With a new raider (starting as tank on the "impossible"), with still no warrior to shout HP, but this time with enough healers to have a shadow priest (+3% hit, ignores spores).
If you did not read the comments of the old Undergeared posts, you most probably don't understand the "impossible" theme here. Well, Festergut was the patron saint of the GearScore-loving punks. The ones with 80+ IQ came up with obscure math that "proved" that it's impossible to kill Festergut. The ones with less IQ (very common among GS-lovers) just declared that "fester will pwn u lol". This was a running theme among them for long-long time and it got pretty annoying, that's why I took the opportunity to make fun of them.
Of course some of them would take the opportunity to point at the 25% buff, ignoring the fact that I always told that "some bosses may be impossible now, but Blizzard will nerf the instance enough to make it possible". In ICC "the buff" is the nerf.
As always, something to show your "undergeared" guildmates who do 3K "cos i dont have 264 bis lol". Again, this is with 3300GS, no epic gear (and no epic ammo), and DPS lost to vomiting:
After Fester died, we went and did some tries on PP. We have much movement to learn (healers here can't outheal standing in the slime/ooze) but I have no doubt that it will be down, especially since raid DPS was more than enough to kill him before enrage. However PP most probably has one more week to live. First we have another bunch of naysayer punks to handle: "you can only kill these bosses because you have killed them 100000 times on your mains".
If you did not read the comments of the old Undergeared posts, you most probably don't understand the "impossible" theme here. Well, Festergut was the patron saint of the GearScore-loving punks. The ones with 80+ IQ came up with obscure math that "proved" that it's impossible to kill Festergut. The ones with less IQ (very common among GS-lovers) just declared that "fester will pwn u lol". This was a running theme among them for long-long time and it got pretty annoying, that's why I took the opportunity to make fun of them.
Of course some of them would take the opportunity to point at the 25% buff, ignoring the fact that I always told that "some bosses may be impossible now, but Blizzard will nerf the instance enough to make it possible". In ICC "the buff" is the nerf.
As always, something to show your "undergeared" guildmates who do 3K "cos i dont have 264 bis lol". Again, this is with 3300GS, no epic gear (and no epic ammo), and DPS lost to vomiting:
After Fester died, we went and did some tries on PP. We have much movement to learn (healers here can't outheal standing in the slime/ooze) but I have no doubt that it will be down, especially since raid DPS was more than enough to kill him before enrage. However PP most probably has one more week to live. First we have another bunch of naysayer punks to handle: "you can only kill these bosses because you have killed them 100000 times on your mains".
Oh no, Mayas were wrong.
ReplyDelete2012 is coming faster then we all thought.
I love you guys.
ReplyDeleteEven with the buff we get Festergut25 down just before enrage hits. It's emberrassing. It's as if the people get worse the higher the buff stacks because our firstkill back in the day was without the buff should be over a minute earlier now that we have all that shiny 264 gear.
"In ICC "the buff" is the nerf."
ReplyDeletehttp://blue.mmo-champion.com/t/25626102433/bulletted-list-of-my-concerns-for-wow/
Backup for your statement.
One thing I like so much about your recounts from your raids is that you're so straight forward and honest. No drama, no excuses, just the blunt, brief statement of fact that you need to learn the movement in the next fight. I also like that you publish the dmg charts either you top them or not. Because that isn't the issue! And you're showing by doing. As always.
ReplyDeleteWell done!
"First we have another bunch of naysayer punks to handle: "you can only kill these bosses because you have killed them 100000 times on your mains".
ReplyDeleteRuby Sanctum? :D
Good news, everyone. It seems that patch 3.3.5 doesn't wipe Raid IDs. We can continue our progress merrily.
ReplyDeleteIf I remember correctly, the math was done with 20% buff.
ReplyDeleteYou had 25%. Who would have thought 5% increase in damage/healing would make difference?
At any rate, nothing from stopping you from finishing the instance in normal. LK is all about positioning and not standing in stuff. Your group seems to be good at that.
Well done, and good luck on Putricide. Berserk timer is a non-issue and oozes and gas clouds require a cup of l2p above everything else. The DPS and healing requirements really apply only to phase3, and that you should easily manage by speccing differently. Might actually be easier than Festergut in regards of gear.
