I might end up with a healer that is DPS, when even if their healing is not required annoys the ever living hell out of me.
As long as their is no problem, I'll stick with the lesser of two evils and carry their sorry asses because if I don't someone else will or someone else will be rude and obnoxious and start calling them out and insulting them. Even if a player is bad it would take a hell of a lot for me to ever disrespect another person like even online in a game. It is just uncalled for.
When you buy a TV it must be capable of showing a picture but putting out content is done by others and is optional. No one is under any obligation to broadcast anything to you. This is why I said the concept is difficult. We force the square peg into the round hole and find reasons to justify it. If Blizz makes i460 the gate and not demanding performance then performance is optional. We demand it socially. It sounds like semantics but it isn't. People SHOULD make an effort but understand that effort still falls in the optional catagory. (notice i am saying nothing about polite/correct/decent or any of those words?) I am a father and I will tell you a secret: the only way to really deal with an unwinnable situation is natural consequences: let people fail and let them take the fall and let them clean it up. That is why people are angry - no one wants to work with people who have a different work ethic and that is the core of LFR. Also courtesy is expected in modern culture - also optional. It is an ugly truth for a reason. Blizzard made a world with rules - the players made assumptions outside those rules. Without police there is no actual social contract just verbal threats. Anything that isnt in the game rules is an illusion co-opted by the players. Believeing in illusions caused all of these problems.
ReplyDeleteWhen teaching one person (or an organized group in progression) failure as a learning tool is perfect. When people fail at something they tend to learn from it.
DeleteIn random group content that will still be cleared even with their failure, it will not teach them anything. Or even worse, when failure happens and I am forced to die because of their failure it builds dislike for my fellow player because their failure is now wasting my time.
I don't believe that just because I can make it through the maze even having problems seeing it that everyone should. But I do believe that everyone should try. I do believe that everyone should know it was going to be there before they attempted to do the content. I do believe that if you are not going to try and are willing to accept failure as an option you should not be playing a game where your failure wastes the time of others.
I also believe that the only thing worse than someone that dies to the maze over and over 100 times and refuses to learn is that blizzard lacked the hindsight or research to know that a mechanic like this had no place in random content.
It might be optional but just like the people that choose to make programming try to make their show so the target audience likes it, shouldn't blizzard have made their optional content so their target audience (the people that can't do the maze) were capable of doing it?
We're straying slightly off-topic but yeah, there's the in-game rules and the generally accepted rules of personal conduct of the players, which pretty much boil down to not deliberately ruining someone else's gameplay and actually making some effort to play the game.
ReplyDeleteGrumpy, depending what spec you are, with longer 'execute' phases plus aoe in raids and also full buffs, which if you're doing heroics you probably haven't got most runs, you'd prob break 40k in there and honestly, 40k and knowing what you're doing is probably more use in most cases than 80k and clueless ;p Just try and do the lock as soon after reset as you can for a good group and if you haven't, get your Key to the Palace of Lei Shen instance done on it for elders to use on bonus rolls, it's extra gold every boss you want loot off right? ;p Maybe even gear!
BTW, I'd guess everybody knows Nalak and Oondasta are once again cross-realm same as Sha and Galleon, but some of you might not know about OQueue which is an addon for finding groups, mostly PVP but I do a bunch of my world bosses on it since I have multiple 90's.
Also, just because I find it funny....I got a couple guildies and a friend to summon my lvl 62 dk to Nalak....he got the 522 tank tier legs. Boosted my eagerness to level, having those sat in my bag is incentive ;p
I did a x-realm world boss on my lock this week. Didn't win but thanks for mentioning it. Glad to see that is back. On a server like mine if you do not kill things on tuesday you never will.
DeleteI need to get that add on for groups. Would make it a lot easier to gear alts through MV instead of LFR MV.
I still need to decide on a spec for my lock. Thinking of going back to afflic, that was always my spec but I changed for leveling purposes. Once I decide on a spec and get a rhythm down I'll give the LFR a try. I might not give 100% on my alts, but I do at the very least try to give as much as I can without perfection. Perhaps I can do that 40K in a group setting but I want to wait until I am more comfortable. Thanks for the vote of confidence on pushing into there however.
