before i start, can i just happily announce that for May’s batch of happy gems, consortium has finally decided that after this long at revered, they will reward me with 2 blue gems finally?

Damn stingy bastards. Oh, and yay to more gaming posts (height of stress signs lmao)
In the days that followed my last “noob’s guide“, i have been playing on my alliance character and therefore somewhat qualified to join a guild with M, my mate on that server. There i met a fresh 70 warlock, who had rl friends who plays the game but none of them, said warlock included, were ever decked in purples, much less raid gears. None of them have seen raids either, from what i have gathered. So, this is some love to the said warlock.

Introduction

Firstly, read the original noob’s guide. This is because there’s a lot of helpful hints in there as to why some guildies might have seemed rude to you when you asked to tag along in TK. I might repeat myself here anyways, but do start from there.

Now, first of all, let it be understood that raids are very different from instances for various reasons. Some of them are common sense to people who have played MMOs for most of their lives, but for the sake of this post, do understand that not many people might have played MMOs before WoW. The way WoW has been, it’s popularity has often been because it was easily accessible and understood by even people who has never gamed before – and does not take that much time or effort to get started.

Most of the “hardcore” stuff, and fun stuff, starts at 70. Raids are differentiated and ranked according to the Tier tokens that they drop. Furthering the complications, mobs and their AI also gets more difficult/complicated according to the loot that they drop (common sense, but again…). With that in mind, this is how raids should be attended according to the order of difficulty/no. of people in terms of progressing, bearing in mind that most people progress from those raids once they have loots for most of the core people (healers and tanks) from the previous tier.

1. Karazhan – 10 man
2. Gruul’s Lair / Magtheridon – 25 men
3. Serpent Shrine Caverns / Tempest Keep – 25 men
4. ZA – 10 men (Ok, i lied. Za is kinda in between 2) and 3) because of the mix of gear levels in there)
5. Black Temple/ Mount Hyjal – 25 men
6. Sunwell – 25 men

Basic Expectations
So, with that progression in mind, let’s start with some of the basics that i have mentioned in the original noob guide:

• You have to be geared enough for the raids. There are raid minimums for every single tier, when unfuilfilled, this can cause incredible lack of dps/heals/protection. While alot of guilds have got Karazhan down pat to the point of purely farming Karazhan (and getting annoyed if people screw up lol), this doesn’t ignore the fact that Karazhan is still an entry-level Raid. Most new guilds would start there, unless they are a geared split from another guild.This means that new Characters intending to gear up for progressive raids (or basically get somewhere in progressive raids) should start at Karazhan as well.
• With the necessary gears in mind, it should be noted that one shouldn’t try and skip one tier raid over another. Of course you can try, play with trash mobs, even mess around with the bosses of Sunwell (for example) if you get there. In all reality though, unless you are the only shitty geared person, perhaps you should just leave the high end stuff for later. You know, strats and dps works better when you are not busy kissing the floor.
• Always, always, always read up on Boss Strats. even if you’re going there as an assigned teabagger, it would be wise not to be a fried teabagger – who wipes the raid on, say, Aran.
• Find out the raid sign up procedures, and go sign up. This cuts down the need to bug people to invite you to raid if they have already got a raid going… and you aren’t invited. It also makes it fairer (if the guild works right) for everyone since you have already signed up and they can’t say “you didn’t sign up, sorry, join the next page of wait list.
• Find out about loot policies, wait list policies and abide by them. please don’t fucking whine, spam guild chat with incessant “but i am a newbie…” or “i have waited for an hour, shouldn’t i get a chance” bullshit. if you’re late, if you’re a newbie, sit in your corner, listen to instructions and ask if you can have an item POLITELY if it’s suitable for you.

Raid Minimums

All that, before you even enter Karazhan. But wait, there’s more. Because this is dedicated to a fresh 70, here’s some idea of raid minimums:

(yeah i know, i suck at putting tables up in WordPress, and i am too lazy to upload a text file for you to download)

these are just MINIMUMS. They aren’t recommended and because of the availability of many good gears out there, there would be some expectations. each guild differs in terms of raid minimums, so do check with your guild at the end of the day.

