Support NeoGAF

[Sirpopopop]

The fights aren't completely telegraphed by a script and CT_Raid, no -- but I don't think that was really my point in the first place (just that they're heavily scripted).

Here is what you said:

All the action is automated. All the major boss encounters are heavily scripted, and if that wasn't enough you've got CT_Raid telling you exactly what's about to happen.

That is what I was contesting. You say that with CT Raid you can tell "exactly" what's going to happen. I said this is false. That was your point - PVE doesn't have any abilities that test your ability to react because it's all so predictable. I pointed out elements in my first post that do require you to react.

Also, CT Raid doesn't tell you how to avoid many of the elements that I noted in my first post on this matter. It also doesn't you what's about to happen for all encounters. For some encounters it just notes who gets targeted with a mob debuff, after the fact.

They're highly predictable, and success is more-or-less dependent on rote training. You can probably teach any group of 40 people to clear BWL if they were willing to learn and not a bunch of douchebags. OTOH, you couldn't put 10-20 people together and make them one of the world's best Halo clans.

Ehh... just because you beat a boss encounter after many others do, doesn't mean you are dealing with the same zone. When MC first came out - even with boss mods, it was still a tough zone. Also, neither can any group of 40 clear BWL. There are annoying twitch elements to that zone, which sucks for people with shit computers. The zone also requires complete precision for some bosses.

Also, sure, your analogy is correct, but your original point was a lack of dynamic elements to the fight. You believe that the fights are easily anticipatable and that things do not go as predicted. I just decided to use MC, to note that even in the most predictable zone, it's not completely *rote*. BWL would shatter your argument to pieces. Those bosses might be scripted, but... they don't obey a specific plan to a tee. There are bosses where you know the strategy exactly, but shit can still happen.

At the end of a boss battle, I don't feel particularly skilled or anything. If we wipe, I don't blame lack of skill so much as I just blame certain people not following through on some relatively easy, mostly automated procedures. Nobody seems to say "We need more skill" so much as they say "We need a better strategy" or "We fucked up when we didn't do x".

Why isn't figuring out a strategy a skill? So are you saying that strategy games that are turn based aren't based on skill? That's what end game raiding is... essentially a strategy game featuring 40 individual units that you don't have complete control over.

I would say pvp is analagous to a real time strategy game .

If patterns in a platformer or shooter are legitimately difficult to deal with and require a particularly high level of ability, then yeah it's a skillful game (essentially my thoughts are the same as etiolate's.) I just don't seem much player skill required for WoW combat.

WoW combat like most RPGs isn't based upon clickfest action. Just because a game doesn't feature clickfest action doesn't mean that it doesn't have skill. On the contrary your definitions of skill are very narrow minded and pretty much excludes any game that isn't twitch based.

 

[YakiSOBA]

Hey, have any of you guys tried out the new and improved Hakkar?

Wow, it's so much more effort now for such crappy lewt, SO not worth it. Blizz should have updated loot table for Hakkar along with the patch, ugh.

It's not so much that its harder, just more thought needs to go into it now.

We had 3 MT's fighting for aggro, and instead of grouping up everyone else for ranged attacks we spread everyone apart (Hakkar uses something called cursed blood, 1000dmg+1000 DoT dmg+affects everyone in 10yd radius of target).

Life syphon comes every 90 secs, so we pulled a son of hakkar every 60 secs, got poisoned and Hakkar drained the poison -- BUT they totally nerfed the amount he drains, he lost something like ~2% hp from draining all 20 of us -_-

 

[xabre]

I'm a little pally
Short and stout
Here is my hammer, here is my mount
When i get in trouble
I scream and shout
Pop a shield and Hearthstone out

 

[Liu Kang Baking A Pie]

Hey, have any of you guys tried out the new and improved Hakkar?

Wow, it's so much more effort now for such crappy lewt, SO not worth it. Blizz should have updated loot table for Hakkar along with the patch, ugh.

It's not so much that its harder, just more thought needs to go into it now.

We had 3 MT's fighting for aggro, and instead of grouping up everyone else for ranged attacks we spread everyone apart (Hakkar uses something called cursed blood, 1000dmg+1000 DoT dmg+affects everyone in 10yd radius of target).

Life syphon comes every 90 secs, so we pulled a son of hakkar every 60 secs, got poisoned and Hakkar drained the poison -- BUT they totally nerfed the amount he drains, he lost something like ~2% hp from draining all 20 of us -_-

It's still easy, you just can't go AFK for the whole fight and wait for a Hunter to kill a Son on top of you anymore.