ReplyDelete@chase: Actually, most ppl that provided math used the 30% buff.
ReplyDeletewhen I did "the math" it was with their combat logs with the 20% buff with the caveat that the next 5% would kill the boss. And I was vindicated in my opinion. 25% came, and the boss dropped.
ReplyDeleteNow go kill the rest of the instance.
Interesting how everyone seems to be backpedaling now by trying to minimize how much they were wrong.
ReplyDelete"oh but I calculated for 20% so I'm still right!!"
@ Fetzie
ReplyDeleteThe early math, made when we first set foot into ICC, accounted for 30% buff and still told us we couldn't do it.
I believe someone said something in the lines of "why even go into ICC when it's mathematically impossible to go further than Festergut?"
Answer: we love to beat the odds.
@ chase
5% extra buff did make a difference, like when we went after Saurfang.
This time we killed Festergut with 10s to spare, the first time we survived two über pound phases. Having the 20% buff would only make us have to use exotic strats for pushing some more dps while surviving the fight (which was what we were focusing at first, since we had new healers)
The LK actually has pretty tight dps and healing requirements, even if it's a 15 minute fight. Valkyrs need to die, Raging and Vile Spirits need to die, and none of these can be killed slowly.
Infest is tough to heal if it lasts too long, Soul Reaper does insane amounts of damage on properly geared tanks. The LK is also about numbers, not just moving out of stuff.
I'd like to see how our healers do in a 15 minute fight, since the longest fight we had was 9 minute long (Blood Princes) and we had a 4th healer to pick up the slack, which we can't afford on LK.
here's the first shady math proving we can't do Festergut even with 30% buff.
ReplyDeleteThere are other such examples: here, here (hardcore raid stacking and major dps improvements!), here.
Very, very impressive. I dont think many bealived in the beggining.
ReplyDeleteAll I can say now is that PP will go down soon, its not so much about output. BQL is probably very much possible too, Sindragosa.. why not, its more about blocks than dmg from what I see. She might even drop before BQL.
But LK... I dont think so. Only getting to transition before 3rd Horror spawns is just about enough for 5 dpsers doing 6-8k. Getting Valkyrs fast enough, spirits so you can actually DMG LK etc. Probably not in blue gear, but I may be wrong! Not to mention the dmg that needs to be healed, with your tanks taking quite a lot more dmg than tanks in... somewhat appropriate gear I'll say ;).
Good luck none the less, you might impress us all. There still will be another 5% and maybe some additional nerfs.
Congratulations! If you remember, I hoped you will prove me wrong and you did. As far as I can remember, you told me in a response to my comment, that you have plan for Fester, so your plan was simply to wait for 25% buff, right? Anyway, congratulations, lets see what happens in the PuG, when I finish leveling my character.
ReplyDeleteYou think the ENRAGE is your biggest worry?
ReplyDeleteThe entire room is going to be covered in goo long before that. And no, I'm not talking about your abom. You know damn well what I'm referring to. You're going to drown in plague.
Solution for LK: all DPS reroll Warlocks!
ReplyDeletehehehe
"You think the ENRAGE is your biggest worry?"
ReplyDeleteWe've seen last time it isn't.
Our greatest worry is the "soft" enrage timer provided by Mutated Plague + Mutated Strength. Our tanks were getting gibbed after a bit into P3, healing the Professor and screwing things up.
Maybe phase 3 is a good time for healing capable dps to throw in some helping heals.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteWhen my guild first did PP25 in pre-ICC-buff era, what we did is let a paladin tank die by DI-ing one of the DPS and then getting combat rezzed.
ReplyDeleteThe advantage is that you reset the stacks to buy enough time for your tanks to live and the dps to kill him.
Congratulations! I hope you get the Lich King too, though it's a slightly crazy thought that you could really do all of WOTLK's normal raids in blues. I wonder how far one could have got in blues at level 70; not nearly as far I reckon.
ReplyDeletehow about a simple 3 tank scenario at PP ?
