Greedy Goblin

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Better the devil you know?

The damn badge change (aka the welfare epics) had a positive change too. The fun fact is that every time some government tries to make a welfare law to help the poor, it's always some goblin who gets rich and always the "decent middle class" people get the wrong end of the stick.

This case Blizzard wanted "casual" players to get gear. However if you are a skilled player sucking in Plague Quarter because no decent guild has taken you, the badge loot change is the place to make your move.

/gquit the suckerguild. You don't need any guild to run heroics or Naxx pug. If you are in a suckerguild you are bound to boost them. You can't just kick a guildmate from a 5-man just because he does 1200 DPS while you do 2500. However you can kick some random. If you are unguilded, everyone is a random to you, so you can kick any M&S or at least quit the party.

Many people don't dare to leave his bad situation because of the fear of getting to worse. Believe me, if you are in a suckerguild, you can't get any worse. Being without guild is not bad at all:
  • No one asks you to boost him here and there
  • You don't have to suffer any M&S in your group just because he is a "friend"
  • Your chat window is not spammed by childish nonsense
  • You can join successful PuGs, not have to be saved to the failed-before-start Naxx raid of your guild
Granted, a good guild offers several services that makes being member of it desired. The two greatest are scheduled and successful raids, and a list of players capable of doing 5-mans or old raids. But you are not in a good guild. And staying in your suckguild just bring you further from this goal.

Some tips how to be unguilded for badge-gearing up:
  • Don't be unguilded! Social people consider being guilded somehow good (because the person is surely friendly). To counter this, offer 10G for a signature and have a bankguild. Invite some friend's alt, make him guildmaster and make him invite your alt and make it guildmaster. This way you have your bankguild, have a guild tag and can quit it anytime.
  • Purge your friend list and fill it with good PuG-gers. When you see them online, politely ask them if they are planning a 5-man?
  • Be [epic]. While I consider it stupid, lot of people request this to invite you to a PuG. How can you do it, if the point of the whole run is to collect badges?
    • The ranged slot is easy if you are druid, shaman, paladin or DK, you buy it for 25 valor badges. If you are not hunter, spend your first 25 triumph badge on thrown or wand. If you are hunter, see next.
    • Keep in mind you can also buy a badge item, equip it for credit, and sell it back to the vendor, buy another equip it, and so on.
    • At first crafted frost res gear is ilvl213. That's 4 slots. You don't have to wear them, it's enough to equip once to have the achievement
    • Secondly you need only one ilvl 213 ring and trinket to do it. You can swap them to have both slots filled. There goes 2 more slots.
    • You can get "valor bracer" for 3-400G. Spam /trade if you don't see one in the AH. You are up to 7 slots.
    • BoE Ivl 213 boots drops in Naxxramas25. Buy them for around 600G. Up to 8 slots.
    • Buy the remaining 6 items from PvP: cloak, head, shoulder, legs, neck, trinket.
    • Weapon is the tricky thing. No BoE or badge loot is available in this slot. You can get them from arena points if you have 1850 rating, from raids or by farming ToC 5-man HC. So while you in a guild, burn your DKP buying these. In Naxx25 PuGs run for weapons. If you lack this slot, you can still link your [epic] with a comment "I had no luck with weapons".
  • Do the goblin thing and lie. There are two tricks for that, have underachiever addon that allows you to link fake achievements or link someone else's achievement hoping that the group leader is too busy checking the name.
  • Tip: don't bother joining PuG raids for more than Naxx. They usually fail badly wasting your time and repair money. If you want to raid, get a paid spot from a guild.
In the meantime constantly check the application forums of more progressed guilds you can be lucky anytime. Never give up hope on getting into the company of other decent players. You are not doomed to play with M&S.

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

Never heard of that Underachiever mod before; that's definitely the coolest WoW mod I've seen in a while. Props to the guy who made it and thanks for posting it Gev.

Repaxan said...

Keep in mind you can also buy a badge item, equip it for credit, and sell it back to the vendor.

Carl said...

I'm assuming you're pricing the bracers at 3-400g because that's how much you make by spending the same amount of emblems on orbs/gems?

Still it would be hard to find a seller.

Anonymous said...

Heroic ToC weapons are ilevel 219.

Siretu said...