Edit: I'm surprised anyone could say the loot is crappy when the loot includes Heart of Hakkar mage/warlock trinket, Zin'rokh, Aegis of the Blood God, Cloak of Consumption, Eye of Hakkar, Fang of the Faceless, Warblades of the Hakkari, Bloodsoaked Legplates, Peacekeeper Gauntlets, Bloodcaller, Gurubashi Dwarf Destroyer, or Touch of Chaos.

Really, his whole loot table is incredible for such an easy fight, and everything in there is either on par or better than what you can get in MC. It's definitely better than any blues, and there's sure to be a blue-wearer or two minimum in any ZG raid.

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

and on an unrelated note (and maybe this video's been posted before, i don't want to search through the whole thread to see though): http://www.youtube.com/w/The-Deadmines-Secret?v=qeMWOJn5o0s

video of some gnome mage glitching out and finding outland.

Haha. I love stuff like this. GIMME BACK MY MOUTAIN GOATING BLIZZ!!! >_<


Hakkar is definately different; we've been getting close, but no cigar. We're guessing it's a troop placement problem and are thinking accordingly.

 

[Ferrio]

It's been a bitch and a half to do it, but I got all the arcanite, and enough money for the flux. Just need some more elementium ore to drop. Oh and blizzard to get some fucking sense knocked into them and fix the weapon.

 

[Ramirez]

Hakkar's loot table crap? :lol

We had a binding drop this past week off Geddon,went to our MT...

 

[YakiSOBA]

Edit: I'm surprised anyone could say the loot is crappy when the loot includes Heart of Hakkar mage/warlock trinket, Zin'rokh, Aegis of the Blood God, Cloak of Consumption, Eye of Hakkar, Fang of the Faceless, Warblades of the Hakkari, Bloodsoaked Legplates, Peacekeeper Gauntlets, Bloodcaller, Gurubashi Dwarf Destroyer, or Touch of Chaos.

Really, his whole loot table is incredible for such an easy fight, and everything in there is either on par or better than what you can get in MC. It's definitely better than any blues, and there's sure to be a blue-wearer or two minimum in any ZG raid.

LOL -- wait till you have BWL on farm status young grasshopper.

 

[dave is ok]

LOL -- wait till you have BWL on farm status young grasshopper.

...because no guild has people undergeared for MC/BWL.

 

[Liu Kang Baking A Pie]

LOL -- wait till you have BWL on farm status young grasshopper.

This was you just a month ago:

Hey, quick question...

The guild im in has recently started tackling end-game stuff, like ZG and MC.

ZG we have guild-only runs, but for MC we aren't big enough to do guild-only, so we do it with another similarly sized guild.

Do most guilds start out this way? Ally with another guild and do runs until they're big enough to solo it with guild-only members?

Thanks

And then this two weeks ago:

Woot, finally got the last piece of stormrage for mine druid today!

*does the happy dance*

So, I don't know what to believe from you, but if you really have 8/8 Stormrage and you're in a raid alliance that's just now doing ZG and MC, why are you expecting anything good from Hakkar, a boss meant to be completed by those gearing up for MC? And why would he be any trouble at all for you? Whether you have multiple alts or what, I'd think someone with 8/8 Stormrage on one of your characters would know enough about the game to know exactly what to expect from Hakkar both in terms of strategy and loot.

 

[speshylives]

Man I guess I'm in the wrong guild. I have 1 piece of Nightslayer in a month. :lol

 

[Azwethinkweiz]

Certain guilds have certain luck with different sets. It took me like 5 months just to get 6/8 Giantstalker. Now that we're in BWL, I've gotten 5/8 Dragonstalker in 1 month. Frickin' awesome.

 

[dave is ok]

This was you just a month ago:And then this two weeks ago:

So owned. Sounds like he joined a superguild that already had BWL on farm status and collected his loot. GG

P.S. You lose at life YakiSOBA

 

[YakiSOBA]

This was you just a month ago:And then this two weeks ago:So, I don't know what to believe from you, but if you really have 8/8 Stormrage and you're in a raid alliance that's just now doing ZG and MC, why are you expecting anything good from Hakkar, a boss meant to be completed by those gearing up for MC? And why would he be any trouble at all for you? Whether you have multiple alts or what, I'd think someone with 8/8 Stormrage on one of your characters would know enough about the game to know exactly what to expect from Hakkar both in terms of strategy and loot.

