Greedy Goblin

Monday, February 22, 2010

Naxx cleared in appropriate gear

Naxxramas 10 man gives ilvl 200 epics, so it's designed for people who want ilvl 200 epics, so geared in blues. Yet I doubt that anyone tried to do it (since Ensidia cleared it in T6.5). We did it, without epic items. Logs.

It started cursed. 8 raiders online, 0 tanks. One DK out of the blue told that he is a blood tank, has gear ready just did not have time to ask for raider promotion yet. 5 mins later a resident DK tank shown up, so we were good to go. Exactly 10 people, no raid optimalization, those who were online came. Including the rogue who did weekly raid (why? like he could use the frost orbs for something), so Noth is dead. We sent him in to check if other things are dead too. It was only Noth, so far, so good.

Except no one had replenishment if the priest healed. Nor +3% hit. We had a shaman and a druid healer and were unsure if 2 healers are enough. So on fights where 3 healers present, someone must give replenishment. Once upon a time I had frost talent and did some practice. Like two months ago. So we started. And finished with only one wipe (on Faerlina!!!). It was fast and easy. Did they nerf Naxx beyond the instant Sapphiron teleport?

I found a bug on the logging system of WoW (not in the WorldOfLogs, I checked the log manually):
The left side is my ingame recount for KT. The right side is the log. All numbers are 100% identical, except my water elemental is completely missing. So add 500 to my DPS on every fight where I cast frostbolt (Yet it does not explain my hideous performance on Sapp where I focused on the environment and my fingers always wanted to cast arcane blast. I'll practice lot of frost before next raid. And I put on my +hit gear when frost. And fix the frost talent. Or simply find someone who can give replenishment so I can be arcane. On 2 healer fights I did OK.)


What's the point of these blue raids? (besides actually playing the game in a way it provides challenge) To prove that you can complete the content without farming gear or playing no-life. From this statement automatically comes another: if someone fails on normal content, it is not because he is "undergeared" or "has life". It is because he is a moron or a slacker (like I slacked frost practice) and deserves no help, just a huge kick on the butt and out of the group. Good news: the 15 mins cooldown on LFD group kick will be removed. Give them what they deserve!


As always: we are recruiting. Be any spec, any class, any level, just don't have serious raiding achievements on that character. We raid once a week, Saturday 19:00-22:00 (22:30), Arathor EU horde side. Find Koltas, Koltes or any undergeared raider. We already have enough raiders who are skilled enough to overcome not only on the content, but also problems like no replenishment and improvise when needed. We have no voice communication, so no one is told what to do. We did it because we knew or jobs ourselves. But we need more for 25 man raiding. Join now!

Next week raid: Sartharion. He is a lone ilvl 200 boss, why bother? Because he won't be alone.


PS: Maybe, we go to Naxxramas again some time. Undying would be a nice title.

36 comments:

Matt said...

Congrats! I always argue with people in trade that spam "Link xxxx+ gearscore or no invite" and link them to here to show them that gear score does not equal skill =) I would love to join your guild as it would keep me interested in the game, but alas, I'm US =(

zi said...

gratz, so what are you going to do after OS? and by "not being alone" you meant killing him with 3-drakes up? xD.

nachobel said...

I'm really excited to see where this goes.

A few comments on your post - you seem to equate having epics with "farming gear/no life", when in fact it appears that through playing the game the way you are for this fun experiment you are actively avoiding getting gear, perhaps running an instance more often than you would otherwise hoping for a specific blue drop as opposed to the badge epic you can purchase with all the badges you gather running instances so many times.

Anyway, cheers on naxx! That place was pretty fun.

Sarth+3 should be doable if your healers are on point and you stack dps. I'm not quite certain blue gear can produce the DPS requirements for that fight (before your tank gets overwhelmed with adds), but it would be fun to try.

Maly is extremely doable.

