The Master Looter

#1: DPS meters are a distraction

When you’re in a raid, your attention should be focused on the raid, not who’s doing the most DPS. If you’re paying attention to the meters, you could be missing out on more important things happening on your screen.

#2: DPS meters don’t tell the entire story

Some classes/specs do more DPS on multi-mob packs of trash mobs, and some are more efficient at single target DPS. If someone is doing high DPS but has trouble moving out of blue flames, they may be more of a liability to the raid than someone with average DPS that has higher survivability. A four (or five!) digit number does not provide enough useful information about a player.

#3: World of Warcraft is not a job – it’s just a game!

There’s much more to “winning” at WoW than being at the top of a DPS meter. Enjoying the content, working with guildmates, and making new friends are much more rewarding in the long run than showing off your e-peen. Take the time to smell the flowers!

Raiding

Bad raiders lament, “If only I had better gear then I could do more DPS”.

Good raiders know that no amount of gear will help your DPS if you only spam one button for the entire boss fight.

Bad raiders assume their lack of gear stops them from doing ample DPS, and that they don’t get invited to raids because they aren’t well geared.

Good raiders gear themselves up with ease doing 5-mans, and learn how to play their class properly (hint: reading what your spells do helps immensely). They are invited to raids often because they come prepared, don’t hold up the raid, and carry their weight.

Bad raiders depend on their guild to provide them with every piece of gear and every dungeon run they wish to participate in.

Good raiders use the built-in LFG system, along with any server-specific group forming channels to find groups on their own, and build their social network.

Bad raiders complain that PUGs are full of idiots who are impossible to complete a dungeon with.

Good raiders know that the bad raiders themselves are those idiots.

Bad raiders don’t move out of fire or void zones.

Good raiders know that no matter how easy Blizzard makes it to get the highest tier gear available, the bad raiders will still die to standing in bad stuff.

Dungeons, Raiding

In my journey through the end-game of World of Warcraft, I’ve seen many players and guilds struggle, and others progress victoriously. There’s a few misconceptions that often go around about top tier raiding guilds, and why they experience a higher level of success. In this column I hope to debunk these myths.

Myth #1: Raiding guilds require a large time commitment. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. Sure, some of the top guilds in the world spend seven days a week raiding, and achieve world firsts. But a great deal, if not the majority of raiding guilds, are average people with busy lives. Often the hardcore raiding guilds spend less time raiding than casual guilds do – often as few as three nights per week. They are able to do this by setting a few basic ground rules. Everyone is expected to show up on time for the raid, fully prepared with consumables, reagents, and fully repaired gear. The raid starts on time and ends on time. AFK’s are kept to a minimum and are taken during trash pulls if necessary. The raid keeps moving at all times and boss fight explanations are made as concise as possible. For 25 man raids, DPS, healers, and tanks each have their own chat channels set up to delegate duties during a boss encounter. Raiding guilds do not necessarily spend more time raiding – they simply use their time more efficiently.

Myth #2: Raiding guilds are full of elitist jerks. This may very well be true of some raiding guilds, but it’s also true of many casual guilds. It is human nature for some folks to be jerks. However, this is certainly not the norm for all raiding guilds. Hardcore raiding guilds have members who are knowledgable of their classes and roles, and regularly put in the time and effort to continue to improve their gameplay. Just because you know what you’re doing doesn’t make you a jerk. You can have no clue what you’re doing, and still lack proper behavior. Raiding guilds often have a strict application process to make sure all those who join know what they’re doing, but that is a far cry from making them elitists.

Myth #3: It’s too hard to get into a raiding guild. If you take the time to learn how to play your class/role as best as you can, and prove your worth by completing heroics and gearing yourself up properly, there is a raiding guild out there that will have room for you. You just need to look around. Some good starting points include your realm forums, the guild recruitment channel, trade channel, your friends list, and pick up groups. When you fill out an application, be as descriptive as possible in your answers and avoid simple “yes/no” responses when possible. Don’t be afraid to detail your strengths and weaknesses. It takes far less time to find a raiding guild that’s a good fit for you than it does to wipe several times in a raid!

Raiding

It’s frustrating going into a raid where the tanks can’t hold aggro, the healers don’t know how to heal, the DPS stand in fire or just don’t bring down the boss fast enough to beat an enrage timer. Usually there’s one common factor though – lack of experience. Here’s a few simple ways to overcome this obstacle if you find yourself in one of those situations.