I wonder if I should bring my 87 monk there. It should be 90 next time I play it, would be nice to start off with some 522s. lol
I know! I do Galleon on my lvl 87s when they are there in the valley! Just stand in the HOTs blow your defensive cooldowns and if you can live through a STONM then you are golden! Free gear! (disclaimer: try that crap on Sha and you will be a stain)
ReplyDeleteI did it on my level 86 Paladin in tank spec. My paladin did it 5 times and never won anything however. Just time your cooldowns for the stomp and you are golden.
DeleteDid sha on my lock at 87 without dying. DoT up that baby and run for the hills. ;)
Up to 510 ilvl now. Got 2p T14 normal (upgraded) and 2p T15 LFR. Got a 3rd LFR T15 piece but it's a downgrade til I get a 4th.
ReplyDeleteTrying to get the normal T15 pieces off Nalak.
Don't really need anymore valor gear. I have neck, belt, cloak, ring, trinket, wrists. Could go for the exalted shoulders though, but it'll be a bit to get to exalted.
Killed Oondasta for the 2nd time finally. No loot though.
Went on an IoT elite killing spree on Saturday. Earned close to 300 vp just from elites.
Got Veteran Nanny on hunter. Then dusted off my 85 DK and used him to get the last two pets I needed, so I'm officially done with Children's week.
Ran BT with a guildie. Got the Black Bow off Illidan and the "useless for a hunter" MH warglaive. Guildie (rogue) wanted the OH but it didn't drop.
Can't think of anything else interesting that happened during the week.
Congrats on gearing up nicely. I am in the same place as you, but I had to break the T14 set for the T15 one. Never had more than a 2 piece in T14 so did not have much wiggle room.
DeleteHave the 4 piece LFR version now but I really want the head tier one. That would be an upgrade from the head I am wearing and a big one at that. So I only have the 2 piece on right now. I have 522 legs and a 522 chest and not sure if taking them both off for the set bonus is worth it. But taking one off if I got the head, would be surely. Need to do some research.
I could buy the gloves from the vendor, but I have tier gloves. I could buy the chest, but I have one. I could buy the shoulders, but exalted is a long time away and also, I have that as a tier piece. So yeap. Not a single thing to spend valor on. Lets hope 5.3 comes soon so I can start upgrading stuff.
Speaking of tools, what are you guys using tool-wise to determine when to break the T14 bonuses? I've been using Mr. Robot exclusively for a while but it seems to think the T14 2pc is crazy good for hunters... to the point where two equivalent but non-tier i502 pieces are inferior. I've always believed that you'd always want to break a tier bonus once you have two higher-tier pieces to replace them (one is iffy, sometimes makes sense to break, sometimes doesn't, but two is guaranteed break time).
DeleteI tend to use mr robot as well, but I take it with a grain of salt. While the relative and absolute options do tend to help with their issue over extremely over valuing hit and expertise I still do not trust them 100%.
DeleteI tend to go old school and put the stuff on and spend some times on the dummies, but that too has brought up an issue.
Thanks to the insane numbers on gear, the luck factor, and the odd crit not being a blanket number I can do 10 attempts of 5 minutes in a row and get 10 different results. They can range from 65K to 105K depending on procs, crits, crits during procs, etc.
DPS is all luck based now. If you get a nice sweet crit streak when you have no trinket procs and no crits when it does compared to that crit streak coming when the trinket procks it can mean 30K+ difference. All luck.
So I average the attempts out and figure it from there. However, I have not taken the time to do that yet to test the 4 piece (502) over the 2 piece (502) and 2 off pieces (522).
Zeherah's Female Dwarf simulatort site is very helpful.
DeleteYeah, I generally try to use MR as more of a sanity check or tiebreaker than anything these days, I usually have a pretty good feel for gear and will go with my gut more than I probably should. Still, it seems to work out.
