Results tagged “Raids”

... Andro joined a couple of VoA pugs over the weekend. The first was a 10-man group that

was mostly members of a single guild who needed some extra bodies. We targetted Emalon first and despite one little accident, were successful in bringing him down (by first success on him!) followed by a short and brutal slaying of Archavon. A distinct lack of mahe loot though (as ever ... I've yet to see any mage gear there!)

The same group invited me along to Ulduar, but I demured saying my gear (mainly heroic/crafted stuff) wasn't up to it. The person I was chatting with felt I'd be okay, but it soon became irrelevant when they changed the target to the Obsidian Sanctum - as a 25-man raid. I'd only been there once before (on a guild look-see earlier in the week) but we had solid leadership and decent players all round and blitzed out way through. I died once (to the fire waves on Sarth .. it was my first time fighting him) but the raid got him down on the second attempt. As ever, no mage loot though.

My 25-man visits to VoA were another kettle of fish. The first one targetted Emalon first and was doing moderately well until someone disco'd (a healer or tank - not sure which) and things folded. The promptly followed several rounds of recrimination and name calling (my favourite was "Ddo you know who I am? You can't talk to me like that!") and people going "its too hard" (despite putting out something in the region of 30k dps across the raid ...). The raid broke up at that point, but at least as there'd been no boss kill I wasn't saved.

I joined another raid later in the day, and this one blitzed its way to Archavon with no problems. He went down like a sack of spuds ... and then several people immediately hearthed out before any attempt could be made on Emalon. The numbers quickly escalated and the raid folded. Talking on guildchat I gathered it was a common issue and the reason why a lot of raids were going for Emalon first (to avoid people getting locked to a half-complete instance).

So after a bit of guild drama over the raids and their (lack of) success in recent weeks, todays Kara run was quite focussed on its objectives; rather than a long run to Aran we'd head straight for Nightbane and use one of our newly acquired Summoning Urns to bring forth the flaming dragon. Yes, we'd get our butts kicked but at least it wouldn't be accompanied with a long run back ...

And as expected the first few goes weren't successful but they convinced us that once we learned the encounter we should be able to complete it; there were some issues of positioning and others of aggro management but eventually we prevailed. It very nearly wasn't a success though as near the end one of the healers got marmalized, closely followed by the main tank and most of the DPS. Luckily a few people remained standing and were able to tank/dps/heal the last couple of percentage points - so no repeat of Kargath "I'm at 1% ha, ha" Bladefist.

The net result - a learning experience and a new shield for the tank (and extra loot sharded for the guild bank) with a steady run up to Chess for more badges and loot (and shards) to round out the evening. We did contemplate taking Aran too, but the lateness of the hour and the desire to end the evening on a "high note" prompted a graceful retirement at that point.

Edit: The sterling Strobmoli managed to video the entire battle(despite his slight demise mid-fight) which can be seen here

One of the newer members of our guild wanted to do the Deadmines instance so a group of us got out some low level alts and got set to help out. He was having some issues with his kids so the rest of us were chilling at the Summoning Stone while he dealt with them when who should turn up but a level 70 warlock (Deadmines is a level 20 instance and we, at levels 23-24, were somewhat overpowered for it) with her 'friend'.

"Lol, you're all in the same guild," she says (like that's particularly unusual). "You all re-rolls or noobs?" So far so good, save that we're on a roleplay server.
"Reroll? Noob?" Says one of my associates.
"(ooc) We're alts," said another friend.
"Oh, you're roleplayers ..." replied the warlock with some disdain (cue some bickering about Draenai, Paladins and Warlocks before she wandered off with ther 'friend'.)

Now, on its own I might've shrugged that off, but to my mind there's a growing trend in WOW toward elitism and this 'lock came across as condascending because people were roleplaying (on an RP server no less) and that we were somehow inferior (the truth being that our mains were all level 70 kara/heroic-equipped, easily her peers). In the wider WoW world there's been a number of forum posts from people demanding privelages for their 'elite' characters: "I must be allowed to AFK in battlegrounds because I'm a pro duelist", "I should be allowed to create new characters at lvl 70 as I've already levelled x of them", "Only hardcore people should be allowed to get item X", "Only people who have done SSC/BT/MH should be able to play/test new content", "You casuals are ruining the game by getting the attunements for Raid X removed"

Now, I'm a firm believer in TANSAAFL - there's no such thing as a free lunch - and that you have to work a things to progress. That might be attunement quests, gathering mats/money, collecting gear and so on. I'm well equipped given the capability of the guild and am attuned/have keys for many instances. Does this make me better than a new low-level guildee in greys and greens? Not in the slightest - it makes me *capable* of more, not entitled to more. By the same measure, I'll give the people who do the bigger raid instances respect for their achievement and gear but that doesn't make them "better" (save in their ability to marmalize me in PvP :p), just more accomplished.

However, the "I'm elite so treat me better than everyone else" attitude that some people have is something I really dislike; having earned gear and demonstrated some measure of skill, they want *extra* privellages? Okay ...

For example, one one hand I don't think it makes a blind bit of difference if there's open access to Serpentshrine Cavern or The Eye; Small guilds/pugs are still not going to be able to do them - it's down to the skill and gear of the participants and removing the "gatekeeper" quests just demonstrates that; the accomplishments of those raiding those instances remains. Arguments can me made in favor of the "gatekeeper" quests though: One of my guildees made a comment last week, that the Karazhan attunement quest was divisive, splitting the guild into "them and us." I both agree and disagree with this; yes it does divide the guild into those capable of doing it and those not. On the other hand, the attunement isn't that hard nowadays and if you're struggling to do it you'll certainly struggle in Kara and in many regards its a "check" on the character's ability to survive. It's interesting to note that Zul Aman doesn't have an attunement and on our one visit so far we were brutalized. Had there been an attunement quest that made sure we were up to the task would we have done better?

I think Blizzard are in a tough position - they need to cater to the "hardcore" raiders who are wanting more top-end content (hence the addition of the Black Temple et al) but as this is only a small proportion of the WOW-playing population there needs to be stuff for the masses - daily quests etc help to a degree but additions like Zul Aman and the upcoming Sunwell 5-man are needed to give the smaller guilds/more casual players something to aim for and achieve.

One of the issues of being in a smallish guild is that the that I'll probably never get to the biggest and baddest adventure hotspots which are reserved for the 40-man (old world) and 25-man (Outland) raids. In the past the Ravns have scraped together enough people to go visit select Azeroth raid instances, namely Blackrock Spire, Zul Gurub and AQ20, but the bigger locales - AQ40, Onyxia, Blackwing Lair, Molten Core and Naxramas - were pretty much beyond us.

In Outland, the "big" instances are SerpentShrine Cavern, The Eye, Magethiron's Lair, Gruul's Lair and the Black Temple. These are 25-man locales and thus notionally accessible (though the odds on having that many people online within the guild is pretty slim). More accessible is Karazhan (a 10-man run) and the forthcoming Zul Aman (ditto), and after 2 months of regular trips to Kara we're still barely halfway through so theres some mileage there.



I would, however, like one day to adventure in the larger instances (more than just a "sticking head through front door" which is how the attached photos were aquired), though that may (like ZG and AQ20) rely overmatching the locale after levelling with WotLK comes out.