Yeah, I joined an end game guild. They have everything on farm status, so now I'm totally epixxed out the ying yang. I guess some people would rather work with a guild all the way through, but I don't like the idea of spending hours of my day only to wipe at trash mobs *lawls @ you*

How does joining an end-game guild make me suck at real life? How does a video game have anything to do with real life? @_@

 

[dave is ok]

LOL -- wait till you have BWL on farm status young grasshopper.

...

Hey remember when you wrote that?

 

[Liu Kang Baking A Pie]

Yeah, I joined an end game guild. They have everything on farm status, so now I'm totally epixxed out the ying yang. I guess some people would rather work with a guild all the way through, but I don't like the idea of spending hours of my day only to wipe at trash mobs *lawls @ you*

How does joining an end-game guild make me suck at real life? How does a video game have anything to do with real life? @_@

You probably shouldn't be calling me "young grasshopper" when you're just riding your guild's coattails to victory, while I've stuck it out and dealt with the millions of wipes to get as far into BWL as my guild has. While I don't blame you for taking the opportunity and running with it, your in-game experience has not been as rich as mine has, and your arrogance doesn't go well with your moose horns.

 

[speshylives]

You know the best part of MC is growing through it, and wiping..and wiping again. When you do get over the hump and see those purples drop, it's a sweet reward. I recently joined this guild after some mergers, and in our first few weeks of running MC as a guild, we currently have Luci, Mag and Gehennas down without issue. We're going for our second shot at Garr tonight (he really wrecked us on shot one due to lack of healers.)

(fixed idiot typo) Am I a little late to the party? Yeah.

Is your "gear" better than mine? Yeah.

Am I having a fucking blast learning to go through this with these people? Yes!

 

[Son of Godzilla]

Haha, you know a guy is dickcheese when you side with Baking a Pie.

 

[Sirpopopop]

Haha, you know a guy is dickcheese when you side with Baking a Pie.

QFT and for emphasis.

 

[YakiSOBA]

lol "dickcheese" never heard that one

 

[Joe]

anyone else play in window mode? everytime i jump to another program then back to WoW my wow volume is ALL the way up and i have to go into sound options all the time to knock the master volume down to make the volume where i set it.

anyone else have this problem? is there a fix for it?

 

[Liu Kang Baking A Pie]

anyone else play in window mode? everytime i jump to another program then back to WoW my wow volume is ALL the way up and i have to go into sound options all the time to knock the master volume down to make the volume where i set it.

anyone else have this problem? is there a fix for it?

Ctrl+M.

There's also Moki's Sound Volume Fix mod from patch 1.1 or something that maybe still works.

 

[Fusebox]

Y I don't like the idea of spending hours of my day only to wipe at trash mobs *lawls @ you*

Yes, lawls at everyone who went in before you and had fun learning, creating and tweaking the strategies that have gotten you the gear you're wearing now, lawls at us indeed.

 

[Ramirez]

Haha, you know a guy is dickcheese when you side with Baking a Pie.

:lol :lol

 

[ManaByte]

:lol :lol :lol :lol

there's a guild on Dark Iron called "I Wish I Could Quit You"

:lol :lol :lol :lol

 

[fallout]

You know the best part of MC is growing through it, and wiping..and wiping again. When you do get over the hump and see those purples drop, it's a sweet reward.

You know, I've found this with just about any instance. It doesn't matter if people are friends or not ... if you find a group of people who have never run something before, you don't care what drops when it's all said and done. If you're just in it for the loot though, bitterness arises, you get mad, etc.

Haha, you know a guy is dickcheese when you side with Baking a Pie.

:lol

 

[WedgeX]

The war effort finally started on Gul'dan today.

Busiest IF has ever been on the server :lol

 

[Ryu]

Picked up a Styleen's Scarab yesterday and today we downed Nefarion for the first time. Good stuff -- couple of priest robes dropped. There's nothing that compares to 40 people hooting and "howl"ering when an end game mob drops for the first time.

 

[firex]

let me reiterate: fuck AV. MC is a clusterfuck of a mess if you tried to do it as a 40 man pug, why does blizzard think AV would be any better?

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

let me reiterate: fuck AV. MC is a clusterfuck of a mess if you tried to do it as a 40 man pug, why does blizzard think AV would be any better?

