He's Not Heavy... I Will Carry Him

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 12:25 PM

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To give a little perspective,  currently my raiding guild does not do much when it comes to normal and heroic content during SOO.   The guild I belong to has more 'mature' members, with many of them having other hobbies that keep them busy.  One is a writer,  a couple do lots of travelling for work etc.  

One of the things I have found as I've geared my two raiding toons (Hunter, Arms Warrior) is that without the benefits of a weekly Seige of Orgrimmar raiding run I have had to run many many MANY flex and looking for raid runs to get a high gear level.  This has given me lots of practice with my rotation and knowledge of the fights.

Now understand this isn't to toot my own horn.  This idea that I have a relatively high gear level and have worked to obtain it will set the tone for what I'm about to speak about.   Having a discussion with a fellow guild member about the pitfalls of running LFR one item came up to mind.  Just how much carrying there is in flux and looking for raid runs.  We had slightly differing opinions on just how much personal responsibility should be taken when it comes to be geared for the next step in the progression.  Currently the progression goes LFR-Flex-Normal-Heroic.  In theory, this has people running LFR runs until they are able to hold up on most of the fights and contribute.  Some will draw that line at 100k and others have no problem with lowering this bar significantly. Tanks have to be able to survive and healers should be throwing out decent numbers to be able to keep up with the rest of the raid.

But anyone who has run flex lately can see that there is a stiff drop in some of the players.  Some fights provide monster numbers on trash (cleave arms warriors rule, multi mob fights) but put us in the Thok fight and most melee has significantly lower numbers.  Many of these questions about who is carrying who has to be taken with an overall view of a run.

Let's take for instance a Flex 2 run.  The first two bosses can a lot of stand up and fight moments.  Little movement is necessary on the first two fights other than repositioning.  Both fights contain single target and multi targeting moments.  This gives a good baseline on what a raid member can bring to the party.

For me, I like a baseline for Flex of around 75k (my guild mate argued at 100k).  Anything less than 50k and someone is being carried through the fight.  Having spent some time in flex with multiple toons I understand that trash doesn't count.  You can beef up your numbers and look awesome, but when the boss hits the numbers drop significantly.  This is where most people's kick button starts to get itchy.  It becomes too easy to blame DPS for not being high enough.  Or heals to not being high enough etc.  Tanks take the most abuse in flex,  which has caused them to be more picky and more scarce.  Why run as a tank and take abuse when you can run as a dps,  get carried and then get the same tank gear?

One of my biggest 'carry me' moments I have seen has happened through a friends guild.  I went along with a friend of mines guild for a weekly run.  Their raid leader asked what everyone else wanted to do.  Their progression had Normal 1 and Normal, 2 on the farm.  The raid leader chirped out and said that, let's try wing 3. Feeling a little froggy I jumped and started looking at any changes.  The cringe in my heart happened when the raider leader and many others said they had never been in wing 3 even on LFR and flex.  I knew I was going to be facing a large repair bill right then and there.  The bosses in wing three can be the most demanding and unforgiving when it comes to tactics.  You can get away with one mistake with higher level gear, but two mistakes and everyone are running back and resetting.   After an hour and a half of dying over and over again, it was obvious that no progress was going to happen today.  I mumbled to a online friend over what happened and how a few lfr/flex runs would give them the tools to be much more successful.  Basic knowledge is a prerequisite to being successful

All of this becomes concerned with the changes that will be happening with Warlords of Draenor.   Flex will be the new normal, with bosses and difficulty scaling to the amount of players in a raid.  Blizzard revamping the group finding system and the LFR system to allow much more selective choice when it comes to what players come to the show.  LFR will still be the default gear grinds and learn the tactics.  The looking for group/flex runs will be the bread and butter learning the tactics and how to raid successfully   Truly, I'm hoping that Blizzard adds a part that requires players to run LFR at least once to open up the next wings.  It will irritate the hardcore raiders, but save a lot of heartache and frustration for your normal readers who become annoyed with carrying the unprepared players.

