Orc vs. World

Being boosted

2009-02-27T11:34:00.000-08:00

In an MMO, "boosting" is when you take a group of well-geared players, and one or two not-so-well-geared players, and run an instance or a raid. The not-geared players would never be able to handle the raid on their own, but if you have a group of much more powerful players, they can make up for what the others lack.

Last night was sort of an example of that. We tried to finish off 10-man Naxxramas. The problem was there were too many people who wanted to be boosted. Take a look at the WoWWebStats report for the run. I am "Lapetus" in that report. "Cumulus" and "Sitta" were the tanks, "Leo" and "Aries" are the healers. "Libra" is a ret pally, and "Ganymede" is a SV Hunter.

We attempted Grobbulus four times, then tried Instructor Razuvious four times. Look at the DPS. On the third attempt, someone taunted Grobbulus so he faced us and did his slime spray, so we got a bunch of slimes that spawned, and that just was a total wipe. So I'm not even going to count that attempt. On the other three "real" attempts, our average DPS was:

BM Hunter (me): 2292
Ret Pally: 1860
SV Hunter: 1835
Mage: 1292
Rogue: 1252
Lock: 1149

See anything wrong with those numbers?

Then we tried to kill Instructor Razuvious four times. One time we had a problem where the mind control crystals were bugged, but that happened partway through the fight, so the DPS numbers were reasonable. Here are the averages:

BM Hunter (me): 2579
SV Hunter: 2212
Rogue: 1933
Mage: 1830
Ret Pally: 1729
Lock: 1560

There just wasn't enough DPS in this raid. The Ret Pally is really well geared, so I don't know what's going on. Maybe his rotation is off. In fact, I checked on Be Imba! for all of these DPSers, and none of them really stand out as poorly geared.

I have no idea why their DPS is so low. Maybe they just weren't motivated?

It's times like these, when I'm always at the top of the pack in DPS (as a BM hunter!) and I see people with really bad DPS, that I question my decision to become the guild raid leader. Last night was a complete waste of everyone's time, including the two pug healers we pulled in. I basically blew away their timers for no good reason.

I can only hope tonight's Heroic Naxxramas run isn't this bad.

Small groups can be fun

2009-02-26T18:13:00.000-08:00

After the disaster of Heroic Naxxramas last Saturday, the guild leadership decided to focus on 10-man Naxxramas again. It makes sense because wiping a lot during the learning curve doesn't cause 25 people to have to die over and over, especially if half of them already know what they're doing and are just getting annoyed at the ones who don't know it yet. This is especially true when your guild is mainly composed of new-ish raiders.

So we decided to scale Heroic Naxx back to just once a week, on Friday evenings. We tend to have a really good turnout that evening, and we've been really blowing through the content on that day. We'll just see how far we can get in four hours and then call it quits. We tend to get a lot of loot, so it's worth it to just do one day and skip the Saturday wipe-fest.

So we decided to run 10-man on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Last Tuesday was great! We cleared 2.25 quarters (Arachnid & Plague Quarters, and Patchwerk). Very few wipes, lots of gear handed out (including my very own [Wraith Spear], which I was very pleased about). We are going to go back tonight, and we may wipe a lot, or we may not.

We had a fabulous group on Tuesday: mostly guildies, and a couple of healers and DPS we pugged. We got along really well, everyone was in a good mood, people were all in vent, listening, and it was just really a great time.

It's really nice to have a good experience like that raid after a horrible one like we had on Saturday!

Looking forward to tonight!

When to call it quits

2009-02-23T18:28:00.000-08:00

My guild ran Heroic Naxxramas again Friday and Saturday. Friday was the best raid ever, clearing all of Arachnid and Plague Quarters, and 2/3 of Military Quarter. Tons of loot was distributed, and I even ended up with the best-in-slot (if you aren't hit-capped) belt in the game: [Torn Web Wrapping].

Then we ran it again on Saturday. Boy, what a disaster. It took us three hours to kill the last "boss" in Military, the Four Horsemen. Then after another hour of wiping on Patchwerk, we reached our pre-arranged quit time, midnight, and called it.

When I logged in on Sunday, I saw that a number of people had quit the guild, leaving apparently no parting message. One of them said he was looking for a guild that could progress farther in content, and the other said he was just frustrated with the progression, which I guess means the same thing in the end.