The problem with AV is lack of discipline; if at least 15 people on your side do the right stuff at the right times, the zerg making up the rest will have the raw manpower to make it stick. I've never lost an AV on Bloodscalp, and runs in under 1 hour are common. Here's some successful strats that make that lightning run:

Warriors need to Fear Bomb the frontlines whenever it's up and attract attention for charges, (shock troopin') on offense, intercept Rogues ganking healers back in the lines, and tank the odd Elite when they need corraling. I used to do this on Vaclav to great effect; I'd Charge, Fear Bomb, then Intercept someone way back in their lines and they'd fall for it EVERY time! Hell yeah I died like a mofo, but the run back was longer every time.

Rogues need to group up, preferably with a druid for healing and generally break out the commando deep in their territory. Knocking off GYs, capping towers, farming the Rider's mats, etc.; just causing havoc. 4 and a drewd can easily hold a GY till enough zerg comes to weaken their frontline, or cause rubbernecking ganking from people just now rezzing if the timing's off on the cap, thus making it good either way. Mix with a big offensive push or attack on a commander is insanely effective.

Hunters should AoE and lay down Freeze Traps and Flare to protect the healers. Viper Stinging enemy healers should take priority over just laying into one target, and BM hunters should harrass all clothies while targeting another for maximum carnage.

Shamans are totem duty. I had one shaman that would Windfury totem for me when I'd charge and it would be outstanding. Spot healing is great too, as is grabbing non-elite guards off clothies.

Pallies are nasty when they know the effectiveness of Plate, good HP, shields out the wazoo, and great mana regen from SPR. I hate seeing one of those Space Pallies in Tier 2 cuz I know that guys going to keep 2 people and himself up forever and a day. Cleansing, tanking most any guard, elite or non, and laying into people with inopportune Hammer of Justices seal the deal.

Druids heal, entangle warriors and rogues on the warpath, and help Rogues raise hell in commando teams.

Priests should be ready to heal like mad, Shadow or not, although I'm not the kind to say "no Shadowform", especially since that melts rogues stalking for squishies. It's just they should know when offense or defense is at play or not, and wether they are the only healer nearby, etc, and react accordingly. I drag my Disc/Holy Priest Downing in there for the mrpt gear needed for raids, so all I do is heal, lol. Most of the kill lists has me at 1 Kill shot, 19 deaths or some shit for a full 1:30 game.

Warlocks I'm not to sure about other than pure DPS; Seduction is too easily broken, I'd figure; not much to say here.

Mages' most extreme burst damage isn't going to be on tap all the time due to the nature of the bg, but DPS is DPS, as is Frost Nova & AoE to negate melees and guards.

 

[firex]

oh, I beat shit out of stuff, aoe fear to try and help people ninja flags, cc with fear/seduce to try and help flag caps/defense, or roll with a soul link felhunter and melt faces. I'm just pissed cause lately the horde on Kilrogg seems unable to work together at all.

 

[Ferrio]

Within 1 1/2 weeks I've made 1200g

 

[royale]

I'm just pissed cause lately the horde on Kilrogg seems unable to work together at all.

The alliance aren't any better, we usually win by attrition. The most common strat I hear in general is, "Hold them off till they go to bed" :lol
Works everytime, hordies start logging off around 2am and by the time we reach Iceblood gy its 30 vs 15.

Who are you on Kilrogg, firex?

I'm Trey, NE 60 rogue.

 

[MrPing1000]

Well finally got into a guild. We have started ZG, first 2 bosses are fine, not really difficult. Stuck on spider boss atm, wiping around the 40% mark. Just need to sort out our tanking order and the speed at which we kill the spawning spiders. Mana seems to b a problem to, shamans ftw.

 

[border]

So are you saying that strategy games that are turn based aren't based on skill?

Depends on how much variance there is to CPU strategy, and the intelligence required to outwit it.

On the contrary your definitions of skill are very narrow minded and pretty much excludes any game that isn't twitch based.

Perhaps, yeah. I'd quantify skill as ability to meet challenges of dexterity or intellect. If you finish a game that requires little-to-no twitch-skill by using a strategy guide, then I probably won't see much skill to it. There's some skill involved in figuring out strategies in games, but given the nature of WoW's endgame almost nobody seems to do it aside from a few trailblazing guilds.

 

[firex]

on Kilrogg horde side I'm Gromdoom, 60 orc warlock

 

[darkiguana]

You know, I've found this with just about any instance. It doesn't matter if people are friends or not ... if you find a group of people who have never run something before, you don't care what drops when it's all said and done. If you're just in it for the loot though, bitterness arises, you get mad, etc.

:lol

I have always felt that WoW was the most fun, when you could get a good group(be it guild or PUG) and fight your way through an instance successfully.

