Definitely. After all, it's mathematically impossible to do this content without good gear, right?
It was a mess. I did not switch combat logging on until PoS. I wiped the group on devourer, because I had an outdated DBM (and was surprised he didn't cast mirror. Well, he did). Tazar forgot to do the quests, so he couldn't come to HoR. Undead was marked for sheep. I guess we were too excited, and maybe too scared. I for example cared way too much more about avoiding all avoidable damage than doing proper damage in fear that the healer can't keep us up (Garfrost):
He did keep us up. After all, the naysayers were keep screaming "can't be done". But after this, we will no longer care about their pathetic QQ. They can't do it, so no one can. "You must obtain better gear". No! You must l2p.
If you already know how to play and bored of boosting "undergeared" M&S, join now. We need more people to do raids. Ignore the naysayers! They just suck and can't believe that not everyone are like them.
The instances? They were great. I can't remember when I sheeped anything since pre-nerf MgT. And here we even designed grip-sheep, when the DK grabs the caster out of the group and I sheep him at the back. Everybody misses the times when we used CC instead of AoEing the whole instance down like bots, right?
Well, we made the good times come back when we did ICC5 HC in blues. I can't remember when I had to actually think and react in the game instead of doing a scripted rotation and do as tankspot/EJ said. Of course I messed it up sometimes. So did the others. But we improved, we tried out new tactics, new talents. Have you ever tried to make your own talents? This is what I made up in haste to tank the mage add of HoR (and added the glyphs only after my stellar DPS on the bosses /facepalm).
We played. Can you remember when you played instead of "I must farm this or that"?
PS: the logs. As I said I did not switch logging on in FoS.
Garfrost
Ick
Tyrannus
Falric
Marwyn
Arthas wave 1
Arthas wave 2
Arthas wave 3
Next week: Naxxramas. Should be easy. Join now!
Recruitment post. Current class distribution:
He did keep us up. After all, the naysayers were keep screaming "can't be done". But after this, we will no longer care about their pathetic QQ. They can't do it, so no one can. "You must obtain better gear". No! You must l2p.
If you already know how to play and bored of boosting "undergeared" M&S, join now. We need more people to do raids. Ignore the naysayers! They just suck and can't believe that not everyone are like them.
The instances? They were great. I can't remember when I sheeped anything since pre-nerf MgT. And here we even designed grip-sheep, when the DK grabs the caster out of the group and I sheep him at the back. Everybody misses the times when we used CC instead of AoEing the whole instance down like bots, right?
Well, we made the good times come back when we did ICC5 HC in blues. I can't remember when I had to actually think and react in the game instead of doing a scripted rotation and do as tankspot/EJ said. Of course I messed it up sometimes. So did the others. But we improved, we tried out new tactics, new talents. Have you ever tried to make your own talents? This is what I made up in haste to tank the mage add of HoR (and added the glyphs only after my stellar DPS on the bosses /facepalm).
We played. Can you remember when you played instead of "I must farm this or that"?
PS: the logs. As I said I did not switch logging on in FoS.
Garfrost
Ick
Tyrannus
Falric
Marwyn
Arthas wave 1
Arthas wave 2
Arthas wave 3
Next week: Naxxramas. Should be easy. Join now!
Recruitment post. Current class distribution:
| Class | lvl 80 | 65-79 |
| Death Knight | 5 | 5 |
| Druid | 2 | 3 |
| Paladin | 1 | 0 |
| Hunter | 3 | 2 |
| Rogue | 1 | 0 |
| Priest | 0 | 3 |
| Shaman | 1 | 2 |
| Mage | 3 | 2 |
| Warlock | 0 | 0 |
| Warrior | 0 | 2 |
44 comments:
Congrats! Love your tone in this post ... sounds like you not only vindicated your stance on being undergeared but you had a blast while doing it.
I hope you'll get your ten best people into TOC in a hurry so we can see if it can be cleared in blues. Ulduar was impressive but I get the sense that the tuning might result in insta-gibs on the tank in the Trial.
Bravo on your achievements, Gevlon! You guys will cruise through Naxx if you could be H HoR, and you've already proven you can beat Ulduar in blues - why not go right to ToC? It's not like you'll be pulling out any gear from earlier raids.