ReplyDeleteaoe damage is very low with 2-3 stacks in p3
To be honest I'm usually a naysayer to most of your projects due to either the reasoning behind them or logic used, but this project continues to impress me, I think it genuinely is a useful insight into what can be achieved while wearing lower quality gear and using some nice teamwork.
ReplyDeleteBig grats to the team! You guys deserve this.
ReplyDeleteAlso, props to whoever that hunter is at the top of your charts :P Represent!
@Shintar: As far as those evel 70 raids, I'm not sure how much would have been possible in the original TBC-world, I remember I was unhittable already going into Karazhan, but a lot of DPS and Health requirements were tuned more towards pure gear cheacks, while WotLK is tuned more in favor of skillful play.
ReplyDeleteI do remember that even slight upgrades of Weapons seemed to help so much more and slacking dps hurt a lot in World-of-Enragecraft.
@LK encounter and Soul Reaper:
In contrast to most other enragebosses in the xpac, is the Lich King actually tuned to be a tightly controlled burn encounter with a hell of a lot of distractions from dpssing.
You should be able to meet the dps requirements at the latest with 30%, though.
A soul reaper-infest-melee triad will require an excellent CD coordination on the tanks though.
I'd recommend one Palatank and a Priest healer for a nice synnergy in argent defende, guradian spirit and a tank switch divine sacrifice(guardian talented) to take care of that.
Hope you get the adds down fast enoguh.
"Even with the buff we get Festergut25 down just before enrage hits. It's emberrassing. It's as if the people get worse the higher the buff stacks..."
ReplyDeletecause its doable for everyone... so you dont have to push it to the limit. on the other hand you need a gs of over 9000. confusing...
"how about a simple 3 tank scenario at PP ?"
ReplyDeleteThat would probably bring back the Enrage timer as a concern to the table, which I don't think anyone wants.
A plate dps taking a few stacks however ...
@ Okraine
If the DI doesn't pass the plague to PP and heal him, might be a good thing to try out, if we get the composition for it.
@ Anon (14:11)
A DK tank can eat the Soul Reaper 50k tick every two Soul Reapers with AMS.
I've healed this encounter on my druid and I can say that healing will probably be the most pressed part of it.
'But LK... I dont think so.'
ReplyDeleteArthas: The New Festergut.
I'm going to piss myself laughing when LK drops.
@Anonymous: 'Interesting how everyone seems to be backpedaling now by trying to minimize how much they were wrong.
"oh but I calculated for 20% so I'm still right!!"'
That's exactly what they're doing. Wonder what they'll do after LK dies, huh? 'lol that just icc10 you cnat do 25 lololol' 'u cant do hardmods in blue gaer lol ur GS is 2 low'
And you gotta wonder... how many of these same idiots have even seen hardmode or 25m?
That having been said, i think this project is foredoomed to failure. Not because LK won't die: he will. But because the socials still won't admit that they're the ones carrying these M&S. There was a link to a forum post in the comments section about a week back - that convinced me more than anything that even killing LK in blues won't get the message across.
The posters argued about the use of GS and declared that Gevlon's band was in the top 1% of WoW players (a point i'm not exactly prepared to deny; it seems that any competent player is in the top 1%) but not more than a handful of them got the point of the post - that if your guild is in full 264, and you can't do what Undergeared is doing, something is badly, badly wrong.
I have to mostly agree with Catsevii. Your achievement is a testament to good players working well together. Whether that proves the rest of wow world is just stupid doesn't really matter.
ReplyDeleteIf I can't win a gold medal at an Olympic cycling event does that mean I shouldn't ride my bike just because I enjoy it ? No, of course not.
It's awfully convenient that as Undergeared progresses deeper into the instance, the ICC buff increases in power.
ReplyDelete>I wonder how far one could have got in blues at level 70; not nearly as far I reckon.
ReplyDeleteIllidan was killed by a Chinese guild mostly in Naxxramas-gear. I don't remember accurately how close it was in quality to 70 blues (and of course they had the gear they had received before Illidan), but based on that knowledge, it is reasonable to assume that tier4, tier5 -content and Hyjal, as well as first bosses of Black Temple should have been doable.