Now that my Soapbox is a little dented with some stomping.  Let's get out there and enjoy the upcoming weeks of the Seige of Orgrimmar.  Don't worry brother,  I will still carry you.  Just Bring Noodles.

Good Luck and Good Hunting

Want to get in contact with me? . Email me at Dragonbear @ gmail. Dot com or find me on twitter at "@JMTCMommar" You can find me hanging out on the Shandris Server, chat me up, and I will buy you a glass of juice. 

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Not Enough Loot On My Hands

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 12:47 PM

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If your like me,  you are knee deep in killing mobs,  looting mobs and running around the Timeless isle looking for more items to loot.

Also if you are like me,  you have a plethora of extra Timeless Silk Robes,  Plate bracers and  items that will never see the light of use.  I"m up to 4 toons that are geared mainly through these drops with another two that have yet to hit 90 that are sitting with full gear in their bank.  One thing I ended up with a large extra quantity of are the silk versions of the 'packages'.

Luckily my one and only cloth wearer is also my Enchanter.   So basically each time I get one of these Silk packages I send it to my Warlock,  open it and see if by the off chance it is an upgrade.  If it is then bonus I DE the other item for that lovely lovely Sha Crystal.  Vice Versa if it isn't an upgrade.

There is a limit on who can DE what.   A plate wearer can only open up the plate packages,  leather wearers limited to leather etc.   This also means they are the only ones that can DE the leftovers from these armor types.  Still gotta love free Sha Crystals.

The other item that seems to drop a lot is the Technique glyphs that are used by Scribes for the new recipes.  The strange thing is that they can be looted by everyone (not just scribes like normal profession recipes have been.)  I have not run into the problem of a non scribe needing on the recipe yet (you want to hear someone screaming,  wait til that happens in an instance). 

A friend of mine was wanting to know how to obtain the Sky Golem pattern.  Explaining to them that they needed to just kill mobs in Pandaria they spent an hour killing them.   My assumption was that they had already maxxed out their Engineering.  Low and behold I found out they had not maxxed out the profession.   After being the nice gold goblin and sending them some materials to finish up the profession it took them 10 kills for the pattern to drop.  

But there is a dark side to all of these 'new' drops and items.  With 476 gear basically being given away with a smirk and a smile on the island.  Crafted gear is in the tank.  Weapons still sell decently but the majority of major armor pieces are not selling as well as they should.    They do sell but not at the speed they should.  The same thing with some servers and PVP gear.  The easier that gear is to obtain,  the less demand there ends up being for high level crafted gear.  LFR and Flex has changed the game when it comes to Keybashing your way through an encounter to scoop up the loot.

Still my faithful gold friends panic not.  There are plenty of opportunities to get some well earned cash.  You just need to be smarter (and handsomer) than the rest.  Knowing your lines of sales and keeping a good close firm grip on the amount of investment you have with materials.  Do this and you have a good chance of buying that little plot of land you want on the Timeless Isle.

Sorry,   the sea area is already claimed by me.  I'm building my boat dock there.

Good Luck and Good Hunting

Want to get in contact with me? . Email me at Dragonbear @ gmail. Dot com or find me on twitter at "@JMTCMommar" You can find me hanging out on the Shandris Server, chat me up, and I will buy you a glass of juice. 

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Customer First

Preparing For the Future: Alts 101

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 12:44 PM

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As Mists of Pandaria matures and we continue on with the storyline.  More and more players will be creating alternate characters from their mains.   A tank main may create a ranged dps class.    A healer may want to try to enjoy relaxing with a melee dps class.

The farther that players get into the raiding depths,  the more apt their guilds will have a need for specific toons.   And this is where your preparation will become important.    Players will need to get their players geared quickly up to raid level standards.  So they will be ready to pay large amounts of gold to get the best gear that gold can buy.