Narrowing that down to specific classes though, there are some things that should be noted:

As far as clothies go, if this is your first character, you should first and foremost be a tailor. Dedicate some time into levelling it up. While you are levelling up, there’s more than adequate amount of humanoid-type mobs that you would be killing (and i know this because i am BOTH a tailor and first aid person largely from my own mats) that would produce your cloths for your tailoring. The only other reason why you should be lagging behind in terms of being a tailor is the difficulty in obtaining, say, rugged leather.

If you are rushing through your levels, then at least bank your cloths. This is vital when AH might prove to be just abit lacking. If you need a guide to Power levelling your tailoring, here’s a link – Click.

The importance behind being a tailoring clothy is because at the end of your tailoring levels, you can make your own epic armour. They even come with sockets! These choices of armour can give you the running headstart you need to meet those raiding requirements. They are a pain in the arse to make, and the cloths are currently at 3.5 days cooldown per 2 cloths (when you spec into a particular cloth). However, the trouble of getting them dumbs down the need to run heroics a gazillion time in the hope of some all right gear for raids.

Gearing up for Karazhan:

And here’s some clothy gear suggestions i guess:

• Warlock: Frozen Shadoweave Set (from Tailoring)
  • Progresses into: Tier 4 Voidheart set
• Mages: Frost starts with Frozen Shadoweave, and Fire & Arcane Mages starts with SpellFire
  • Progresses into: Tier 4 Aldor Regalia (choice of name o.o)
• Priests: Holy starts with Primal Mooncloth Set, Shadow with Frozen Shadoweave

On a personal note, i have never found the Tier 4 set bonuses to be that much better than Primal mooncloth enough for me to care to upgrade it to Tier 4. With that in mind, and the right gemmings, i currently stand at 1.9k +healing un-buffed, i think, obviously with some Tier 5 trinkets and stuff here and there (and before anyone starts, I haven’t raid or done anything badge related in about 2 months, so stuff your fat ass elsewhere).
With helm and leggings, with some luck, you can get drops off Botanica/Shattered Halls instances a couple of recipes that forms the Spellstrike set. These, while a bitch to obtain (if not, go badger some lover to make it for you), aids in the spell crit and spell hit capping for caster dps. For healers, Whitemend is your best friend.

Anything that you are missing (bracers, gloves, shoes) go BG some and get some welfare epics. The tip for getting gears, with regards to drops, is the more the stats (+int, +stam, +spell crit, +spell dmg), the better it would be for you. So if a trinket comes along with like 1 stat, as compared to say another one that has 2, the one with 2 wins hands down (unless it’s like, +1 stam, +2 spell dmg).
Enchants

So now, you should have a 5/5 set bonus on top of the sets, and a 2/2 for your head and legs, and they are epics that will last you for at least a month. It’s time to bling them since you had be wearing them for that long. Pants wise, if you are scryer and exalted with them, Runic Spell thread works for DPS-ers, whilst aldors exalted gives Golden Spell Thread for healers. If you are not related to either of them, just grab a friend and have them make what you need. It works regardless of your loyalties.

Aldor’s Shoulder enchants comes with more Spell damage, but less spell crit compared to Scryers. On a personal level, since i haven’t played caster dps in raid formats, i can’t tell which is more important. But, in my own judgement, i had say spell damage is probably more important due to the increment of consistent of damage over time as compared to reliance of a chanced crit.

Healers would be some what torn at this i guess. Scryers offer 22 +healing (at exalted) but with 6mp5, whils Aldors offer a flat 29 +healing. Mp5s are really sweet for long ass raids though, so it’s not entirely negligible and if you have shitty side gears (trinkets, bracers), that’s something to be taken into consideration.