DeleteI haven't hit a dummy for testing purposes in years... these days I only use it to learn a new rotation, either a new spec or when there's a change in priority (my DK going from 2H to DW recently resulted in a half hour dummy session to train myself to hit Frost Strike before Obliterate, which then totally messed me up when I ran with my alt server DK for the gearing test... life is tough... :) ).
Zeherah... that's a suggestion I haven't heard in a while, used it occasionally back in Wrath (?) but thought that it died back in Cat when the author stopped updating it. I recall that being hunter-only (which is fair, since most of the talk here is hunter-related) but my preference would be for a tool that'll work for all classes relatively equally.
I used to use maxdps.com in the old days, then Rawr until it fell mostly into disrepair, and Mr Robot since then... with a side of EJ forums, although I haven't found much of value there for most classes in MoP, too much theory and debate, not enough "fact" (used loosely, but if everyone seems to more or less agree with something that sounds reasonable to me, I'll go with it).
I've been also playing around a bit with SimC lately but more as a personal performance metric than a gear guide (I figure out pretty quickly what % of optimal dps I can do on a particular toon and try to make sure that stays the same or improves as I gear up, occasionally I fall back which usually means there's been some sort of rotation change that happens at higher gear levels that I've missed). For example, I still don't prioritize Chi Wave high enough on my monk but I like to hold that back for situtations where the healers can use a bit of an assist... for balls-out dps, though, I should be using it almost on CD. SimC can help with that type of thought process.
I've never delved into SimC but I know people that swear by it. I'm not sure why but I am a person that likes facts, or at least things that sound like facts. Simulation just does not ring the same as fact. It is nice to get an idea of where you should be but nothing in perfect and thus, nothing will ever reflect SimC.
DeleteI've seen a feral druid I know destroy, and not just by a little, the numbers that SimC said he should pull on single target stand still. I've seen other classes with near precision perfection when it comes to play as can be told by WoL and come no where close to what SimC said they should be at.
So with those experiences and many others I take SimC as I do Mr Robot, with a grain of salt. All great tools but nothing will ever compete with you getting on a dummy and doing it yourself to make a decision. Read, learn, test. That is how I try to handle it and I use those tools for some suggestions, not for fact.
Of course, SimC is just another data point, it isn't an answer to anything.
DeleteThe two things I used it for are (1) knowing what my ceiling is for a particular toon (combination of race, class, talents and glyphs, plus gear), I judge my own performance against that ceiling on a per-toon basis (so, the more I play a toon, the closer I expect to get to 100% over time... but it doesn't necessarily mean that I'm better on my rogue, who does 95%, than my monk, who does 90%... it could mean that but I don't use it to compare across toons) and (2) the ranking of abilities in terms of value/CD (basically, your rotational priority). You can get general info on that elsewhere but it won't necessarily match up to specific priorities for you.
The druid comment is surprising, might have been a bug in the Sim, it's updated regularly. The Simmed number is the average (or median) result based on the number of iterations selected (I think 1K by default, I usually pick 10K for a better result), that basically means that half of the returned results were higher than what SimC indicates... but that also requires perfect rotation to achieve, so chances of exceeding the simmed number consistently strikes me as unlikely. But more power to him either way, kitty is hard.
Grumpy, I just want you to know that even if you only do these Monday posts, I will keep reading them. They are wonderful!
ReplyDeleteNeedless to say, I totally agree that LFR is easy. Even if you don't read or watch anything, after you have one or two wipes and a successful try on each boss, it is super-easy. Even the Lei-Shen fight, which looks so busy at first, is very simple, in LFR.
Glad you like them. :)
DeleteLei-Shen has the potential to be a nightmare and I have been in a few of those runs. Some people just do not get it, no matter how many times you wipe.
476 boots from Sha.
ReplyDelete476 belt from Kirin tor sending rep items from main.
"borrow" VP items long enough to queue.
BoA offhand, mainhand, trinket, neck from relic hunter/Arch.
Craft a few boe items or buy them on the AH. Don't equip any of them just put them in that chars bags and sell after.
Lots of ways to cheese the system if you have the resources and the smarts to do so.
Delete