Now, our constant wiping on Saturday may not have led directly to the mass exodus on Sunday, but I have to think it's related. People had to have gotten tired, and bored, and frustrated.

It's funny that nobody said anything to me about it in the raid. It's funny that some of them are still unguilded, and others ended up in very small guilds that can't possibly run 25-man content. That doesn't seem to me like someone who's heading for "greener pastures" (i.e. a guild that will progress further).

To make matters worse, one of them took our guild's 10-man raid ID and pugged Naxxramas without our permission, only to wipe at Kel'Thuzad.

So it got me thinking about the title of this post. When do you call a raid? Normally my problem is wanting to go further. Being on a roll and saying "just one more boss, just one more chance at loot". When you're in a five-man group you can just ask them and they'll either agree to do it or not. But when you're leading a 25-man group, you can't expect everyone to speak up. There will be plenty of people who are getting tired, or sore, and want to be done, but are staying in for the good of the group.

This is why we have precise ending times. No matter how close we are to killing a boss, when the end time hits, we stop right then. If we're currently engaged in a battle with a boss, we'll finish that fight, and then call it, but otherwise we call it right at the end time.

But until this weekend I didn't think we needed the option of calling it early. Now I'm convinced we do. In retrospect, I should have ended the raid after the third or fourth attempt at the Four Horsemen. No, we wouldn't have gotten our T7 chest tokens, but we also wouldn't have had a bunch of tired, frustrated raiders wondering just what the hell they were doing sitting at a computer for four hours and spending hundreds of gold for repairs.

We've made some changes in our guild runs as a result of this past weekend. We're going to restart 10-man weekday raids. And we're going to limit 25-man raiding to just one day a week. If we can't clear Naxxramas in four hours, then too bad. Four hours is all the time we'll take. That's a long commitment to ask of our members, but it's all I'm willing to do ask at this point. I don't want to drive away any more members with raids like this past Saturday's raid.

That was just a disaster.

Successful Heroic run

2009-02-17T15:43:00.000-08:00

My guild, NEVERMORE, made a very successful run on Heroic Naxxramas last Friday and Saturday. This is our third weekend of regular Heroic runs.

On Friday, we cleared two complete quarters, the Arachnid Quarter and the Plague Quarter. Clearing both quarters in one night was a guild-first for us. We were pumped to be able to come back in the next night and try some new content; we've never gotten past those two, even though we've tried the first boss in the other two quarters before.

On Saturday we came back in and completely cleared the Military Quarter, one-shotting both Gothik the Harvester and The Four Horsemen. Then we moved on to the Construct Quarter and one-shotted Patchwerk and Grobbulus. At that point, it was getting late, and we only had one shot at Gluth, which wiped us.

Gluth is a tough fight, requiring a skilled and experienced kiter, and proper positioning from all of the raid. I wasn't upset at wiping on Gluth, I actually expected it.

I'm the raid leader, loot master, and Hunter class leader for NEVERMORE, so I'm really pleased at the progress we've made in Naxxramas in three weeks. Our looting system is starting to shine, and many people in the guild are coming away from the raids with new epic gear. I did some research in late December and decided that I wanted to go with EPGP for our loot distribution. I'm really pleased with the way it's turned out.

Some of the things I'd like to talk about in future blog posts:

Things I've learned about being a raid leader
Things I've learned about being a loot master
Details about how EPGP works
My thoughts on the current state of the Hunter
How to use WoWWebStats to analyze your performance
How to use the Elitistjerks Hunter DPS spreadsheet to analyze gear and shot rotations

I actually don't think anyone reads this blog at the moment, so I'm unsure of how to proceed. For now I'll just post thoughts as I think of them. Perhaps someone who cares can reply to this with some ideas and I'll post about that.

For now, though, thanks for reading. I'll keep writing.

Patch 3.0.9

2009-02-10T18:51:00.000-08:00

So, patch 3.0.9 is out today. I downloaded it before work, but the servers weren't up so I haven't actually seen it yet. Minor changes for us PvE BM Hunters: small buffs to a couple of talents (Serpent's Swiftness and Kindred Spirits). I'm not that excited by these changes, but they'll help a little, I'm sure.

I'm not sure if I'll be playing much tonight, but if I do, I may go try to farm some minipets. I'd like the Disgusting Oozeling, but it's really hard to get. I might also try to get one of the dragon whelp rare drops.