Head enchants: Glyph of Power for Casters (revered with shatt), Glyph of Renewal for Healers (revered with Honor Hold/Thrallmar).

the rest of the enchants for your gears, use your head. Unless you’re an enchanter levelling up your skills, i highly doubt you need dodge rating as a caster.

Gemming

Can i just point out, being a jewelcrafter is a PAIN IN THE ASS? ok, QQ completed.

This is really a no-brainer, but in order of what’s important as a dps-er, starting with cheap gems:

1. Veiled Flame Spessarite
2. Runed Blood Garnet
3. Gleaming Golden Draenite
4. Veiled Noble Topaz
5. Runed Living Ruby
6. Great Dawnstone

Gleaming Golden Draenite and Great dawnstone should be used when you are just starting out and trying to get hit capped.

Healers, You should use this in accordance to what you think is currently needed. If your gears make up for your mana regeneration, then go for more +heals and so on.

1. Purified Shadow Pearl
2. Luminious Noble Topaz
3. Teardrop Living Ruby

Mods

Ahh, my favourite topic. To start with, you do need mods for raiding. If not for some basic knowledge of where you stand in raids, at least whether the mob is about to start whaling on you next. Suggested required mods:

SWStats – Dmg meters

Omen – Threat meters

OrA2 – At least to see who you are going to assist off…

Bosskiller – more useful if you have read up strats…

Some Loose ends

do not forget your consumables. Wizard oil/Brilliant mana oil for Weapon rubbing, Food for spell dmg/Healing/mana regen and of course, FLASKS. The more output you have, the higher chance of success, the less gold spent on repairs and the better you look (as a genuine raider) to others.

Here’s also the obligatory links to guides for Warlocks: Nihilium Warlock Guide and Elitist Jerk’s Warlock PVE guide (which i pretty much took most of the gemmings ideas from!)

Meanwhile, while you are gearing up, don’t forget to pug it, because that’s where you learn your skills from!

And that’s it!

p.s i need a life.

So, despite the fact that i can hardly raid anymore, if at all, i am constantly on the look out on improving my mods for raids. Oh, i know, Mods don’t make me a good raider, skills does. I just like having things at the ease of my fingers. As long as it’s quick and easy, it means i have a higher chance at being on top of my game.

WoW’s allowance for gamers to enhance their UI has allowed alot of wonderful things for avid gamers/fanboys. There’s been people working behind alot of mods, to make others’ gaming experiences better, simplified or just aesthetically pleasing. Some of the mods are updated so much, i wondered if the authors themselves have a life outside of it all – or perhaps they are just in love with coding.

At any rate, I am pretty sure most people who plays wow already knows all that information, so here’s what i have done in the past week:

• I love pitbull, i just couldn’t find the ability to anchor the party frame to the top of my screen for some reason (or maybe i was stupid). Cue some QQ, changed to Xperl, and then more QQ. A quick google and some patches later (perhaps it was just me not realising it earlier anyways) I found the way to hang it up top, AND have it all turned off while raiding.go me!
• I love my decursive, really. I just don’t like not knowing WHO was being cured, and at a quick glance, everything was just… not specific enough, if you know what I mean. I also happen to love a thousand other Raid UI’s (ok, so it’s just because i like to see little fucking pink boxes, go fuck yourselves <3 ). After some intensive reading, since i suck at learning to do things on the fly without distracting myself, i got Clique and Grid working in the way i kinda want to. so now, it’s a hell lot more key-binding than what i am used to. For the next week or 2, i am just going to adjust myself to it slowly, making full use of BGs hehehe…
• Got ElkBuffBars. Just felt like seeing how my buffs goes, not that i don’t actually know it. It does clean up the rest of the ui (buffs hanging from portraits etc) though

still a work in progress, regardless. For some reason, after a while, i just can’t seem to be happy with how my ui looks. hahaha.