I'd be interested to hear your logic on the talent choices for your tanking spec - to tank a mage, why take Arc Fortitude but not go into Frost for Frost Warding to get some mana regen and reflects? It would be a solid synergy with your Incanter's Absorption to increase your spellpower, helping you with threat.
Gratzz!!
I'm glad you guys are doing things like this. When my guild goes and wipes on Festergut time and time again, and then claims "We just need to farm the lower citadel for gear before trying this out", I just want to run around punching babies and screaming. Of course, they have the "No playing the blame game or pointing out any mistakes" rule, which keeps us getting pounded into the ground by a boss with a 5 year old mentality. I posted about your clearing Ulduar in Blues, and people were like.....WHAAAAA?!
Thank you for showing people that it's not the gear that matters. It's learning to not suck.
(I'd server transfer if I hadn't been on several others and hated most of the people there, and being as we're the only 10 man guild on ours who has actually managed to down Yogg, I doubt there would be anywhere else for me to go in server.)
Great work =)
Looking forward to more progress
Why bother with naxx? You've already proven ulduar can be done in blues. You don't need the gear.
May as well hit ToC and see how you do... it's not like the fights are much easier in naxx or anything, it was just gear.
@Liu: As I said, I did that talent in HASTE, I mean jump out, summ back, talents in while buffing. This talent is something I planned more. Feel free to add further tips (I don't want to lose core arcane DPS talents)
@Anonymous: Naxx has a simple purpose: to let the people learn to work together and to let me weed out those who are good at the dummy but stand in the fire. HC HoR had only 4 spots+me, many players were left out.
Wow! I am really impressed with this one! I really doubted you'd make it past all the trash waves in HoR HC. But you still did it.
@Woot. No, in ToC a blue geared tank won't get insta-gibbed. The first week, when it was realeased, we made a pug for 10 man just for the heck of it. At the time I had only few i200 epics, many even non-BiS blues as paladin tank. I was @ 23.5k unbuffed. We never made it past P2 of Beasts, since nobody knew proper tactics. But it was fun, never the less.
This really is true, that the real fun starts, when the popular and 'must-have' specs/glyphs/tactics do not work anymore. I remember, when Glyph of Salvation and Nature resistance on head and back where necessary for me to solo kill Ionar on heroic, when I had still avg i221 gear.
Now they nerf even 'old' heroics even more, because, you know, it slows the /faceroll, if you have to spend more than 30 seconds killing a boss.
Again, congratulations on world-first i232 content cleared in blues!
I d say skip Naxxramas. I remember healing it with 2 healers. I was druid and had full 70 Moonkin(!!) PVP gear. So Naxx is just a walk in the park imo
Missing the times when you needed to CC in heroics (mostly MGT) is one thing. Waiting for a mage and/or rogue to show up for 45 minutes is another.
I've no idea which is worse, rolling through mindlessly with 3 useless 0/0/71 unholy DKs or the waiting.
Anyhow, grats, and hope you can put a solid group together for higher lvl content.
Come to think of it I actually done by now a near-blue run in Heroic FoS and ToC10.
FoS was a pug and I was on my lock (which even if I have some epics, I also have some low ilvl blues, averaging to a 2k spellpower value, with buffs.) Things went down slowly but we cleared it.
Same goes for ToC10. My guildies and I did an alt run on saturday and we realized that most of us were in mixed blue-epic gear. We cleared it with just 1 wipe (caused by a disconnect by one of the tanks).
So ToC10 should be easily doable.
@Gevlon, well done for that run, looks like you all had a lot of fun.
@Glyph,
No pointing out mistakes rule? That must be fun ...
Seriously - Thank you.
@thenoisyrogue
There is a new branch of 'human rights' in WoW these days.
It is called 'M&S' rights & obligations.
One point states:
'Thou shalt not insult thy m8 by pointing out there mistakes'
@Jana,
Yes, it's why my main is currently guildless. I was just wondering why Glyph would choose to stay in that world of frustration.
@Gevlon,
Are you still planning on doing the 25 man versions of Naxx?
@Gevlon - you missed a trick with Improved Blink, there. 30% miss for 4 seconds, on demand? Looks like a tanking option to me.
