Kallahan was an early Cata alt which I leveled in time to get geared enough for 4.3. For me, that's fast. I am not a steady leveler. Two things drove me to level this alt: One, leveling a tank through dungeons meant playing at my pace, which is fast. I had already done all these dungeons multiple times on my Hunter, Priest, and Shammy, up to lvl 50 on my Rogue, and my DK for lvl 60 and up, so I knew how to make the runs quick and efficient. I often had groups requeue with me for multiple runs, even BRD. Second, this alt was economically separated from my others, and I was leveling Inscription for the second time. I wanted to get to lvl 65 fast, so I could start doing Northrend Research, then into Cata content so I could mill the growing pile of Whiptail in my mailboxes (botters hit the server hard, and stacks were going for 12-15g.)
My tank transmog set is pretty basic, Overlord's Battlegear, Quel'Delar, and Lofty Shield. I like armor and weapons that are at least somewhat realistic.
My gear is fairly impeccable as far as normal-mode gear goes. I could use an upgrade to my Flex Tier helm, and my boot's aren't BIS, but most importantly, I have the legendary cloak, warforged belt and legs, and 553 in all other slots, everything fully upgraded. As for trinkets, I have Vial, Rook's, and Thok's. This is probably the most well geared any of my characters has ever been since my Hunter got 4pTier 10 in ICC.
Raiding on my Pally has been a rocky road, much of which I have written about here. I started on the backwater side of a backwater server (Horde-Durotan) where the guilds bicker ferociously, then transferred to Proudmoore, hoping to have some casual, social fun in that one gay guild. It didn't work out. I tried another one recently, and it didn't work out either. I think I'm discovering that "LGTB-friendly" means "PC Policed", and I don't like that. More power to those that do, but no thanks. I much prefer the company of a few fellow raiders that just don't give a fuck about the whole thing, let's raid!
About those fellow raiders, rocky roads have returned, and how Thursday night's raid turns out will determine a lot. Last Sunday did not end well. We're extending Garrosh and trying to get a second kill. After the holiday break and a bit of attendance flux, we regressed. I don't need the gear, and neither does anyone else. Sure, some minor upgrades could be had, but no one really needs gear for anything now, since we already got Garrosh. If we want to do more heroics (just one boss once doesn't count) then the gear question just gets put off one step. Why get some heroic gear? To down later heroic bosses. Are we really going to do those heroics or are we fooling ourselves?
"Are we really going to do those heroics or are we fooling ourselves?"
ReplyDeleteI originally posted something entirely different from what I'm going to end up saying but I actually talked myself into a different opinion... originally I was saying that if a vast majority of your raid (8 in a 10-man, say) want to do heroics, commit to them, otherwise stick to normals and either work on faster clears, swap roles/toons, etc... have some fun with it. That risks losing any raiders who do want to do heroics, though, who might be some of your better ones.
So, I'd suggest unless you have a unanimous opinion one way or the other, you compromise... if you raid 2 nights a week, make the first night heroic progression night with everyone on their mains and on their game, and the second night a quick clear night to finish it off, allowing some role/toon flexibility/buddy invites (if someone would prefer a night off) as long as it doesn't significantly impact your ability to get it done. Or alternate weeks... progression week where you normally won't do a quick clear afterward, you just focus on a heroic progression, and the next week you do a quick/alt clear. I'd also avoid locking out, again unless there's a LOT of opinion supporting it.
I think it's important to give everyone some of what they'd like, even if it isn't full-time... there's still some risk but I think if they actually want to be in your guild/raid, you're more likely to hang on to them with something like this.
As a general note, if your raid has ~i560 gear on average, you should be able to down quite a few heroic bosses. More gear is better, of course, but if you're already at that level, gear shouldn't be the limiting factor. MOST of the stuff that'll kill you in heroic, from what I've seen anyway (I've killed 6 and have quite a few pulls on a 7th), isn't stuff that 5% more dps or 10% more health will help much with.
Now that I remember it, we have 1 somewhat undergeared healer who returned from a break. I think everyone has their legendary cape, and there's a few slots on a few people that are still sub-553, but overall, we're probably ~560, other than that healer. So, getting one person caught up on gear has been going on for a few weeks, and we're back to Garrosh, as it were.
DeleteAfter the holidays and before we started having some attendance flux, we did get heroic Norushen once, and attempted heroic Immerseus. Norushen was a DPS check for us, so that was our limiting factor, but Immerseus was a heal check/health pool check at the time. Some off the DPS just didn't have enough health to survive the aoe, and that really stressed the healers. We've gotten them geared better since with the one new exception, of course, so once the new healer (who is also old since he goes way back?) gets 555 or so, we'll be back where we left off.
But for what reason? Are we really going to be Cutting Edge? I sincerely doubt it. Are we just going for as many as we can before 6.0? I think we'll burn out if we raid until 6.0. Are we going for a high-water mark of heroic bosses before taking a break until 6.0? I don't know, we're just going 1 week at a time for now.