Greedy Goblin

Saturday, June 20, 2009

On goblin raiding

Last week we got FL+4 down to 28%. This week, (sadly, after the nerf), the ugly machine with the lashers went down. After that we broke the heart of XT. The previous was guild firstkill, the latter was just firstkill for me and some new members. After that we had some Steelbraker tries. Then I announced that I have to leave soon, we abandoned Steelbraker and moved in farm mode forward. Was there at Kologarn, and left for sleeping.

The FL+4 was still awesome, despite the nerf. My siege engine was assigned to interrupt FL, this is very simple for the gunner (me). Mostly I was nuking FL, watching only not to use steam below 50% and seek lashers who got out of the corner (a siege engine was in each, hunting pyrite and lashers). Got the highest damage among the sieges (that's easy since I was on FL), but 20% of it was on lashers, so I was pretty satisfied with my performance.

On heartbraker I made my first failbot-class raidwipe, when I got gravity bomb, run out and kept healing with backward rotated camera, not noticing that I walk into a void zone. Noob mistake. We had several wipes for various reasons but still I'd rather not cause a wipe, especially not because of a void zone. Two tries later it went down. In all tries I was in the 3-5th position on the healing meters, but there were no significant differences between the healers.

On Steelbraker I finally could use my tank healer talent. LBx3, rejuv, RG, nourishspam. Much easier than raid healing and still feels more important (while it's obviously not), as your heals pull the tank up from low health a lot. /envy pallies :-)

Why do I post it, when the no1 wowblogging rule is "don't post about your performance, kills and especially loot (1,2), as no one in the world gives a damn"?

Because this is a motivation post to all goblins: if you like raiding, go and find a raidguild that could use your money. You can participate in awesome fights with professional people. If you prefer PvP, try to buy your way into an 5v5 team. No more wiping/sucking because of M&S (unless it's you). No more waiting for AFK people (OK, sometimes, but not always, like with social guilds).

WoW is not rocket science. If you are not a retard and not lazy as a welfare leech, you can learn the fights and perform pretty well. You'll never be as good as someone who is focused on raiding, has 100% attendance and practice on the dummies, but 85-95% of their performance is reachable simply by properly reading strats, listening to the RL, asking questions when something is not clear and keeping your eyes open for void zones.

I'm unsure if 25 goblins can do FL+4, but there is no point to even try. The point is that everyone brings what he is good in. It's better if a HC raider drives the chopper and I pay for the repair than the opposite.

Important tips for wannabe raiding goblins:
  • Don't be loot-hungry! Pass on everything that anyone else needs for main raiding spec! They need it much more than you for two reasons. At first because they have higher attendance (use it more), and secondly because their raid spot depends on their performance which is affected by gear. If I heal 1% less, I still be there (if 20% less, not), but if a raider is always at the bottom, he can find himself benched. Don't worry, in a decent guild you'll get everything before the next content patch.
  • Don't insists on staying. If you suck in some fights, wiping the raid, offer to step out. Come back next week, when everyone else knows what to do. Watch more videos in the meantime, maybe seek a 5 man that have similar boss and do it with a bunch of PuG-M&S as practice. Remember, a wipe cost about 10G repair, 5 min of the flask's time (5/60*25=2G) and the opportunity cost of time not spent on dailies (16*5/10=8G), altogether 20G/person, 500G/raid! So too many wipes can cost more than your contribution.
  • Don't be ashamed to ask questions or little help if you are unsure. For example on Mimiron I always ask for a sign on someone to follow, so I don't have to think where is my position. Of course just little things, not "could I be just on autofollow and autoattack on full Ulduar". You can slack a little since you allow them to slack a little with making money. The keyword is "little" here.
  • Be always ready to give moneymaking advice to those who are low but never give money. That way you would support not raiding, but slacking.

If you still don't know why would a raidguild need a goblin, look at the banktab below. All the raiders can get materials for enchanting/gemming their newly dropped PvE gear for free:


PS: note to restodruids (and possibly other healers): don't disenchant your old, high-mana regen gear. Some hard modes last long and you may even have to use innervate on yourself.