Not the overtuned (or buggy) versions some bosses were initially, but the form they were before 30% health/melee damage nerf.
This is the single greatest project I know of in WoW. I really wish I could be a part of it. Alas the case of the incredible shrinking wallet!
ReplyDeleteCongratulations guys!
ReplyDeleteKeep proving M&S myths wrong =)
"Even with the buff we get Festergut25 down just before enrage hits. It's emberrassing. It's as if the people get worse the higher the buff stacks because our firstkill back in the day was without the buff should be over a minute earlier now that we have all that shiny 264 gear."
ReplyDeleteThat's because some of your people aren't raiders. It's your guild leadership's fault... they need to crack down.
We have the same problem.
Here's an example.
We have an Arcane Mage that is a regular on our raids, she's also the "Mage Captain" and has years of experience raiding as a Mage.
Pro, right?
Wrong.
I don't know anything about being an Arcane Mage. But the 'rotation' seems pretty clean... Arcane blasts to build up the stack, then Arcane Missiles for the big damage.
I see from the logs that Gevlon does 56% of his damage from Arcane Blast, and 38% from Arcane Missiles.
Our mage does 78% from Arcane Blast, and only 18% from Arcane Missiles.
Let's analyze really fast.
Oh look! She's using rank 10 of Arcane Missiles instead of rank 13 like Gevlon is. (OMFG! /faceplant)
Gevlon uses the Missile Barrage proc right away by casting Arcane Missiles when it hits (I can see this in the log). He's obviously alert for it and wants that huge boost in Arcane Missiles.
I don't think our mage is even aware it exists. Missile Barrage procs, then just sits there for a long time.
Arcane Blast debuff. Gevlon allowed the stack to hit 4 only once in the fight. (The debuff status is color coded in the debuff details, there are 4 grades, you can see the stacks build up and get used over the course of the fight)
Our mage keeps casting Arcane Blast even at 4 many times without sequeing it to an Arcane Missiles.
Gevlon's strategy is clear after looking at the logs. Cast Arcane Blast until it has 4 stacks or Missile Barrage hits, then cast Arcane Missiles.
Both mages have 5 points in Missile Barrage.
chewy:
ReplyDelete"If I can't win a gold medal at an Olympic cycling event does that mean I shouldn't ride my bike just because I enjoy it ? No, of course not."
What you do on your own time is your business. But if your friends are doing their best to race their bikes competitively, you have no right to insist they drag you along "Because you enjoy it".
this is so strange, where are all the cultists of the "festermath cult"? an Undergeared topic with zero naysayers is completely weird.
ReplyDeleteit's funny how people reacts when you prove they're wrong.
@Tomasz
ReplyDeleteYes it is awfully convenient. The undergeared "mission" paraphrased is to clear all Wotlk content, *after all the nerfs and buffs*. At first we didnt even think we would enter ICC without the 30% buff. The point is not to prove you cannot do this without the nerfs and buffs.
"it is reasonable to assume that tier4, tier5 -content and Hyjal, as well as first bosses of Black Temple should have been doable."
ReplyDeleteI didn't tank in any BC raids, but as a healer and a dps, I absolutely could have pulled my weight in blues for the BT and Hyjal fights that my middle of the road guild saw (6/9, 4/5 down before 3.0 nerf, cleared both easily the first week after 3.0).
In fact, some of the better players who had 70 alts sometimes brought them in blues when we needed a certain class and did acceptably well. I began raiding in black temple and hyjal in a combination of blues, pvp and epic crafted gear and held my own. I had to wear more pvp and stam gear on Najentus which brought my dps down to around 800ish instead of the usual 10-1200, but that's still high enough that 15 of me dpsing could have beaten the fight.
Gear became a hard core issue in sunwell, where you really couldn't beat brutallus without a ton of T6 gear (and the right class composition).
"I don't know anything about being an Arcane Mage."
ReplyDeleteI do. My first raider was a mage. I switched to a druid for wrath, but I've kept up with the theory and was putting out 5k+ with no problem in my mishmash of blue and early epic gear (score ~4000) when I did run him in raids. Gevlon is probably better as i'm rusty, but I know the drill.
