WoW: Cataclysm

[Kybosh]

Originally Posted by Blaster86

Not at all.

The real question is which ones get banned for finding an 'exploit' in Blizzard's unfinished product.

You might have to come back to WoW and show these noobs how it's done.

[Blaster86]

Originally Posted by Kybosh

You might have to come back to WoW and show these noobs how it's done.

What noobs? I'll never be half as good as some of the players we're talking about. My point is every expo/new raid a guild always gets banned for accidentally using an exploit that blizzard left in because their product is sloppy.

[3 Justin 3]

I dare to think how other games fare to quality control if Blizzard's products are sloppy.

[Coys1882]

Originally Posted by Blaster86

What noobs? I'll never be half as good as some of the players we're talking about. My point is every expo/new raid a guild always gets banned for accidentally using an exploit that blizzard left in because their product is sloppy.

I think that's an exaggeration. A lot of the hardcore guilds who had 12/12 LK on25 man have been spending the last two months on the beta beating these bosses - is killing them so quickly after release so unbelieveable?

[WhiteTiger]

Originally Posted by Coys1882

I think that's an exaggeration. A lot of the hardcore guilds who had 12/12 LK on25 man have been spending the last two months on the beta beating these bosses - is killing them so quickly after release so unbelieveable?

Not to mention, a lot of those guilds have highly skilled (at WoW) and highly motivated people in it. They live for the server first, and are good enough to get it. I was in a guild like that for a while, and I just couldn't handle it. I had one job already, I wasn't ready to make WoW a second 20+ hour a week job.

They are well co-ordinated, used to playing with each other, experienced with boss mechanics, and react well and quickly to 'new' content. For them, the real challenge lies not in 'regular' stuff, but in the hard mode stuff. Blowing through the 'regular' mode stuff is like most folks blowing through lvl 1-20. Something you do without really thinking about it.

[Blaster86]

Originally Posted by Coys1882

is killing them so quickly after release so unbelieveable?

Not at all. If you read my posts, I said I am not shocked. However it always seems one server or realm first guild gets banned because of an 'exploit' they didn't realize they were using but was accessible due to early release by Blizzard.

[Boblobla]

Man, Archy is a pain in the ass to level.

[IliketoPuck]

Originally Posted by Boblobla

Man, Archy is a pain in the ass to level.

Haven't even tried it yet, what is the process? I assume you have to go to those zones and start digging for hours.

Nothing is worse than leveling fishing however. I don't care what you say.

[Komskies]

Did our first raiding last night. We started late so we only has time for 2 bosses. First we killed Argaloth in Barradin Hold (the new Vault of Archavon). This boss is a huge pit lord and very similar to Brutallus with a Metoer Slash mechanic. Just split the raid in to two groups on each side of the boss and taunt and 2 slashes. In 25-man we got 6 pieces of loot. If I remember it was 2x T11 gloves, 1x T11 legs, 2 random PVP pieces, and 1 PvE piece.

Next we went to Blackwing Descent and did Magmaw. This is a pretty tough boss with 101 million hp. Took us quite a few wipes before we figured out a good strategy for it, but it, but we did get him down after a while. We got 5 pieces of loot here: 3 of the same 2-handed mace, and 2 other pieces.

[IliketoPuck]

Originally Posted by Komskies

Did our first raiding last night. We started late so we only has time for 2 bosses. First we killed Argaloth in Barradin Hold (the new Vault of Archavon). This boss is a huge pit lord and very similar to Brutallus with a Metoer Slash mechanic. Just split the raid in to two groups on each side of the boss and taunt and 2 slashes. In 25-man we got 6 pieces of loot. If I remember it was 2x T11 gloves, 1x T11 legs, 2 random PVP pieces, and 1 PvE piece.

Next we went to Blackwing Descent and did Magmaw. This is a pretty tough boss with 101 million hp. Took us quite a few wipes before we figured out a good strategy for it, but it, but we did get him down after a while. We got 5 pieces of loot here: 3 of the same 2-handed mace, and 2 other pieces.

What item level do you need for Barradin Hold? I dinged last night and I'm sitting at IL 329.

[Komskies]

Honestly I'm not sure if there is a minimum requirement. I would recommend your raid to be at least decently heroic geared to attempt it (335-340 range). If you bring 16 dps, each person would need to output 10.5k to beat the enrage. It's not an overly hard encounter, but it will tax your healers. The lower ilvl people will get really low on hp from the metoer slash, and possibly die without using defensive cds.

At this early stage of raiding healer output seems to be the limiting factor. Our healers leveled slower than the rest and are the lowest geared members of the raids.

[Regorium]

Originally Posted by Komskies

Did our first raiding last night. We started late so we only has time for 2 bosses. First we killed Argaloth in Barradin Hold (the new Vault of Archavon). This boss is a huge pit lord and very similar to Brutallus with a Metoer Slash mechanic. Just split the raid in to two groups on each side of the boss and taunt and 2 slashes. In 25-man we got 6 pieces of loot. If I remember it was 2x T11 gloves, 1x T11 legs, 2 random PVP pieces, and 1 PvE piece.

Next we went to Blackwing Descent and did Magmaw. This is a pretty tough boss with 101 million hp. Took us quite a few wipes before we figured out a good strategy for it, but it, but we did get him down after a while. We got 5 pieces of loot here: 3 of the same 2-handed mace, and 2 other pieces.

