I raid on US-Khaz'goroth as a mage and a protection warrior. Bouncing between Sunwell Plateau and Serpentshrine Cavern and all the zones in-between, I'm one confused raider.
Difficult Decisions
Raids are winding down. My mage's guild is still stuck at Felmyst, not because of the boss per say, but because of the dreaded DC bug that causes a quarter of the raid to disconnect during the breath phase. I'm one of the unlucky bunch that keeps DCing. And lemme tell ya, it's a grave insult that I keep getting asked to drop my graphic details to the lowest when I just busted my wallet on a new comp (2.80g quad core overclocked, 8g ram, ATI 4870 gfx overclocked).
Yesterday, I raided with no addons, not even Omen, with graphic details set for the lowest and still DCed like it's going out of style.
On top of that, we had several healers quit on us, notably shammies. (why shammies, why?) And so the past month was spent gearing new recruits, a few of whom rode on the BT loot train and then stopped logging on.
The biggest news around now is the reroll question that has been posted on our guild forums. And it is with great trepidation that I put down Prot Warrior as my desired new main.
Playing a mage that 1-2 shots mobs while grinding has been a pleasure I cannot deny. But I grind quite a bit on my warrior with cast-off fury gear nobody wants, and the pace was, surprisingly, manageable. Ironically, he performs better than my shadow priest who has to sit and drink after 3-4 kills. With the new changes to prot dps, better group threat, and possible dual specs coming up on the horizon, that experience can only improve.
My greatest fear is I'm going to have to whine and beg for the chance to main tank. Our current warrior MT is the poster boy for R-E-L-I-A-B-L-E. He has never missed a single raid in TBC (this is not an exaggeration), and main-tanks every single fight. Previously, we had 2 more prot warriors, but they were mostly relegated to trash tanking. Late TBC content has been better in the sense that there were more fights that require several tanks, but for the first half of TBC, they were simply trash tanks. Class officers have told me that it wasn't because they weren't allowed to MT, but because they didn't want to.
I don’t know how true that is because they’ve both retired, but I know I don't want to go through my raiding career known as a trash tank. What's the point of wanting to improve my gear and techniques if all I do is tank trash? But neither do I want to be more of a whiny bitch than I am now, cajoling, threatening, blackmailing for chances to MT in my main guild. I have a job that makes me miss raids or log on late sometimes, and yeah, yeah real life comes first, but that argument is moot in the face of another tank that never misses a raid.
On the other hand, I remain very divided about staying mage after getting badly burned by class design flaws at the end of TBC. I’ve put in inordinate amounts of time and effort on her (mounts, reps, quests), but I suspect even if mages top dps charts in WotLK, I will always be thinking "gee, I wish I was the tank for this-and-that fight." This is despite the option of sticking to my mage and keeping my warrior for 10-man raids.
So while I sit on my butt waiting for the final number pass on all the classes to be finalised, I've been levelling my druid and paladin.
Druid is now 64 and paladin 46. Surprisingly, druid has been the most enjoyable class to level for me. He slices, dices, juliennes and makes fruit punch! At the moment, he sits at 9,000 hp and 12,000 armor with 27% dodge - far better stats than my warrior had at that level. Taking on 2 elites without heals is not an issue, and needless to say, so is holding several mobs at once.
Pally is on a new account I RAFed with a fellow guild-mate. The RAF system is so amazing that it’s the only reason why I rolled a pally. My last attempt on the alliance side took excruciating days to get to 43 and there he will remain forever and ever, amen. I’m currently ret spec while levelling with an enhancement shammy, but geez, I can’t wait to go prot and aoe-grind.
Out of the 7 classes played so far, warrior and paladin are the 2 hardest classes to level personally. Sheer difficulty plagues one, and sheer boredom the other. But while I marvel at the ease of druid tanking, I chaff at the lack of “oh shit” buttons. I suspect that will become even more pronounced with pally tanking.
A fey thought has recently sprung up. Based on TBC, I should have time to gear up at least 2-3 alts after my main in WotLK and I’m toying with the idea of playing a tanking main, and 3 tanking alts (plus Death Knight).
Somebody stop me!
Yesterday, I raided with no addons, not even Omen, with graphic details set for the lowest and still DCed like it's going out of style.
On top of that, we had several healers quit on us, notably shammies. (why shammies, why?) And so the past month was spent gearing new recruits, a few of whom rode on the BT loot train and then stopped logging on.
The biggest news around now is the reroll question that has been posted on our guild forums. And it is with great trepidation that I put down Prot Warrior as my desired new main.
Playing a mage that 1-2 shots mobs while grinding has been a pleasure I cannot deny. But I grind quite a bit on my warrior with cast-off fury gear nobody wants, and the pace was, surprisingly, manageable. Ironically, he performs better than my shadow priest who has to sit and drink after 3-4 kills. With the new changes to prot dps, better group threat, and possible dual specs coming up on the horizon, that experience can only improve.