I do not see you progressing much further than that however. But! I will be reading your updates and cheering you on as best I can. WoW certainly isn't a hard game, and in the old days you used to be able to make up for poor gear with skill, but now since the game takes nearly no skill gear has become the sole focus of encounter design it seems...

Taemojitsu said...

grats.

When I played WoW, this was the kind of thing I wanted to do. Maybe you might agree with a re-interpretation of your goal: you are proving that anyone can accomplish the things you do, not just those with particular willingness to do things that many view as not fun so don't do.

This universality of your methods, with no restrictions on you except skill, is the defining factor.

The 'grind', or making progression feel rewarding by making it required, is present in many games as a way to try to retain players with lots of free time. Unfortunately, it is also present in WoW (despite the possibility of avoiding it with better game design). Ultimately, the progress of any group in WoW, no matter how skilled, is limited by gear.

Pallyxlady said...

=/ why horde. im on arathor alliance =( but graz

Anonymous said...

Impressive! very well done. With players like that you should be able to raid top 50 ICC HMs :)

Wildhorn said...

I was about to send you a mail to ask what was going on with Naxx blues. Awesome. I cant wait to see 3D Sart in blues :D

Anonymous said...

frost badges = primordial saronite=easy gold. on my server, it still goes for 2k+

Unknown said...

My gut reaction as a hunter who's been to a bit too many raids with no replenishment is that the hunter should do that via Survival rather than being Marksman.

My experience has been that SV does more dps than MM if there's no replenishment, thus the hunter isn't really sacrificing anything. But then I haven't tried it in blues so this may be bs. ;)

ardoRic said...

I'm glad to know you guys are going through with it.

I've joined the guild and my shaman is sitting there at a pathetic lvl 10. I'll try to put some more dedication onto him so I can be of more assistance.

I'd love to go back to Naxx and OS 3D without overgearing the places like mad.

Cya in guild, i guess :)

haylie said...

As a hunter myself, I can say that MM only surpasses SV when your gear has high amounts of armor penetration (1000+). Back in the day when I did Naxx in blues and old-world gear BM was king, so can't say for sure now how well SV will fare in blues. But since I doubt that blue gear has a lot of armor penetration on it, your hunter(s) should definitely give SV a try.

Gevlon said...

We have surv hunters, but were not online. The hunter present was BM and he never was surv.

Weapon X said...

Gratz - I always argued with a fellow officer (no lifer) that naxx was completely do-able in lvl70 epics - and 80 blues.

Anonymous said...

Heyya.

Grats on Naxx.
Really cool thing ur doing with all the gearscore hysteria thats going on right now.

What server is the blue guild on?

Anonymous said...

"Next week raid: Sartharion. He is a lone ilvl 200 boss, why bother? Because he won't be alone."

That sounds VERY promising!

Backthief said...

Gevlon, what you would your limit will be? lower ulduar? I dont think you can go 12/12.

Pike said...

It amuses me that there is a devilsaur tail very much visible in the top screenshot and yet people assume that the hunter must be an MM! =P

*says the hunter raiding hardmodes as BM*

By the way... Congrats, Gevlon. I think the Undergeared thing is a great idea.

Anonymous said...

10 man naxx was always supposed to be clearable in blues. My guild cleared it in about 50% epics (mostly 200) though, but we were far from a good guild, and MT was not crit ammune (OT - me was).

It is often assumed by tanks/healers that dps is easy. Than after a run you look back at overall numbers, and wonder what happened.

Anyway, this is a good guide to DPS: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgDjG_0ecTI It improved my dps by almost 10% from one of the tips given. And don't split pet dps from personal dps. The pet wouldn't be there without his master.

Jeanie said...

Considering that you've cleared ulduar 10 in blues before, this really should not come as a surprise. Gratz though and I'm looking to see the OS + drake(s) next week :).

Ratshag said...

