Achieving the 5punk Impossible

friznit · Post by **friznit** » May 22nd, 2009, 16:19

By which I mean visiting a raid dungeon, hence getting more than 4 5punkers together in the same place. Actually it's not that bad. With 3 or 4 of us we could quite happily go see Karazhan (The Burning Crusade entry level raid at Lvl 70). It's actually a lot of fun and you get some nice gold out of it too.

Naxxramas 10 Man is the equivalent entry level in WotLK and is fairly forgiving, but really does need 10 reasonably well geared people (75% heroic geared) with an adequate balance of 2 tanks, 3 healers and 5 dps (ranged or melee, doesn't really matter that much). Some of these we could make up from other guilds such as The Firm, but people do need to be prepared.

The first priority for everyone who wants to aspire to visiting raid content is to do lots and lots of heroics. There's numerous forums (EJ being the main one ofc) listing the best pre-raid gear you can equip and everyone should aim to get as much of this as possible. It's not that difficult, as most of it can be obtained through crafting, group quest rewards, faction reputation sellers or a few lucky drops in heroics (plus the emblems for things like necks, belts and trinkets).

Ideally, once we can get a regular heroic team working together well (dedicated tank, healer and 3 dps) then we'll be well on the way to sorting a raid visit.

Post by **Dog Pants** » May 22nd, 2009, 16:28

Well, I said it on the disco board but I'll repeat here for posterity. I think I'll be more useful as a healer than a DPS because a) I can, and very few others can, and b) I'll be out-DPS'd by the horde of Death Knights. I'm not planning on ditching my subscription any time soon despite not having a lot left to do outside group activities, so this makes instances and raids all the more important to me.

Hehulk · Post by **Hehulk** » May 22nd, 2009, 16:42

3 or 4 of you could do Kara eh? Can haz boost for me and Wiggy?

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » May 22nd, 2009, 17:17

Hehulk wrote:3 or 4 of you could do Kara eh? Can haz boost for me and Wiggy?

No, because you have no idea how to keep your aggro/threat in check, and make it difficult for tanks.

Hehulk · Post by **Hehulk** » May 22nd, 2009, 17:19

Last night in BRD wasn't entirely fair to my regular agro habbits. I'd gotten use to it being utterly impossible to pull agro during boost runs and so droping AOEs like mad. In a proper PVE group encounter, agro's at the forefront of my concerns.

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » May 22nd, 2009, 17:29

Dog Pants wrote:I'm not planning on ditching my subscription any time soon despite not having a lot left to do outside group activities, so this makes instances and raids all the more important to me.

I think raid wise we're all pretty capable already, our teamwork is fine, but our gear and organisation needs some work. (though, the latter is offset by friz shouting at us)

The gear should be pretty doable, we just need to get into the habit of doing dungeons whenever we can (like, whenever there's 4 people online)

Post by **Dog Pants** » May 22nd, 2009, 17:32

To be devil's advocate for both sides, DKs are poor tanks. They survive well but don't seem to have a lot of aggro pulling capacity. Kudos to Berk for doing as well as he does, but I think it's more through DPS than anything else. Hehulk will also have a massive aggro because he's such low level relative to Berk. However, this means he should sit back and stay quiet rather than be casting at mobs and making a nuisance of himself. Over-aggro is usually a bit of both apparently.

Post by **Dog Pants** » May 22nd, 2009, 17:33

Dr. kitteny berk wrote:

I think raid wise we're all pretty capable already, our teamwork is fine, but our gear and organisation needs some work. (though, the latter is offset by friz shouting at us)

The gear should be pretty doable, we just need to get into the habit of doing dungeons whenever we can (like, whenever there's 4 people online)

I agree. Tonight then?

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » May 22nd, 2009, 17:40

Dog Pants wrote:To be devil's advocate for both sides, DKs are poor tanks. They survive well but don't seem to have a lot of aggro pulling capacity. Kudos to Berk for doing as well as he does, but I think it's more through DPS than anything else. Hehulk will also have a massive aggro because he's such low level relative to Berk. However, this means he should sit back and stay quiet rather than be casting at mobs and making a nuisance of himself. Over-aggro is usually a bit of both apparently.

Mostly wrong

My tank spec isn't perfect, it's slightly too AOE in places I think, and sometimes my D&D isn't up fast enough, but this is pretty fixable, with practice and possibly some spec tweaks.

Certainly we had no threat problems in VH hc, apart from Wiggy beating me to the first strike once, but that was recovered pretty fast.

The problem we had was that I don't generate any threat when I'm herding stuff up (because if I attack, stuff dies) and people attacking with massive AOEs when I'm not putting out any threat, well, that's how they die, or pull aggro off me onto the lowest level in the party, so yeah, sometimes there's fuckups on lowbie instances, but mostly we do fine.