Today feels like a "nothing" day. I have to wait for tomorrow for Love is in the Air to begin, and that's something I'm really looking forward to.

One other thing I have to do tonight: I have to decay our guild's EPGP points (I'm the guild's Raid Leader and Loot Master, so EPGP is my baby), and I'm going to implement a Base GP for the guild starting today.

Elder Graargh

2009-02-09T18:26:00.000-08:00

I love holiday events in WoW. I have loved them since the first one I remember, which was Christmas (excuse me, "The Feast of Winter Veil") 2004. I love having all kinds of temporary quests to do, allowing me to do something unusual for a short period of time.

I also love Achievements. I've loved them since I bought my Xbox 360, in May of 2008.

So when WoW introduced Achievements in 3.0.2, and I saw that there would be Achievements for participating in the various holiday events, I was very happy.

I was determined to complete the entire [What A Long, Strange Trip It's Been] achievement. I've been enjoying the journey so far, and so far I've earned the titles "Graargh the Hallowed", "Merrymaker Graargh", and last night "Elder Graargh".

I have a ways to go, but I'm going to do it. Wednesday starts Love is in the Air. I can't wait!

Long delays

2009-02-06T16:09:00.000-08:00

I haven't updated in a long, long time.

Life has changed a lot for me since my last update. I got laid off, had to move from Hawaii (my home) to California (my current residence, the state where I grew up, but never my home). WotLK came out, and my Hunter quickly made his way to 80.

I left my guild, joined another guild, that one fell apart, and I joined the guild I'm in now, NEVERMORE.

I'm a Council Member of NEVERMORE, one step below Guild Master. In fact, over the holidays the GM had to move to a new apartment, and I became the acting GM for a while. That was fun, but I was happy to hand it back to Radella after she came back.

So now I'm the Hunter officer, Raid Leader, and Loot Master for NEVERMORE. We have finished 10-man Naxxramas (check my achievements) and are working on Heroic Naxxramas.

Tonight, we have a heroic raid planned. 25 guildies (and probably some pugs) taking on Naxxramas is a lot of fun. We have conquered the Arachnid Quarter but all of the other wings have beaten us so far. Tonight I hope to take out Noth the Plaguebringer; he shouldn't be as hard as he's been so far.

I have a lot of thoughts about the current state of the game, and I'll try to write something more often. In the meantime, yay 3.1! No more ammo! Buffs to BM!

That is all.

Epix for guildies

2007-09-20T05:55:00.001-07:00

Ran Karazhan last night and tonight. Last night we took down Attumen and Moroes after we had killed Gruul. No [Steelhawk Crossbow], no [Fiery Warhorse's Reins], and no [Schematic: Stabilized Eternium Scope], all of which I would have loved to have gotten. Some of my guildmates got epics, though.

Moroes wasn't feeling any love for Hunters either, but let's be honest. Moroes just hates Hunters; he has squat for them.

Tonight we ran up and killed the Maiden of Virtue (no [Gloves of Quickening]) then did the Opera Event. Got Romulus and Julianne again, that was fun. I really enjoy the Opera Event. The randomness of it and the "acting" nature of it just hits me in the right place. Even the trash is great, saying "It's so cold, so dark... am I overacting?" when you kill them. Got the [Eternium Greathelm] for one of our tanks, and the [Masquerade Gown].

Take a look at the stats for the Masquerade Gown. It's a cloth item, obviously meant for healers. Guess who took it? One of our Pallies, Homebrand:

He still has it, last I checked.

Anyway, on to Curator. Took him down, and got some [Forest Wind Shoulderpads] for a good friend of mine, along with the Warrior/Priest/Druid Tier 4 Gloves token. We debated about whether we could take Shade of Aran without any locks, and decided to give it a try.

With no wipe, we took him down, and once again, no Hunter love.

All in all, a great evening. I had a great time with my guildmates and look forward to possibly progressing some more tomorrow.

Maulgar and his purple hat

2007-09-19T23:52:00.000-07:00

High King Maulgar has a group of cronies that protect him. That means killing him is a complicated affair, with good group coordination needed and high DPS.

Hunters are needed to misdirect-pull Maulgar onto the main tank, then send your pet to attack a second elite, and then the Hunters have to tank Kiggler the Crazed.