"Yet I doubt that anyone tried to do it"

Shoot, in December 2008 there were people showing up for Naxx runs in greens. I admit I had a crafted epic shield when I first tanked it in Jan '09, but since I was using the mace from the ZD quest and plenty of tempered saronite gear, my overall gear score was probably a lot less than the tanks you last night. Oh, and I only had one tanking trinket, so I had Chuchu's in the other slot. Lot of folks still had level 70 epics. And yet, at that time nobody thought it was strange or unusual or that we were "undergeared".

When you've got 11 million players, yes there will be dunderheads spamming trade who think you need T9 gear to do T7 content, but there are also plenty of people who quietly do the content in the gear it was designed for. You are hardly the first "since Ensidia".

Unknown said...

@PetriW,haylie:
From the theorycrafting data I gathered using Rawr and a web interface to a hunter spreadsheet [http://femaledwarf.com/], I found that in blue gear BM > SV > MM in a general raid setup.
However if the lack of replenishment is a continuing trend, I probably should learn how to play (ie. be comfortable with) SV.

--
Kujoh

Mikomi said...

I like that screenshot, i'm the only one who jumped up on the chairs arm so my names cut off.

I found the most frustrating part of the raid was switching between my dual specs because it droped all my raid buffs off, i had to stock up on a huge amount of candles after the raid.

My performance as a healer was probably only average with my best moment being on loatheb, i spent more time DPSing but i badly screwed up on maexxna.

My greatest ability in raids so far is that i can switch between Healing and DPS and perform well at both, that and i Dispell stuff realy quickly.

Gevlon said...

@Kujoh: your DPS is way too good to change it. I will learn frost. Theoretically I should lose 400DPS and not 1500. The 1100 extra is just me being slacker. Will be fixed. Plus as frost I give +5% crit debuff to casters.

Unknown said...

On a related note:
http://www.cad-comic.com/cad/20100222

Interestingly recently read on a theorycrafting forum(hunter) that the max theoretical DPS increase per tier was about 12%. Max theortical DPS increase from raid buffs? 100%

Unknown said...

@Qwesto,
Yeah I looked way too fast at the log and just noticed arcane shot in there so assumed MM. ;) But should probably have thought about BM, lesson learnt for next time! :P

600-700dps or so for replenishment may be a bit much so indeed, BM is most likely better for most stuff except possibly Heigan and similar.

Unknown said...

To be fair, T6.5 WAS level appropriate. Blues from the dungeons were, for the most part, sidegrades. Or even potential upgrades. So all you've really done is repeated the very act they did. It's not much of an accomplishment.

3D Sarth, however, is.

The Gnome of Zurich said...

There is a US side also, it's a little less active, but I do expect to have a team ready soon for 5s, another few weeks and a 10 is likely.

Always interested in more. I'm playing the Gevlon role, but a with a bit less money (5g and 8 slot bags for starter chars, 500g and free enchants when you show you are raider material, will stock standard raid consumables once we get going (flasks, feasts, some food and elixir combos where the flask/feast stinks).

It's alliance on the forgotten coast, guild is undergeared. Meneldil is the GM, but everybody has invite privileges.

I wonder if sarth10+3 is possible in blues. Be interesting to try it. I think it's harder than uldaur, maybe even harder than some of ICC. You need people with 6k+ dps (and a tank that can go without heals for a while) to zerg, and if you don't zerg, sarth can hit hard enough to one-shot <40k tanks. I'll bet it can be done, but strategy will be interesting, and might require something unorthodox (VW tank?).

MyName said...

If I remember correctly, the Sapphiron boss is highly resistant to frost (used to be completely immune in original naxx) which would explain your lowered DPS on that boss.

Tegoelf said...

There is something about this that I don't quite get, the total lack of want to raid. I see that the way you are doing this makes a good point, that people who don't pull sufficient weight are doing it because they are lazy or stupid, but you seem to also have a disdain for weekly raiding. If the sole goal is to "clear content" see all the bosses die, then I can understand, but some people actually enjoy raiding. I enjoy getting together with a good group of people, hopping on vent, talking and, killing things when the opportunity presents itself. raids can be fun because the act is fun, not just the content clear.