I'm in a good non-sucky guild, so I'm alright. Anyway, Kevmar from the JMTC forums made an addon like the one you talked about in http://greedygoblin.blogspot.com/2009/09/failbot-needed.html

Kudos to him, I know I will use it.

DarkKnight said...

@Siretu: Gevlon knows about that addon, as he also linked to it in his post the day after.

@Underachiever mod: If you use it, don't use stupid achievements or dates of getting them. It gets really easy to spot the fake ones that way.

Joe Nothin' said...

About pug raids:
I pugged totc10 and 25 [normals] sucsessfuly, from start to finish. I tanked with my off spec tank gear, all of it ilvl 200.

TotC10 is easy mode, and made for pugging. Totc25 is slightly harder, but drops great loot and all those great badges with which to get t9.

At this point everyone who bothered to do dailys can have t9 shoulders and gloves as well. Being a casual or just upgrading your guild has never been easier.

Mike said...

...and remember, if you're using an achievement faker to get into a PuG, equipping the cloak you just won might flash up the "epic" achievement on 24 other player's screens too. They will wonder what else you might have been lying about :-)

When pugging with my alt, I find it's better to be truthful and tell the raid leader to check my main on pugchecker to prove I have experience of the raid bosses. I'd guess they hardly ever do, but usually invite me anyway.

I've never been turned down from a pug for being undergeared, as I usually want a /roll at something from that run to improve my toon. If I'm on my pally and running retribution but want to /roll on defence plate, I make it clear to the tank from the very beginning. If they don't like it, I don't go.

Kevin Marquette said...

In my race to purple on one of my alts, as a healer it was very easy. The weekend I hit 80, I just put myself in the LFG tool for most raids.

I found that when people where starting a group, that they would not check me for stats. I did get kicked from a few groups because I was still in quest blues and greens.

That weekend I snuck into nax25/nax10/os25+2/os10/voa25. One tip is to not idle with the group. Someone may inspect you. Stand just outside the zone or off to the wall. You can also constantly jump around the group in big circles.

I found that getting purple was more important than getting epic. When people looked over the gear, even with some pvp pieces, the only items they ever commented on were the blue items.

I found WG a very easy way to pick up 1-2 items. Just hit that timmer every time its up. Before they added the queue, I would do that while leveling 75+.

Anonymous said...

Don't be unguilded! Social people consider being guilded somehow good (because the person is surely friendly).

Experience has taught me that unguilded 80s are guildless for a reason - and that reason is rarely good. Being in a guild isn't a measure of how friendly somebody is, but it can be a good idiot-meter.

Unless, of course, they're in a handful of idiot guilds that my server has - that's also a good warning sign.

The "vanity guild" is a good way to trick people like me. Just don't prove yourself to be a dumbass and there won't be any problems.

Tone-the-bone said...

I'm doing a little experiment on a new server. I have 4 level 80 alliance toons and in a good raiding guild on one server, about 2500+ gear score on my main (to the extent that means anything). I'm pretty good, I know what I'm doing and know all fights in the game.

So my experiment is I created a new horde shaman on another server, with no access to my "cred", but just going to try and sell myself on my sheer skill at the game. I'm currently level 78 and have gotten a few positive comments about how I'm hitting such high dps without even being 80. There is always some resistant to let me in groups, but I feel people are pleasantly surprised when I surpass the fail 80s (this is for reg toc usually). I'm going to see how quickly I can gear and raid with this toon with no resources or connections, so i'll report back.

Bell said...

I enjoy being guildless. Even though now I am in a "serious" raiding guild, there are times I miss it. Some people look at you funny, but it's always nice to be able to show how good you are without being pre-judged by your tag.

That being said, I made a guild for myself to stop all those annoying random guild invites from people in main cities.

Eaten by a Grue said...

I have a question. Is playing WoW a real-life M&S activity? Like, the way we think of idiots who grind raw materials inefficiently or fail at PUGs because they stand in the fire and are not able to advance much in the game, is that what people who succeed in the real world think of people who sit and play WoW instead of doing RL activities that have greater payoffs.

Time is money after all.

Nielas said...

@Eaten by a Grue

Most certainly. It all depends on the frame of reference you use. Gevlon might raid or run his in-game bussiness for 'goblin' reason but he plays the game for 'social' reasons.

Similarly within the frame of reference of a particular actity there might be a 'goblin' and a 'social' way of doing things even though the overall activity might fall directly into one category or the other when considering the 'bigger picture'.

eg. Getting a mechanochopper might be considered a 'social' activity but the actual task might be done in a 'goblin' way or a 'social' way.