Learn as you level. It’s incredibly easy to solo your way up to level 80. You could get all the way there without grouping up with anyone, in theory. Many people actually do this. The problem with doing this is that level 80 dungeons are a lot tricker than their lower level counterparts. The skills you hone from doing 5-man instances while leveling will prove invaluable when you hit 80 and join your first raid or heroic. If you’re a tank, there’s a lot more room for error if you’re in the Deadmines than in the Halls of Lightning. If you lose aggro on a few mobs in the Deadmines, it may not cause a wipe. But in the Halls, those mobs are going to hit a lot harder and it’s going to be a lot more frustrating for the entire group. Practicing holding threat as you level through 5-mans will pay off when you’re tanking heroics at 80. The same goes for healing, or watching your threat as DPS. If you’re still leveling in Azeroth, you probably don’t need to worry about being specced as a tank or healer to fulfill that role in a dungeon. At level 40, you have the option of dual speccing, which may help out substantially as you reach the higher levels. 1,000 gold isn’t nearly as hard to come by as it used to be, so gold should not an issue.

Use a DPS meter. Recount is one of the most widely used DPS meters, and I can’t recommend it enough. If you’re a DPS class, it’s important to be able to gauge your DPS. While DPS is not the only important factor in a raid, it’s still necessary to monitor. If you’re only doing 1,000 DPS at level 80, that’s a big cause for concern. It’s far less embarassing to find out on your own that you need to pick up your DPS, instead of heading into a raid and finding out the hard way from the rest of the raid! Even if you’re not in a DPS role, it’s a good idea to make sure the rest of the group is performing well. If you are wiping to an enrage timer because of a couple of low DPS, it will help to find out who needs some coaching, and get them some assistance.

Seek out a mentor. If you’re new to healing, find a dedicated healer from your guild and learn from them. Find out which spells you should be using in which situations if you’re not sure. If you can’t find a good mentor in your guild, you can always look outside your guild. Perhaps there was a really good healer in your last PUG that might be able to help answer a few of your questions? The same goes for any class/role.

Stay informed. Whatever your class or role, there are many blogs that can keep you up to speed with all kinds of useful information. Taking the time to read what others have to say about your role, or a specific boss encounter, will better prepare you for your raid. Taking a few minutes a day to read blogs is a great idea for raiders of all skill levels.

Watch the boss fights. You can look up any boss fight on YouTube and watch the video. This is incredibly simple to do and does not need much of an explanation!

Dungeons, Newbie Guides, Raiding

Having a dedicated master looter in your raid can serve two purposes. It can speed up the raid by having one person handle loot while the raid leader continues leading the raid. It can also prevent loot drama that might ensue by letting members Need/Greed using the default roll interface.

To use the Master Looter option, the raid leader can right click his player portrait and set the looting to Master Looter along with a desired threshold of item quality (uncommon, rare, epic). Items of this level or above must be looted manually. Usually a threshold of rare or epic is used. The raid leader can right click anyone’s name in the raid window to assign them this duty. An icon that looks like a bag of money will appear next to their name.

Master looting is a simple process. While viewing the piece of loot you want to distribute, clicking on it will bring up a list of groups. Click on whichever group the person you want to assign the loot to is in, and then click their name. If the item is Bind on Pickup, a confirmation warning will come up.

If the master looter is out of range of the rest of the group, any items that drop for the group will not be master looted, and will simply be rolled upon using the default roll interface. This may happen when items drop off trash mobs between bosses if loot is being distributed. This can be avoided by making sure the group does not get too far ahead while loot is still being rolled for.

Raiding

DPS is Damage Per Second. It’s the most common unit for measuring how much damage you output. While other factors are often just as important, such as situational awareness and threat management, there are a few simple things you can do to make sure those mobs are going down as fast as they should be!

Get a DPS Meter: Using a DPS meter such as Recount is how you’ll be able to gauge your performance. If you don’t know how much DPS you are doing how will you know if you’re improving?

Find a Talent Spec: Some talent specializations are better for leveling or soloing, some are for PVP, and some are built for raids. If you are going to be running heroics or raids, you can benefit greatly from having a talent build that will support maximizing your DPS in those situations.

Get Hit Capped: If you’re going to raid, know what your hit cap is and get as close as you can to it. Hit rating is the single best stat you can have until you reach the cap. It doesn’t matter how much spell power or attack power you’ve got when the boss you are fighting dodges your attack!