I noticed you guys did 25 man. What is your reason for this compared to doing the 10 man versions? Is 25 man still the de-facto "real" raid even though their difficulty is supposed to be the same? Feels like because 10 man would be easier, it'd be much easier to progress...then you can do 25 man to farm more loots.

I still think unless they completely change the instance (by making the rooms smaller in 10 man) for 10 man vs 25 man, 10 man will ALWAYS be easier, since there is more room to spread out for the spread out mechanics, and more room to drop bad debuffs or kite.

[IliketoPuck]

Originally Posted by Komskies

Honestly I'm not sure if there is a minimum requirement. I would recommend your raid to be at least decently heroic geared to attempt it (335-340 range). If you bring 16 dps, each person would need to output 10.5k to beat the enrage. It's not an overly hard encounter, but it will tax your healers. The lower ilvl people will get really low on hp from the metoer slash, and possibly die without using defensive cds.

At this early stage of raiding healer output seems to be the limiting factor. Our healers leveled slower than the rest and are the lowest geared members of the raids.

I had my first healing experience in a heroic last night. It was insane on my mana pool. Tried using the discipline smite healing spec, but my mana pool disappears almost instantly.

I found that as shadow I have an almost unlimited mana pool, but that when healing I have to use every trick in the book to have enough mana. That and when my group decides to aggro 2 pats + the mob we were trying to kill. That was a little bit exciting.

Are your priests going disc for MT healing, or are they going mostly holy for raid heals?

[Komskies]

Last night we had one of each spec. I'm not sure what their healing assignment were. So far from my personal observations I would say that healers rank from best to worst as follows: Paladin > Druid > Priest > Shaman. Shamans feel utterly underpowered right now, at least the other 3 are somewhat competitive.

[IliketoPuck]

Originally Posted by Komskies

Last night we had one of each spec. I'm not sure what their healing assignment were. So far from my personal observations I would say that healers rank from best to worst as follows: Paladin > Druid > Priest > Shaman.

Given my current quest greens/blues rep items, I can attest to priest healing being absolutely crap. But my group that was running through the instance like it was still wrath didn't help at all. Not to toot my own horn, but I am pretty damn good at disc (Gladiator for 4 seasons), and it was literally all I could do to keep them alive. I'm talking every freaking CD that I had was used, and then some.

[Komskies]

Originally Posted by IliketoPuck

Given my current quest greens/blues rep items, I can attest to priest healing being absolutely crap. But my group that was running through the instance like it was still wrath didn't help at all. Not to toot my own horn, but I am pretty damn good at disc (Gladiator for 4 seasons), and it was literally all I could do to keep them alive. I'm talking every freaking CD that I had was used, and then some.

A big part of it is the fact that trash actually have dangerous abilities now, rather than just random melee/basic spells. When you have trash that can mortal strike your tank, reduce his armor by half, and buff each other's damage, it can cause a world of hurt for your tanks. It's not unusual now for tanks to have to shield wall and last stand on larger trash pulls. The solution is to either CC and single target them down, or use cds and burn the mobs down before they gib your tank/the healer goes oom.

It's already starting to get better though. Now with our group in mostly 346 heroic blues and a few 359 epics, we're starting to roll through heroics a lot easier. We only CC a few choice packs per instance now, but we also have a very well geared tank. He has something like 7 epics already and 170k hp raid buffed.

[IliketoPuck]

170k .... ahaha

My tank last night varied from 85-110k. FML.

[IliketoPuck]

I have liked mind controlling some of the mobs to see what some of the abilities are.

[Komskies]

Originally Posted by IliketoPuck

170k .... ahaha

My tank last night varied from 85-110k. FML.

Haha ya, that's is way too low. I would say 130k bare minimum to be tanking heroics. They probably cheesed their way past the 329 ilvl requirement with dps peices in their bags.

[Mazrim]

Originally Posted by Blaster86

Not at all. If you read my posts, I said I am not shocked. However it always seems one server or realm first guild gets banned because of an 'exploit' they didn't realize they were using but was accessible due to early release by Blizzard.

This is rich. "Didn't realize they were using"? Give me a break. Here are examples of all the raids in Wrath where people got banned for world firsts, and why:

Hodir Hard Mode - Mages would spell steal a massive DPS buff (Flower Power) in a different zone (Sholozar Basin - Ulduar is in Storm Peaks) and get warlock ported in as the fight with Hodir started. They knew what they were doing.

Yogg-Saron Hard Mode (no Keeper's assistance) - The guild found a way to glitch the unkillable adds Yogg summons in the final phase by staying in the final brain room and taunting. The adds would spawn and never move. They knew what they were doing.

The Lich King - Ensidia's rogues were using Saronite Bombs on the platform, which cause seige damage. This caused the collapsable platform to magically reform, making the fight significantly easier by removing a cruical part of the phase (Val'kyrs grabbing players and dropping them off the edge). They knew it was a bug, but they knowingly used it because it was there.

To claim that they thought that it was part of the fight is simply untrue. If the boss randomly stopped working and was not reproducable, then I would agree with you (which I've seen happen myself). In the above three cases, the guild admitted to building their winning strategy around these glitches.

I guess we should give Blizzard some credit. Mimiron Hard Mode - which is probably the toughest fight in WoW outside of Heroic Lich King - was flawlessly designed and requires perfect playing and skill from everyone, even when you outgear it. Anyone who did that one had no way to cheese it.