Even in this blog Gevlan suggests doing (or at least faking them) 'social' activities in order to achieve an overall 'goblin' goal.

Ends said...

I'm glad my realm hasn't gone to using the [Epic] achievement as a filter because it has been a pain in the ass to get as a healing priest. I've got an average ilvl of 220 across all my gear but I'm still missing the wand slot for the achievement. And the only wand purchasable with badges (triumph badges at that) has hit on it. It is a nice upgrade, but hit on a healer is sure to set off alarms with anyone stupid/snotty enough to be checking the [Epic] achievement in the first place.

Zerohour said...

I agree with the guildless comment. I have 3 personal guilds (2 for AH and one for my alts) and getting invites to things is easier and people don't treat you that badly. I play in a hardcore raiding guild and refuse to guild alts, ever.

I'm above average at playing my alts and the only noobs I find are the morons that look for tanks to do stuff in PUGs. I play druid tank as an alt and I've been kicked from groups for having only 25,000 or so hit points (bear form I'm about 35k without buffs), been turned away because I didn't have Epic (back when bear BIS idols were the Idol of Terror with a level 70 requirement), and even been subbed out before the first pull because someone in raid simply said bear tanks can't hold aggro (I pull insane threat on single target - 10k typically).

On the flip side, I've Pugged with some of the others in the most progressed on the server and have gotten everything from them asking permission to be placed on their friend's lists, invites to future badge grinds, to "Please app to our guild". VOA provides an excellent proving ground for tanks that are looking to guild up, and looking for the progressed guilds pugging in trade is another good place to look (just shift click the name of the LFM spammer to see if it's someone you want to impress). Nobody knows that my main is in a competing guild, so it's kinda funny to see the difference.

Mike said...

@ends

If you have enough badges, buy wand, equip, sell back.

If not, farm Auriaya 10 for http://www.wowhead.com/?item=45713. If the Nurturing Touch isn't the ideal wand for you, trade it with the /roll winner, equip it, give it back.

These 2x changes to the BoE system (badge refunds and in-party trading) have made a mockery of the "link [epic]" system, especially for plate wearers who can pretty much get every slot filled off a single run without taking any loot out of the instance.

For this reason, and because it is so easy to fake, I won't ask for achievements when putting a run together.

goth said...

Well said. My main and alts all have guild banks. I prefer this arrangement and as a healer I feel no remorse leaving a fail pug as I would leaving a fail guild run. The nice thing about being guilded is that you get less requests to join fail guilds. So if they fail on Spider for a badge run I have no problem saying "Hey, this is supposed to be a badge run - I'm not saved so I'm out." CYA

Anonymous said...

If u really want the archievement get some 1k winter done (do 3 weeks 1kw quests) for least ammount of time investment (best case 1,5h) and get your pvp gear at the
merchant -you can give the stuff back so you just go and put one slot on give back and put the next slot on.

Rob Dejournett said...

I have 5 80s now, not a one has the epic acheivemnt. I have one in naxx25/badge gear, and is still missing a cloak. Another the bracer. ETtc etc. I have way too many alts.

Anyway gevlon, to those who shout you down about being goblin about your raiding style, fuck them. Its a game and it's your hard earned money. Does it really matter that someone is better in a meaningless video game than you?

I see the #1 server guys prancing in their stupid ugly mounts with their starfaller titles. Gratz guys. WHile you were doing that I was setting up networks to help the illiterate. Do something meaningful. Don't be confused that all this social stuff in WoW has any meaning or people care at all about it. It doesnt, and at the end you'll discover you spent years of your life chasing pixels.l Dont be that guy. Remember the friends, what you learned from gevlon (i've learned so much IRL stuff from ppl like Gevlon - i'm thinking of running a business just because I now have goblin tendancys, and hey, a M&S is a M&S.)

HowiWeb said...

Love the posts keep them coming. This is what ive always done. I live in my own guild with my 6 80s and some twink/lvling alts. I have my 5 bank tabs to play with. I never get gkicked for dumb reasons and life is good. my friends are on my list and we pug everything. My gear is Epic, gold is flowing, and i enjoy popping achievements in a pug. Woot! On my main server we have a chat channel set up for us ubber pugers. So it's my guild chat of sorts. -ciao