Meanwhile all of the other members of the raid are doing their part, taking out this mob and that mob. It's a very complicated fight, all in all, but very rewarding if you do manage to beat it.

Well, last night Bloodlines (my new guild) took them out. We wiped a few times, but the third or fourth time was a charm, and we did it.

And lo and behold, what does he drop but [Maulgar's Warhelm]? Yay!

And if you could only hear the groans of the guild. "Not that piece of trash again!" But it looked good to me. Look at the crit!

It was replacing my [Stalker's Helmet of Second Sight], which has been serving me well lo these many months.

I have all of the mats on my banker alt to craft my [Surestrike Goggles v2.0], but I'm still short a Primal Nether for that.

I'll get it someday, but in the meantime Maulgar's hat will do. It's sort of a side-grade more than an upgrade. I lose Agility and RAP, but I gain a lot of crit and Intellect.

Karazhan

2007-09-14T13:15:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday night, I ran Karazhan for the first time. I've had The Master's Key for a long time, but had been unsuccessful in trying to get into a Kara group in my previous guild.

My guild stories are great subjects for future posts, but I'll skip those stories for now.

I had done some research, and knew that the map for Karazhan was complicated, so I had the wowwiki map open in a browser window so I could switch to it and review where we were at any time.

We work our way to Attumen the Huntsman, killing horses along the way. I had read up thoroughly on this fight, so I knew the strategy. I was ready. We launched our attack, and took him down flawlessly. I was very pleased.

Then we looked at what he'd dropped:

I don't remember the other item, because I was stunned. My first boss, on my first run of Karazhan, drops this uber-l33t Hunter necklace.

And I was the only one in the raid that needed it! Holy smokes! Karazhan is fun!

So I turned in my quest just past Attumen, then we ran back towards Moroes. We took him down on the first try, then headed towards the Maiden, and took her out too, no sweat.

Then we headed over towards the Opera house. I have to say, the architecture in Karazhan is just stunning. The amount of detail work in there and the different rooms and floors and furniture is absolutely beautiful.

We did the Opera event and got Romulo & Julianne. I really enjoyed how those bosses were "acting" as we were killing them. The Opera Event has to be my favorite boss event I've ever seen.

We had a little bit of a problem where we didn't coordinate our DPS well enough and we killed Romulo and Julianne was able to go over and rez him before we could take her out, but we rallied and kept going, and the next time we took Romulo out and Julianne was at about 2%, so we were able to burn her down without further issue.

All in all, a very fun fight. Most enjoyable.

Then, what dropped?

My jaw dropped again. Surely the other Hunter in the group would want this, yes? Surely some other player would deserve this instead of me.

No, it went to me. Two epic drops in one night. For a Kara noob.

Does life get much better than that?

First things first

2007-09-13T18:16:00.000-07:00

There are a lot of Hunter blogs out there, and most of them are of middling quality. This one strives to fit into that mold.

I've been a Hunter since December of 2004, shortly after the game launched. I tried to choose a good Orcish-sounding name when I named my toon, and am very happy with how it turned out.

I chose to name this Orc vs. World because my focus will be on PvE. I am not very good at PvP, as my arena rankings can attest. I enjoy PvP, but tend to lose a lot. It's in PvE that I really shine. I'll deal with solo questing, mat grinding, 5-man instances, and larger raids when I get more experience in them.

I'd like to start with a noob story. When I was a very young Orc, I was running around Durotar learning how to be a Hunter and gaining levels. I had never actually been in a group before, though I knew some of those people running by me were real people. I was really amazed to see those two high-level Orcs riding up and down the main road south of Razor Hill on their cool wolf mounts (it was only later I figured out those were NPCs).

I was doing some quests killing Human invaders in Tiragarde Keep, the castle southeast of Razor Hill, when a window popped up saying "So-and-So has invited you to a group". Wow! A group? You mean, I can kill Humans alongside someone else? So I accepted.

I noticed my new group mate was sending me messages in this chat window I hadn't really noticed before. I was inside the main keep and could really have used some help with the respawns. My only problem was, I had no idea how to type a message, since I'd never needed to actually type to anyone before.

So eventually I died, and whoever had invited me quit the group in disgust at my total lack of a response. Shortly afterward I discovered that hitting "return" opened up a chat window, and I've enjoyed groups ever since.

Ahh, to be a nub again. :)