My greatest fear is I'm going to have to whine and beg for the chance to main tank. Our current warrior MT is the poster boy for R-E-L-I-A-B-L-E. He has never missed a single raid in TBC (this is not an exaggeration), and main-tanks every single fight. Previously, we had 2 more prot warriors, but they were mostly relegated to trash tanking. Late TBC content has been better in the sense that there were more fights that require several tanks, but for the first half of TBC, they were simply trash tanks. Class officers have told me that it wasn't because they weren't allowed to MT, but because they didn't want to.
I don’t know how true that is because they’ve both retired, but I know I don't want to go through my raiding career known as a trash tank. What's the point of wanting to improve my gear and techniques if all I do is tank trash? But neither do I want to be more of a whiny bitch than I am now, cajoling, threatening, blackmailing for chances to MT in my main guild. I have a job that makes me miss raids or log on late sometimes, and yeah, yeah real life comes first, but that argument is moot in the face of another tank that never misses a raid.
On the other hand, I remain very divided about staying mage after getting badly burned by class design flaws at the end of TBC. I’ve put in inordinate amounts of time and effort on her (mounts, reps, quests), but I suspect even if mages top dps charts in WotLK, I will always be thinking "gee, I wish I was the tank for this-and-that fight." This is despite the option of sticking to my mage and keeping my warrior for 10-man raids.
So while I sit on my butt waiting for the final number pass on all the classes to be finalised, I've been levelling my druid and paladin.
Druid is now 64 and paladin 46. Surprisingly, druid has been the most enjoyable class to level for me. He slices, dices, juliennes and makes fruit punch! At the moment, he sits at 9,000 hp and 12,000 armor with 27% dodge - far better stats than my warrior had at that level. Taking on 2 elites without heals is not an issue, and needless to say, so is holding several mobs at once.
Pally is on a new account I RAFed with a fellow guild-mate. The RAF system is so amazing that it’s the only reason why I rolled a pally. My last attempt on the alliance side took excruciating days to get to 43 and there he will remain forever and ever, amen. I’m currently ret spec while levelling with an enhancement shammy, but geez, I can’t wait to go prot and aoe-grind.
Out of the 7 classes played so far, warrior and paladin are the 2 hardest classes to level personally. Sheer difficulty plagues one, and sheer boredom the other. But while I marvel at the ease of druid tanking, I chaff at the lack of “oh shit” buttons. I suspect that will become even more pronounced with pally tanking.
A fey thought has recently sprung up. Based on TBC, I should have time to gear up at least 2-3 alts after my main in WotLK and I’m toying with the idea of playing a tanking main, and 3 tanking alts (plus Death Knight).
Somebody stop me!
Total Comments 3
Comments
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With one episode of the game coming to an end and another on the way it is in some ways understandable that there will be turnover and not-so-reliable recruitment. That doesn't make it OK to lack commitment, but it's probably something most guild have to live with.
About your PC, the first thing I'd do is stop overclocking. Overclocking gives a little extra performance at the cost of reducing reliability. Surely reliability is what you need to raise here.
I've also played a mage as a main of 2+ years, at times raiding, and in the last year levelled a warrior tank. I quit raiding on my mage first (because real life made me too unreliable to stay on a hardcore progression guild) and then levelled the tank by tanking instances from Deadmines onwards. That process was very rewarding and resulted in being a pretty experienced (rather than clueless) tank at 70, but it took all of my focus in the game. You'll probably have a hard time raiding with your mage and learning your tank in-depth at the same time.
With respect to warrior grinding, it is indeed slow while levelling because you mostly have tanking gear and because you'll be filling your spec with all the defensive talents first. At 70, the situation changes. You'll pick up good DW DPS gear that no-one wants or from excess badges, you'll be able to afford some aggressive talents for threat and DPS, and mobs will generally be lower level than you. With heroic and badge fury gear and 12/5/44 spec my warrior grinds anything but elementals delightfully fast. The only thing I miss is food, which is solved by stocking up in a BG or your last instance.Posted 10-06-2008 at 02:17 AM by Machus 
- Thanks for the input. I was DCing on my old comp too, and only for this fight. 5-year old or 1-month old comps, with or without addons, new game installations, deleting wtf/wdb/interface folders, updating drivers - my guild has tried everything. We even had GMs monitor our attempts. The official forum has threads that says it seems to be a common bug that plagues guilds attempting Felmyst.
And I agree entirely about the need for commitment. Some of these "retired" healers continue to stay in guild, logging on their alts to sub for farmed content. It riles me up to see them gearing their alts while they ditch us on progression raids. We need the numbers occasionally, but we've also stopped defaulting gear to them, to which I'll say it doesn't leave a good taste in my mouth.
And I'll admit I spend entirely too much time on this game, raiding 4 days on mage, 2-3 days on warrior, with the occasional Kara/ZA thrown in.
I started my warrior 2 years ago, and became a rabid tanking fan, working through normal, heroic, 10-man, 25-man. I'm very lucky to MT for a casual t5-6 raiding guild that makes accomodations for my schedule. I like how in most runs, dps is usually range casters, so plate dps gear defaults to me. 
Posted 10-06-2008 at 02:52 AM by Elyvern -
There are alot of server issues everywhere atm. Last night we all got dropped in the middle of a Kara raid.
I would expect the dreaded lag mob to play a role from here on out to a few weeks or months into Wrath.Posted 10-06-2008 at 09:12 AM by Horacio