Characters wise, I have been taking breaks from my main horde character. There’s nothing wrong with her, but other than farming gold like a retard, i really don’t see the character going anywhere until i have a proper school break/work break or something along those lines. raid time clashes with just about everything: work, school and assignments. PVP got boring after the 3rd week so i started…. levelling my alliance character.

in 2-3 weeks (since i got new lappy), i went from lvl 27 to… lvl 61 hahaha. So here’s Evil Ani for you (because alliance are so full of themselves hahaha). i may eventually level the rest of my alts, all to 60, just for kicks and laughs, because i CAN. There’s people who are always whining about how hard it is to level, even with the current boost. I can understand if they have never play any other games before and simply assumed that it is HARD and a bother.

But having played lineage 2 for almost 4 years, i have come to realise what’s real hard and painful. and i do love love love lineage 2, so don’t get me wrong. Not to mention the small time frame i have spent in other mmos (silkroad, rose online comes to mind) that are an ASS to level in. So WoW really isn’t hard people, and if it is, let’s just say at least you’re getting your money’s worth and not reaching end game in 2 weeks.

I would like to end this post with a little in-game drama ^_^ as if rl drama isn’t “days of our lives” enough.

My friend M joined this guild with a mate of his, as he got abandoned on the server by his other rl friends and (ahem) me – since you know, i actually HAVE a functioning main. He contributed quite abit into it along with his ugly gnome friend – set up a site for forums, tried pushing people into being more active for the sake of the guild’s raids and booted those who were obviously for nothing but “look i have a guild, therefore i must be something”.

On a side note, i must say, really. Why do people apply to raiding guilds with absolutely no intention of fucking raiding? And, furthermore, there are lots of information on the forums that was made for that guild in particular – raiding strats, recommended class/talent builds, raid dates and locations – why don’t people make full use of those before logging on and asking stupid shit like, “oh, what bosses/raids are we doing tonight?” *twitch*

At any rate, the officers of the guild set a deadline for the GM: whip the guild into shape by May 14th, get into ssc/tk or we are all gone. The officers are also… the core and most reliable raiders of the lots. This include M. They were all tired of the inactivity, the GM trying to be nice to everyone (“stop booting people! we are getting smaller!” but, if they aren’t raiding, you guys weren’t big anyways), and just running KZ like there’s no tomorrow – and then wiping on KZ trash.

May 14th loomed in his face, and the GM realised it’s never going to happen, and begged the officers to please reconsider their actions – no go. So, the GM DITCHED THE GUILD. He ditched it into M’s hands, took 900g from the guild bank and bailed to join his “rl friends”.

Fair enough, M was fairly surprised though. GM still had some “friends” that he pretty much left in the guild without bringing them with him to his more active raiding guild. Regardless, M set about trying to see what he can do with the remains of the guild. It all depends on 2 meetings with the officers and the members, and then he’s booting more people.

Thankfully, a very useless retarded pally left before i could gouge his eyes out.

The guild though, pretty much showed no promise of improvement. For a just-in-case scenario, and because what was left in the guild bank was pretty much all that had been contributed by M and his friend, M locked up the guild bank, turn off viewing priviledges from everyone and then got everyone into an active raiding guild.

Except for Ex-GM’s rl friends. Already, neither of them were active raiders to start with. There were minute contributions from either of them, if at all. The only major one came from Ex-GM, which was made a moot point when he took out that 900g. When M turned off viewing priviledges, Ath, one of the GM’s RL friends, started QQ-ing and insisted on knowing what’s inside the guild bank and felt like he was being singled out.

When the move between guilds happened, and Ath was left behind, both him and Ex-GM started QQ-ing even more, and then insisted on having both the guild AND the guild bank back, complete with all the gold and perhaps “a stash of Void Crystals would be nice”. M was having none of it, and told them to go to hell. They can’t just come back in after ripping the guild off, and leaving people behind to sink, and still expected some “rewards” for nil contribution.

Ath started harassing and stalking M, complete with threats of banning and what not.

Ok, so here’s the thing darling. It’s hard to start over again, that’s for sure. but it’s not impossible. and you know what? M is lineage 2 trained, WoW is easy mode. So, even if by your lies he does get banned, damn it be fun to start him over again.

- The End -