It may have been said before but I think that the raid centric "everyone who wants epics can get them" is a serious problem for WoW, sure there are people (like me and a number of the more "HC/no lifers") who would raid anyways, but the game is putting more pressure on people to raid, not just play the game they want to play.... That is getting off topic, I guess the point is why do you raid if you seem to dislike the mechanic so much?

Anyways, I hope you are successful, though I fear you are going to reach festergut and die to the combination of stiff enrage timer, and massive damage.

Good luck with all of this

Tego

by the way, I raid between 1 and 3 nights a week, 1 for ICC 10 and the other two are 25 mans.

Igwun said...

I don't really get this post. Doing naxx10 in blue's is hardly an achievement since a lot of guilds, including mine, did it the first week in mostly T6 / sunwell gear. (i joined our first 10man within an hour after hitting 80)
Trade pugs asking for over the top gear doesn't mean something is hard.

However do sarth3D in blue's and you'll show you do have great players.
Since i doubt that will happen. Doing it in ilevel 200 gear would still be nice.

Good luck :)

Ayao said...

Grats on clearing Naxx the way it was meant to be cleared

However, I do disagree with your statement of "if someone fails on normal content, it is not because he is "undergeared" or "has life". It is because he is a moron or a slacker (like I slacked frost practice) and deserves no help, just a huge kick on the butt and out of the group"

such people should be taught how to do it properly and given a few chances to do it right. No one is born to clear the raids (regardless of gear) and clear it one shot the first time they enter it especially if they are on specialty roles. Try poping heroism in the right time as an enhancement shaman with no vent and things going on everywhere on your very first run. It is not as easy as "tell me once and i'll perfect it everytime", no takes 2-3 goes just to learn the right Cues in the battle. Or people with a slightly longer latency (you should not be raiding if it is too long) and doing Hagen dance for the first time. Or dodging bladestorm/ice spikes in Morrowgar (which takes at least 1 go to get used to the way the icy spikes shoot out, watching videos doesnt always cut it). So you do need to factor in learning curve time before a straight kick, otherwise how does that make u different from "show GS and achievement" or no invite people? at least the achievement check is sort of a check to see if you know what you are suppose to be doing. (Although I think in the original article you really mean those people who REPEATEDLY and PERSISTENTLY fail normal content despite gear and being taught what to do).

Warcraft Econ said...

Saw a link from wow.com to your Ulduar in blues experiment. What are your thoughts on what they said?

Quote:

"...about the same as successfully raiding Ulduar in blues. Yes, it can be done, but that guild run took insanely skilled players, lots of tries, and an immense amount of luck."

Unknown said...

I don't get it. You say your pet wasn't in the combat log, yet it shows in recount?

Where do you think recount gets its information from?

If you want to know why water elementals don't show up in popular log parsers, here you go.
http://forums.worldoflogs.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1002

Kring said...

Sapphiron has very high frost resistances (the only boss in WotLK with magical resistances, as far as I know) and you didn't even have a warlock for CoE (for the reduced resistances).

If you check your log you had 18% resisted frostbolts and 7% missed on Sapphiron. On Patchwerk you had only 5% misses and no resists. These resists are because of Sapphirons frost resists.

The average hit of your frostbolt on Sapphiron is 2400 and 3687 on Patchwerk. The lower value on Sapphiron is because of partial resists because of frost resistance.

The Don said...

Every time I think you are a total tool and have transcended even goblinism, you go and do something awesome that creates respect anew.

Seeing posts like this reminds me of the days where you had to have CC skills hotkeyed unless you wanted to date the spirit healer. I'm interested to see where you take your guild when you've downed the last ilv200 boss.

Also I present you with this gift that summarize the entire gearscore vs skill agrument:

http://www.cad-comic.com/comics/cad/20100222.jpg

Xerxes said...

After I read this post some time yesterday I decided to level up a warlock on Arathor EU. Only to join this guild and have fun.
I'll be with you in a week or 2 :)