11 comments:

Craig R said...

It's the 80/20 rule
Most goblins can bring 80% of the skill for 20% of the effort. The rest, we pay for.

Philip Mason said...

My guild also provides free gems and enchants for all raiders new bits of gear.

We don't have a goblin. We just disenchant all the green items, sell any excess enchant mats, and sell a few BoE epics that no one in the guilds needs.

We don't provide our raiders with their flasks or repair bills, and I'm sure they'd love it if we did, but it would cost so much - flasks are 30g each on my server. Thats 120g per person per night. We raid 5 times a week so thats 15k per week just on flasks. Repairs could match that.

Anyway, in the relationship that is you and your guild, you should remember that you need them to raid, more than they need you for free enchants. Thats not to say they don't appreciate you, I just want to re-inforce your points about stepping out if your performance is low, passing on gear, etc etc.

We Fly Spitfires said...

Cool article!

Must be very strange to be in a guild, raid or PvP fight and know that one is only there because of one's money.

I'd like to see some changes to WoW - they should make all items BOE rather than BOP. That way, if you have the cash, you just pay other people to do the work and then collect the rewards from them.

Why would anyone want to do a raid or PvP? Personally I'd prefer to just buy the loot from others.

Narkondas said...

We Fly Spitfires:
".. and know that one is only there because of one's money."

If you compare that to RL social activities - yes. If you compare it to RL work activities - no.

Consider the simlar statement:
"So sad that Michael only hangs around us if we pay him".

If that is said in a group of social friends, it IS pretty sad.
If said by michael's manager - it's not.

The point is that Gevlon contributes like the rest of the guild - just in a different capacity. Some of his guildies spend their time at the training dummy perfecting their DPS rotation - he spend his at the AH.

The fact that he "just pays" doesn't make him less valuable to the raid. Try asking any soldier if he thinks the guy that "just drive the truck to bring him a steady supply of ammo" is unwanted..

Wooly said...

I don't look forward to those long hard mode fights. Even though I've already got very good regen gear, I tend to OOM most of the time. I still wonder why people seem to have no mana problems. I usually top the charts with little overhealing, but even on normal mode fights I oom using all the mana regen tricks I can think of (I even still use dark runes).

P.S. Nice way of making the guildbank look fuller then it is, using all those small stacks :)

We Fly Spitfires said...

@Narkondas Good point. I suppose I just never considered MMOs to be work.

Thaldia said...

@Wooly's Post Scriptum.

I think that is to be able to reserve a fixed number of " slots " taken from each people each day, in the sense that they are taking just what they need ( could need ) and not more.

I mean: why putting stacks of 4 abyss crystals and not 20, if it could save room ?

I think that's because most enchants don't need more than 4 AC anyway, and to avoid people having to take more and then giving it back to the bank, or maybe having a jerk using his 5 reserved slots/day to take 100 AC ( 8kg in my server ).

Out of the point, my first comment on this blog. I've read it all and.. I mostly ( about essentials/philosophies/etc ) agree. Rock ok, Gevlon. And be with us on 3.2 .

- Thaldia

Wooly said...

@Thaldia

Not a bad point. Being an enchanter myself I could have guessed that from the stack sizes, though the 12&8 stack of dust was what got me thinking in the first place.

But indeed, even if you can trust all your guildmembers (which I expect from his guild), this is a good way to prevent big losses if someone's account get's hacked f.e..

It just looks so much like marketing :)

Anonymous said...

Most of those stuff stack on 20, goblin running low?

Unknown said...

@Anonymous: That's not his personal bank, that's the guild's bank. If you read his blog he says he helps raiders enchant/gem their new Ulduar drops. Most gear has 1-3 gem slots, and requires 4 of each ench mats to enchant. Think before responding next time please.

Unknown said...

Funny thing is, in my guild, the best raiders are the best money-makers... 5 of us in the 30-40k range. Not a lot by goblin standards, but much better than the folks who still don't have epic flying.