I also agree that being with a guild that is working its way through the endgame is better than joining a guild that already has a lot of it on farming status, and then riding their coattails. My guild has started in the last 2 months to do end game stuff like MC and ZG. When we first went to ZG it was a fiasco and we did not make it past the first bridge, lol. It also was not that long ago that the bat boss scared the shit out of us and when we beat her it was always a close thing.

Last night, we cleared all 5 priest bosses(panther for the 1st time, tiger only the 3rd time) without wiping, and tonight we are doing Hakkar. It's been really great being able to grow with the guild and learning how to work with each other. I dont think that the experience would be the same if I had joined guild that had already cleared ZG(or MC) and is just farming it now.

How do your guilds handle it when there are too many of one class in the guild? Right now my guild has too many pallies, hunters, and soon to be mages(my class), to go to ZG. For now, our GM has set up an rotation for hunters and pallies. Now some of the pallies are getting ticked about not being able to go. I was curious as to how your guilds handled that situation.

 

[firex]

do something like that, or if you have enough people overall to do 2 raids, just do that... gears people up twice as fast.

 

[Liu Kang Baking A Pie]

Now some of the pallies are getting ticked about not being able to go. I was curious as to how your guilds handled that situation.

Tell them to GTFO. If you have too many Paladins, and your Paladins cannot understand that or understand that there are other worthy players that should be allowed to go, just boot the drama queens and the situation fixes itself.

 

[darkiguana]

do something like that, or if you have enough people overall to do 2 raids, just do that... gears people up twice as fast.

We are gonna start doin 2 ZG raids soon, but we dont have enough of other classes to do that right now.

Tell them to GTFO. If you have too many Paladins, and your Paladins cannot understand that or understand that there are other worthy players that should be allowed to go, just boot the drama queens and the situation fixes itself.

Yeah, I tend to agree with that. Guess we may not have the pally problem for much longer :lol

 

[teacupcopter]

Tell them to GTFO. If you have too many Paladins, and your Paladins cannot understand that or understand that there are other worthy players that should be allowed to go, just boot the drama queens and the situation fixes itself.

Exactly. Tell them the instance cannot be run on Pallies alone and tough if they don't like it.

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

I have always felt that WoW was the most fun, when you could get a good group(be it guild or PUG) and fight your way through an instance successfully.

I also agree that being with a guild that is working its way through the endgame is better than joining a guild that already has a lot of it on farming status, and then riding their coattails. My guild has started in the last 2 months to do end game stuff like MC and ZG. When we first went to ZG it was a fiasco and we did not make it past the first bridge, lol. It also was not that long ago that the bat boss scared the shit out of us and when we beat her it was always a close thing.

Last night, we cleared all 5 priest bosses(panther for the 1st time, tiger only the 3rd time) without wiping, and tonight we are doing Hakkar. It's been really great being able to grow with the guild and learning how to work with each other. I dont think that the experience would be the same if I had joined guild that had already cleared ZG(or MC) and is just farming it now.

How do your guilds handle it when there are too many of one class in the guild? Right now my guild has too many pallies, hunters, and soon to be mages(my class), to go to ZG. For now, our GM has set up an rotation for hunters and pallies. Now some of the pallies are getting ticked about not being able to go. I was curious as to how your guilds handled that situation.

That's our situaton with Warriors. This situation fixed itself when some of the malcontent ones left. Funny thing was, ZG and raiding was BIG for them, they sign up, yet they don't bother to show up 30 minutes before go time often? Two of our officers (Warriors) would step aside to let them in when they did show up at the proper time, but nah...not good enough.

 

[ToyMachine228]

My guild made our first attempt at Ragnaros in Molten Core last night, and we got him down to 60%. Not bad for a first try. Now that we know how the fight is, we're going to try him once in a while and see how it goes. Can't wait to see him fall.

 

[xabre]

I haven't played in a week...

...just thought you'd all like to know.

 

[speedpop]

Yeah same....

 

[xabre]

Haha

 

[Ferrio]

It's valentine's celebration. Here's my character trying out her new dress.

 

[Hooker]

Couple of questions for the contest Blizzard is having for their 1 year anniversary in Europe.



How many Dragonflights are there in Warcraft? I can choose from 4 through 7.

 

[Mazre]

I see your valentines shot and raise you:

 

[gofreak]

How do you get the dresses?

Also, what does an Alliance Gift Collection eventually get you? I have the Stormwind one, but I don't want to march around Ironforge etc. for theirs if it's not really worth it in the end. I also see you can sell gift collections in the AH..I wonder what they might go for..?