@various - if I were a raid leader, faced with half a dozen people who had no tact, I might ban them from pointing out mistakes. I would then do it myself, more quietly and better. And if you can't tell who the obnoxious and tactless member of a group is, chances are, it's you.
Grats, well done!
We played. Can you remember when you played [...]?
Last night. 3-manned PoS-normal. Admittedly not the most epic deed since ever, but still intriguing, if you consider what the mechanics of Ick and Tyrannus do to a reduced group, or that mana users can realistically run out of it.
Funnily, those trash pulls up the ramp from Ick, which personally I consider the hardest part of the entire instance, went smoother than ever. A little coordination, focus, and realisation that "this is going to be challenging" can do wonders.
Damn, I love those undergeared post and am more pissed than ever, that I dont have the time right now to level my toon...
Some minutes after I read this thread, I get in a normal HoR with one of my alt. Just before the running-event, our healer quit (duh), well we did it anyway and we reached the end without a healer. Our group gear was 3/4 blues 1/4 epix. It was Protadin, Feral, DK, Lock. Content is too easy!
I'm actually considering renewing my account and making a new car on your realm, and joining your undergeared crew and powerlvl (btw imo its way easier for horde to level, i got my druid from 1-70 way faster than an of my alliance chars). :D which do you need more - healers or tanks? :)
good luck with naxx, indeed, its not a gear issue WoW has, its l2p issue. ofc you can't get 10k DPS by hacing blues, but skilled char in blues can easily outdps n00b dk with full t9.
again - good luck with naxx. (which one 10, or 25man?) :D
@Ingmars: healers. The 10/25 depend on people online and ready.
Grats Gevlon. And I agree that your tone is great in this post. I could almost feel the excitement you had writing it. Now march into TOC10!
Good job, Gev.
Bring the Player, not the GearScore. It's not just crazy talk, kids.
Gevlon, congratulations for clearing the ICC heroics full blue!
I didn't think you could make it, at first, but you did, and I'm glad you did.
Take that, M&S!
The reason why most people can't seem to do this, IMO, is because they don't expect heroics (or raids, or anything) to be a challenge. Therefore they slack and wipe and blame gear, because, you know, "it's just Queen Lana'thel, it's not supposed to be hard".
This post explains it better than I: http://www.righteousorbs.com/?p=1307 (from righteous orbs blog)
In that pug raid, the healers insisted on not assign healing targets because "it's just Ony". They wiped. On trash. And isntead of assigning healing targets, they insisted on just faceroll it, because, you know, it's just ony, EJ says it's easy, tankspot video says it's easy, my guild master says it's easy.
The underlying logic: X is easy, if I make an effort on clearing something that it's supposedly easy, then I'll look like a noob, and if I look like a noob "the community" will not respect me (because we all know how important other people's respect is to a social).
This f'cking mentality is in part created by the people that repeated to death, screaming, "WOTLK IS TOO EZ BLIZZ U SUK DIS GAEM IS FOR NUBS"
Hint: Content IS easy ONLY IF YOU KNOW WHAT THE F*CK YOU'RE DOING.
TL,DR: People expect content to be easy, thus they faceroll, then they wipe, then they blame gear, because the content is supposed to be easy (which equals "not requiring any effort to clear").
/end rant
"And if you can't tell who the obnoxious and tactless member of a group is, chances are, it's you."
And sometimes being obnoxious and tactless is what is necessary. FFS guys, don't stand in the fire...
@Rem
Thanks for the inspiration.
Soloed the whole PoS normal thing as i250 avg geared prot paladin.
1shot Forgemaster and Ick. Ick fight lasted more than 10minutes, since most of the fight was just running.
Then the first two "up-the hill" trash packs were a bit of a wipefest. Basicially I had to kill one caster, then corpse run and kill the remaining 4 mobs.
Tyrannus took 3 attempts, the stuns are kinda nasty.
The whole run took 1 hour and 45 minutes.
It's an impressive accomplishement. Well done.
I suspect "brb gotta respec" works a lot better in a guild run than it would in a pug. I know I'd be nervous if some random mage I didn't from Adam's off kodo pulled that I'd be thinking of finding another group.