"Oh look! She's using rank 10 of Arcane Missiles instead of rank 13 like Gevlon is. (OMFG! /faceplant)"
Well, that's pretty seriously unPro, I admit.
"Arcane Blast debuff. Gevlon allowed the stack to hit 4 only once in the fight. Our mage keeps casting Arcane Blast even at 4 many times without sequeing it to an Arcane Missiles."
This is actually a decision. It's conceivable that both are correct. The max raw dps rotation is to cast arcane blast until you have 4 stacks *and* MB procs, then cast Arcane missiles. Casting AM without both missile barrage and the 4 buff stack is a dps loss, and would only be done for one of two reasons:
1. MB has procced with less than 4 stacks of debuff, but you will have to move/change phase/whatever shortly and the buff/debuff could fall off if you don't use it now.
2. The rotation as given above would run you out of mana before the end of the fight.
If mana is an issue, then it makes sense to cast AM whenever missile barrage procs, and it also makes sense to cast arcane missiles when your debuff hits 4 stacks, even if MB hasn't proc'd yet.
Gevlon is doing this in blue gear, so it is quite likely he doesn't have the mana and regen to sustain the standard rotation, especially in 10s. So he's using a rotation that does slightly less dps than max, but does not endanger his mana pool. In terms of total raw dps at EJ gear levels, it's actually better to evocate on cooldown than to cast AM without MB proc regularly, but I'm going to assume Gevlon's calculated this out and is doing it correctly for his own gear.
But the point is, if you have a 5k+ gearscore, you probably have plenty of mana to sustain the standard rotation, and even if you don't (or you just get very unlucky with MB procs), evocating is better than doing the hard core mana saving step of casting an unprocced arcane missiles.
Given your mage using the wrong rank of spell, I'd guess he/she's probably doing other things wrong as well, but this alone is not necessarily the problem.
Well, since so many people want to hear from the Festergut doubters, I will say hello. I underestimated the capabilities of several of the people in the guild (well done, Ul and Chop) and was proven wrong. It was an impressive performance, and I have no problem admitting this. Too bad Gevlon felt the need to cheapen it with his "Nyah! nyah! 80 IQ!" comment.
ReplyDeleteThis has been interesting to watch, and I look forward to seeing what lies down the road.
Your project is very impressive, but what would be even better is if you cleared ICC with nobody using any addons. I mean, purples are just a part of the game Blizzard made. But addons aren't. It's similar to using cheat codes.
ReplyDeleteTo Gnome of Zurich,
ReplyDeleteI imagine you're the same Gnome of Zurich who started the US branch. How's that going? I hear you got at least a couple of new recruits, any luck with them?
"Proving the retards wrong, one raid boss at a time." :)
ReplyDeleteLove your work.
Elli @ Khaz'Goroth.
@ Anonymous /w Mage Captain - does she have T10? gear? If not, then her 'max DPS' rotation is simply the Arcane Blast spam during Heroism/Bloodlust, especially if you have a Druid to provide Innervate.
ReplyDeleteABx4 -> MBAM is the highest DPS for people who have the mana to maintain it, as The Gnome of Zurich points out. ABxX -> MBAM (as soon as you get a proc) is a significantly higher mana efficiency rotation, but comes with fairly lower DPS, especially if you don't have T10 (as Gevlon doesn't). But saving the mana and lasting the whole fight is more important OOMing at a bad place.
Arcane Missiles should really only be fired when you have an MB proc. If it's about mana efficiency, you get better turnover by using Arcane Barrage to clear your AB stacks than using AM without MB. Your mage keeps using AB to 'fish' for a proc, that's why she sits for long periods of time on 4 stacks.
But the Rank 10 issue is pretty disturbing though.
Illidan was killed by a Chinese guild mostly in Naxxramas-gear.
ReplyDeleteThis seems to be a persistant rumour. They simply equipped their T3-sets for posing purposes.
As for addons, Blizzard has in the past admitted that they assume addons will be used and as such design encounters accordingly. Plus, they have pretty good control over what addons can and can't do, so it's hardly cheating.
Plus, M&S guilds use addons, so why wouldn't we?