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » May 22nd, 2009, 17:41

Dog Pants wrote:I agree. Tonight then?

Yarp

friznit · Post by **friznit** » May 22nd, 2009, 18:03

I'll try hard not to throw theorycraft at you, but the aggro thing (aka Threat or Threat Per Second - TPS) is the first lesson of all heroics and raiding. For tanks, it means learning how to put out enough threat to stay ahead of the dps (not get aggro 'capped') whilst keeping enough defensive stuff to stay alive. For the DPS, it's about carefully watching your threat so you do NOT over aggro the tank. That is not only bad manners, but it kills people - hopefully you first. We have a saying "If you pull it, you tank it". Whether the healer chooses to heal you or stick to the primary person (i.e. the main tank), depends entirely on his good will. This is especially true for mages (sorry Hehulk) because of their very high burst dps. You need to be particularly careful at the start of a fight.

WoW has an in built threat meter. Get used to using it. There's also Omen Threat Meter that many of us use, but it basically does the same thing.

Some numbers for those who enjoy them:

1. You need to top >110% threat to pull a mob off the tank.
2. Most taunt abilities will level your aggro to 111% of the person with the most threat, but it won't stay there if you don't do something about it.

TL;DR

Wait for the fucking tank to hit the mob(s) first

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » May 22nd, 2009, 18:30

friznit wrote:Wait for the fucking tank to hit the mob(s) first

This, and remember some mobs do randomly(ish) attack someone who's not the tank, The tank will usually pull it back off you asap, especially if you scream that you have aggro

Hehulk · Post by **Hehulk** » May 22nd, 2009, 19:24

friznit wrote:1. You need to top >110% threat to pull a mob off the tank.

Unless your aformentioned ranged DPS squishy like me, then you need to beat 130%

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » May 23rd, 2009, 0:54

Well, I thought the 3 man attack on UK(n) went pretty well. Wiped twice but that was mostly us not knowing the instance that well, we'll do better in future.

Pants' healing was plenty good enough, and I'm sure he'll do fine as we continue and get practice, hopefully he didn't get too bored.

More of this sort of thing.

Post by **Roman Totale** » May 23rd, 2009, 2:28

I've currently got a level 16 Priest I'm sloewlyu building up.

Also, fuck percentagers! This game is supposed to be fun niot work!

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » May 23rd, 2009, 2:41

Roman Totale wrote:Also, fuck percentagers! This game is supposed to be fun niot work!

Kinda.

I like to know what stats i need, and that more = better.

More than that is for some other cupcake to maths.

Post by **Dog Pants** » May 23rd, 2009, 8:07

Dr. kitteny berk wrote:Well, I thought the 3 man attack on UK(n) went pretty well. Wiped twice but that was mostly us not knowing the instance that well, we'll do better in future.

Pants' healing was plenty good enough, and I'm sure he'll do fine as we continue and get practice, hopefully he didn't get too bored.

More of this sort of thing.

I did get a bit bored during the trash mobs, but that was bound to happen when we were so overpowered. Being a healer in general I'm happy enough with if it gets me doing more instances. I need to learn how to manage my mana though. All I was really doing was spamming different types of heal, and running out of blue too quickly. I also need to sit down and work out what gear I need because at the moment I might as well be a fresh-faced 80 with the gear I've got. Luckily I don't have to grind rep as much as if I was.

Hehulk · Post by **Hehulk** » May 23rd, 2009, 8:11

That sounds like over-healing. You'll get better with practise, but you'll need to strike a balance when it comes to throwing out healing spells so you don't run outa mana mid-fight. Clearly, if Berks only taking small hits, you could probably cover it with a HOT or two (Shamans have HOTs right? I'm not thinking of druids?) and use the better heals for when he takes a bit of spike damage or is tanking a boss

Post by **Dog Pants** » May 23rd, 2009, 8:50

Yeah, maybe. I've a reasonable HoT (Riptide), a small heal (lesser healing wave), a big heal (healing wave), and an AoE heal (Chain heal). I'm only half resto kitted though (although a few hundred g in the AH has gone some way to improving that this morning) so I'm a bit puny as a healer at the moment.

Lateralus · Post by **Lateralus** » May 23rd, 2009, 9:04

Well given all the DKs we have around, I might just try to get my Hunter all the way to 80 then. Will I add much of use to the mix?

I currently only have ferocity pets, but was thinking about getting a Cunning and a Tenacity one too to keep things balanced, which I imagine would help a bit. As for percentages, meh, too much like work. I'll vaguely try to stick to items that give bonuses to, say, agility rather than spirit for my Huntard, but that's about as much consideration as I really give these things.