So how much of a role does class play in all of this? Everyone has nearly identical gear levels, and I'm willing to assume that everyone in the party was quite skilled. But the hunter was really rockin' the meters, while Gevlon's mage was well below what he was putting out in the screenshots from HoS a few days ago. How would a warrior (for example) do, since they scale with gear more than most classes? Shadow priest? Ret pally? I can't see that Blizzard put any effort to tune the classes to have comparable levels of dps in iLevel 200 blues and no epics, since no one outside of Gevlon's projects plays that way. If certain classes can't compete for dps, will you bring them anyway, for their buffs? Or are dps meters going to be the deciding factor? If so, you may end up with 2 tanks, 2 healers, and 6 hunters....
@Ingmars
You wrote "skilled char in blues can easily outdps n00b dk with full t9".
I think one of the points of this article is that what you say is not true. When you can outDPS your foe, then all you need do is burn them down. What Gevlon is doing is showing that when you can't outDPS, you must instead outplay.
I have no doubt that a skilled char in blues cannot easily outdps n00b dk with full t9. To win, the skilled player has to bring to bear qualities other than DPS.
It is the very fact that Gevlon's blue-geared guild can't just rely on DPS that makes their achievements worth discussing. Due to lack of pure DPS, other skills are needed. This is where Gevlon's guild outplays the "n00b", not through outDPSing him.
@Rathsag: I doubt if it has anything to class. I simply damaged way less than I'm used to. Explanations:
* I played much less in FoS-PoS-HoR than others, so I reacted slower to effects, didn't know when do I MUST run and when it's appropriate to stand in the fire a bit. I double-checked if the boss have no mirror or something like that before casting.
* I was properly cautious and the hunter was happily DPS-ing in the fire. Would everyone do the same, the healer couldn't keep us up and we wipe.
Either way someone was not as skilled as could be.
Yes, even in our level the biggest (30-40% DPS difference) factor is skill.
@Dàchéng
"I have no doubt that a skilled char in blues cannot easily outdps n00b dk with full t9."
Oh, they can, easily. Just yesterday I ran an instance with a DK in full T9 who only did 950DPS (quite how is beyond me - he should be able to do more than that with auto-attack!). In contrast, two weeks ago I ran an instance with an alt where a L73 shaman managed 1.7K. You underestimate just how bad some players can be.
@Jana
"Thou shalt not insult thy m8 by pointing out there mistakes"
Actually, it's their, not there. See how annoying petty criticism can be? By all means raise major issues, but going on about every little thing is just irritating.
Excellent job on clearing the new heroics, especially HoR (i consider it to be a notch above the other two).
I just have one question about your FoS run: Why did you use DBM in the first place, when nowadays the default UI tells you everything you need to know? So far the only real benefit I've had when using DBM was the /range feature for Deathbringer Saurfang (even then it wasn't that important since there was so much melee we couldn't spread out far enough).
You should try Ony 10 instead of Naxx 10. I'm pretty sure you can manage and it would a good yardstick for what you're looking for and quicker. Don't stand in the way of the dragon etc. Then again Naxx shows more diversity..
Ony10 is also a lot easier to solo heal than the new heroics (with randoms though), provided your DPS don't do something stupid. We 6 manned Ony a few weeks ago for something to do before our first ever ICC10 run and the only unnecessary damage was our DK took one ignite. We originally intended 5 but someone else wanted to come.
@Dàchéng - with "outdps" i meant it in numbers, but yeah, i got the point.
@Sven
There is a reason, why word "there" is in italics in my post.
These 'minor' errors, if not corrected early, often lead to tragic consequences.
Gevlon sounds totally encouraging in this post! Who knew?!
Don't forget, we have a group building on a US server as well. Same rules and forums as the EU group.
It can probably be done, but I'd like to see you do HoR heroic with something else than a resto druid, like a holy priest or something.
"We played. Can you remember when you played instead of "I must farm this or that"?"
Amen brother! Revel in the challenge!