Lastly, some guy posted a reply in the official forums along the lines of "even if you did ICC in vanilla greens I'd still ask for high GS". I guess some people are simply irredeemable...
"Lastly, some guy posted a reply in the official forums along the lines of "even if you did ICC in vanilla greens I'd still ask for high GS". I guess some people are simply irredeemable..."
ReplyDeleteYeah, of course. You're not proving anything to anyone except for yourselves. You're not going to change anything, change any minds or hearts. Do it for the fun - and that's it. It will all be forgotten in a week when Cataclysm arrives, anyway.
I was wrong! Oh noes.
ReplyDelete*Takes down Festergut's photo from the shrine and replaces it with Sindragosa's*
There, found a new god.
Congratulations btw. I didn't know you could do it, but you did it and proved me wrong. It's great, your experiment is a smashing success.
Now, Sindragosa will be impossible! (Well, if you really don't think that, I suggest practicing getting healers to chain CDs on the tanks in P3. Coordination lots.)
@ Ardoric.
ReplyDeleteThere's a difference between 'and' and 'or' in logic. Don't throw your strawman argument at me, especially since it's so transparent.
Fact is, there was a major DpS increase between Saurfang and Festergut. I'll place that with the practice people got with tightening rotations between them. The damage pulled was more than the arithmetic indicated due to the buff alone.
Gloating is fine, but when you start putting words in my mouth, then we have a problem.
"Lastly, some guy posted a reply in the official forums along the lines of "even if you did ICC in vanilla greens I'd still ask for high GS". I guess some people are simply irredeemable..."
ReplyDeleteIf you can't see the difference between a Trade Chat PuG and your guild, then I don't know what to say.
Fact is, ask Gevlon, or read his blog. What's the purpose of a guild? Keeping morons out.
What cannot be done by a trade chat PuG leader within 30 or so seconds allocated for each invitee? That's right, keeping morons out.
I know precisely what the aim of the project is: "You don't have to carry bad people in your raid. Here's proof."
Ok, fine. Can you also tell me how to find a 'bad person' without seeing them in the raid first? No?
Then, THAT is why I'll still ask for high GS for my PuG from trade joiners. Obviously, people whom I know are good (alts of competitive guilds people, and so forth) are free to join with a less stringent requirement.
But gear evaluation is still the easiest form of evaluation available. And by that, I don't mean only GS, but proper epic gems in every single slot and full enchants.
Congratulations on the kill once again, but I remain a nay-sayer. Once again, not because I doubt you can beat the Lich King. I believe you can and I think you'll do it quite handily. I just don't believe it will mean anything to most people. Honestly it's not like the fact that some people are terrible at the game is any great surprise to anyone and what you're doing simply isn't far enough off the beaten path to really shake up anyone who hasn't already accepted that.
ReplyDeleteLike I've said, maybe if you'd done this months ago when downing the Lich King on normal meant something it would be different, or if you'd done it really quickly on the order of three or four new bosses a week, but neither of those is the case.
Right now the most you'll accomplish when you finish is a comment on MMO champion or some talk about it in the forums before it's forgotten like all the other feats people have done over the years. You simply won't get people changing their ways because of what you're doing, at this point it's entirely for your own satisfaction. If you expect anything else, prepare to be disappointed.
"I imagine you're the same Gnome of Zurich who started the US branch. How's that going? I hear you got at least a couple of new recruits, any luck with them?"
ReplyDeleteYeah, there are a few new people, but they are rerolls. we still have only 5 80s.
I've admittedly been pretty lax since it became clear we wouldn't be pushing the EU crowd at all, and have started playing more on another server than TFC.
Not having my own blog with a readership (or anyone else to lead who does) made a huge difference in recruiting and in keeping up interest.
But if there's some more interest, I'll go back and check in more often, and schedule some runs when a couple more people hit 80.
Just gotta say it. I'm loving "Undergeared". I can't help but agree with everything you're doing. And the worst part is, my instant tendancy is to say "I wish I could join but I don't have the time". /fail me. Well that and I'm on US servers and living in Australia!
ReplyDeleteSkill > Gear always