Patch 5.2 is already on the PTRS,   and one of the occurrences that players on the PTRs are noticing that there is a large amount of powerful BOE weapons being dropped.   Those weapons will find themselves quickly on the market as will just as powerful armor.   The key to being on top of this wave of Alternate gearing is to have both BOE crafted gear available as well as the enhancements that are needed for raiding and high level questing.

So to be prepared for this,  investing and farming in raw minerals such as ore and enchanting materials will be very important in the next couple of weeks.   Those that wait til the last minute to start to prepare will end up being in the back of the line,  depending on the ebb and flow of the Auction House.

Plan both your material strategy as well as your gold strategy to be on top.   All materials will become just as valuable in the opening weeks of the 5.2 patch and future patches.   So setting your strategy and goals now will allow you to execute them correctly and effectively.

Keep your eyes on the prize and the prize will be yours

Good Luck and Good Hunting


Want to get in contact with me? . Email me at Dragonbearjoe @ gmail. dOT com or find me on twitter at "@JMTCMommar" You can find me hanging out on the Shandris Server, chat me up and I will buy you a glass of juice. 

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Eyes On The Auction House Prize
Self Motivation: The Key To Success
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How Not To Make Gold
Time Management With Faction Grinding
Receipt Isolation Sales
Breaking Through The Wall
Transmog Me First
Pay What
Outside the New Years Box
Heat Of The Moment
Five Star Sales
The Gauntlet Thrown Down
Post Holiday Toys

Thanks Uncle Scrooge McBlizzard

Posted by J.E. Douglas at 2:54 PM

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Mommar Here.

Seems that our Uncles at Blizzard are not big on the stockpiling of Valor or Justice Points.  With the new announcement on how they are converting both sets of points,  players that were banking on free gold were highly disappointed.

The basic time frame now is

The next patch is released on August 28th. (5.0.4)

Valor Points would be converted to Justice points with the intro patch to Mists of Pandara,  Justice Points would stay the same.  Justice Points have no cap on them.  Justice points will be the only points able to be earned.  Valor Points no longer will be available til the opening of Mists of Pandaria. Items purchased by Valor Points will be available via Justice points.  

Conquest points get converted to Honor Points.
Arenas are closed
All items available for purchase via Conquest points will be purchased by Honor Points.

Mists of Pandaria opens on September 25th

Valor points earned via quests,  daily random dungeons and Raids.  1000 max per week, 3000 cap
Conquest points earned through daily PVP random and Arenas  4000 cap on conquest points

---------------------------------------------

So what does that mean to the gold goblins?   Well life is going to be interesting for a bit.  With no cash conversion of points this time,  stockpiling points really give no added benefit.   The gear that will be purchasable with Justice points will be of lower level gear than obtained via Heroic Dungeons.   Valor points are used to upgrade gear or to purchase high level gear.  Both types of gear will require reputation with one of the factions in Mists.  Opportunities to resell JP gear (like the boots or wrists bracers from cataclysm) will be few at the start.

All of this news does not mean that JP will be worthless.   The lower level gear purchased from Justice points will be useful to get players ready for Heroic Dungeons that much quicker.   The required gear level for Heroics could be tricky to meet if you didn't throw in the occasional PVP gear pieces or crafted gear.   Extra Justice Points could easily add one or two pieces to your collection to put you over the top.

At any point Blizzard might change their mind and just reset everything.  Or go back to the Gold conversion method they have done in previous expansions.   Just keep this in mind before you spend hours focusing on having 20,000 Justice Points just to get them turned into 100g.   Moderation is a good thing.

Good Luck and Good Hunting


Previous Entries


Goblins, Pandas and Blood Elfs O My

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MOP Prep:  Get to the Points

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MOP Prep: Stuff to Gold,  Gold to Stuff

MOP Prep: Setting the Lineup

MOP Prep: Setting up the Cartel

MOP Prep:   Zero Balance Investment
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