@Gavlon
grats on the H HOR clear. We wiped 5 times in it one night (guild run) cos ppl cant be bothered to follow tactics. (pally tank complained that turn evil has a too long casting time, people refuse to focus fire/cc)
@Sid
I agree with you, people not only want to play they also lost patience. I have been to many pug raids where halfway doing the first boss ppl started leaving as soon as one person dies or if they think the dps is not high enough or people cant do the encounter with their eyes close & sound turned off. TOC run with ppl leaving the beasts first phase and have 5ppl left on the last beast (guildies are the only ones you sorta can trust these days). Guess what, 5 lesser geared ppl joined and we actually cleared TOC10 after a few wipes (and 7 ppl dinged TOC achievement). Took longer but with ppl trying to put in constructive inputs (and myself & guildie healer insisting on healing / tanking assignments before every pull) I find it more satisfying.
WOTLK had made content too easy and toons too powerful. People expect to faceroll EVERYTHING, even content they never done before and undergeared for. everyone seems to be in a hurry and whinge about how a heroic run lasted longer than 15min... These days people question why you are marking targets for kill orders, even in a raid. Tanks chain pull, dps whinge when healer stops for mana. Try doing a heroic with a mage/lock/mana users these days, you wont have mana at all for most of the instance unless u burn your mana-tide, innervate, mana gem/evocation on EVERY cooldown. And I find it more frequent on the groups with higher GearScore.
(GS should be banned, and so do instance/raid completion achievements)
not to mention you have to have cleared fully a raid before you will be allowed into that raid...
It is interesting
Back in BC and vanilla Wow, people actually stop and go through the fights, assign kill order, cc's for every boss in even the entrace raid Kara and sometimes even if everyone had cleared it before. DBM or such mods are pre-requisits and some pug raids insist on vent. But the difference is that people are more likely to let u in the raid even if you are half blues. Nowadays boss strategy discussion goes like "just go", "gogogo", "hurry up, why are we waiting", and prerequisits "no you are not geared enough for naxx" (to someone with 2 T7 and mostly purples)
and these are the same people, just an expansion later.
I wonder what catalysm brings? "no we cant invite you to "insert entry lvl 85 heroic" cos you are not decked out in T12"
in BC - Green is the new purple (yet people PLAYED and played carefully)
in WOTLK - Purple is the new GREEN (since everyone have them)
Well done guys! I am thinking about rolling a warlock and join your guild as soon as my new computer arrives. I hope it will be fun as the lock class is the only one I haven't played yet as an 80 , and rogue.
To be fair, I am guessing you guys are a HELL of a lot better than the "average" WoW player, you can do Icecrown 5 mans in blue gear because you a good players. The Item check that the game performs is not based on the assumption that you have great players. Yes it is a respectable feat to perform, but don't forget that many people COULD not emulate this feat.
Now, ToC give a challenge that skill cannot really negate: numbers. You need to swap the tanks at gormok at an even number of stacks, or else the timer will screw you over. A blue geared tank is sitting at perhaps 23-24k armour, with a max of 27k life raidbuffed. You will be needing to cycle external cooldowns when Dreadscale enrages or when Anub freezes the MT. You will need to provide enough DPS to pierce multiple shields at valkyr (250k in 15 sec is 17k raid dps).
While it is laudable that you attempt what the game says probably isn't possible, you need to keep in mind that what the devs say won't go, probably wouldn't for a large portion of the player base.
I wouldn't comment normally, but I guess for naysayers and speculating folk here - you can check some hard numbers:
http://www.wow.com/2010/02/04/scattered-shots-skill-vs-gear/
@ Anon above...
Not just that, but that they're doing it without outside co-ordination (ie: guild website and forums, ventrilo, etc).
Don't forget, their guild hasn't hit the ToC raids yet. They still need to organize successful Naxx-level raids before Gevlon moves on to t8 stuff.
This experiment, from my understanding, is to show that all the content is accessible, it just depends on how long you want to wait to see it. Just like at the end of TBC, the upper-tier raids were nerfed into the ground to try to flush through as many players as possible. It is not unreasonable to assume that Blizzard will do the same to WotLK raids as well.
no offense guy, but i don't see your "naysayers" that "said it can't be done. blizz wants you in better gear for random pugs, because you get shitty people. you put a group together and did it. gg, heroics aren't hard, let's all move on?
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