Learn Your Rotations: Once you find a good spec, spend some time learning what all of your talents do, so you can see which abilities work together the best. The order in which you use your abilities will make a great difference in your DPS output. For instance, if you are a balance druid, a good rotation might be Moonfire, Insect Swarm, Faerie Fire, then a few Starfalls.

Enchants and Glyphs: Get the best glyphs for your class/spec. If you’re not sure which ones they are, do a little research and find out what your options are. Make sure all of your gear has appropriate enchants, leg armor, belt buckle, and gems. Even cheap ones are much better than none, and will help your DPS out significantly.

Get Buffed Up: Elixirs, food buffs, and scrolls can add some extra oomph to your damage output. You don’t need the most expensive ones, anything is better than nothing.

Practice, Practice, Practice: Practicing on a test dummy in a capital city is a great way to tweak your DPS rotation until it’s at peak performance. Once you’ve got your moves down, you’ll be on your way to getting some epic gear!

The most important think you should take away from this article is that it’s a good idea to take some time outside WoW to improve your gameplay if you’re going to raid. The internet is home to an incredible amount of useful information. Searching on Google is still the tried and true method to find out anything you need to know!

Dungeons, Newbie Guides, Raiding

Last night I joined in on a Naxx 25 raid hosted by a guild needing just a few more to fill up the group. It was a fun and friendly group, but it seemed that 75% of the time was spent waiting, most of which was unnecessary.

Inspired by StratFu’s Guide to Faster Raiding, and the 3 hours spent in Arachid Quarter last night, here are 7 ways to make Naxx – or any raid – go faster:

1. Keep pulling!  Once you are done with one group of trash mobs, move onto the next unless a good chunk of the raid has died.

2. Don’t stop for loot! Set loot threshold to rare or epic if using master looter, so green items don’t need to be looted by the loot master. Have the master looter handle looting while the rest of the raid continues pulling trash mobs and clearing to the next boss. Spending 5 minutes handing out loot per boss * 25 raid members = Over 2 hours of peoples’ time wasted per boss.

3. Don’t hold up the raid for one person! Don’t wait for one or two people who are not ready unless they are critical to the fight. If someone’s having a computer problem, or is going to the AH to buy stuff, that’s no reason to keep 24 other people waiting. Making 24 other people each wait 10 minutes = Over 4 hours of peoples’ time wasted while someone tries to fix their add-ons, use the bathroom, or change a diaper.

4. Explain the boss fight while clearing trash! If anyone has any questions about the boss, they can be answered while clearing trash mobs. Waiting until you are at the boss to explain the fight is a big time waster. 10 minute boss fight explanation with questions and answers * 25 people = Over 4 hours of peoples’ time wasted per boss.

5. Don’t bring too many tanks or healers! You may feel safer with 7 or 8 healers in your Naxx group, but it’s just going to gimp DPS and make for lazy healers. On my server, there rarely seems to be a problem of having too many healers, but it is still worthwhile to mention. With dual specs now available, this should be a moot issue.

6. Don’t stop for buffing until a boss fight! If you need a buff refreshed, ask in raid chat. People will die during trash sometimes, and waiting for them to get buffed is not necessary. All buffs can be refreshed before fighting a boss. Just because one of your DPS overnuked doesn’t mean you need to have the rest of the raid sit still while they mana up and get buffs.

7. Get your consumables before the raid! It is nice when someone offers to hand out or sell flasks during a raid, but spending 10 minutes doing so * 25 raid members = over 4 hours of peoples’ time wasted while handing out flasks.

The main idea here is that for every 2.5 minutes the raid is idle, an hour of time is wasted across the entire raid!

Most things that cause the entire raid to come to a screeching halt simply don’t have to. Whether you raid seven nights a week, or just two or three, you can get more out of your raiding time by keeping the raid moving at all times!

Raiding

Ulduar is coming soon, but for many it’s just not soon enough! If you’re looking to take a break from raiding befiore patch day hits, here are some fun alternatives for how to spend your WoW time:

Grind Old Reputations: Get yourself exalted with the Timbermaw, Kurenai, or any other faction you’re not yet exalted with. At level 80, this is a much quicker process, and you can still make a bit of gold while doing this!

Build Up Your Reserves: Northrend daily quests are a great way to earn gold, and do some gathering as part of your repetoire. The Sons of Hodir give you better shoulder enchants when you are exalted, too. Between Icecrown and the Storm Peaks, you can earn a few hundred gold per day from daily quests!

Run Some Heroics: Get more badges to finish your off spec gear set. Get to exalted with the Northrend Vanguard factions (Knights of the Ebon Blade, Wymrest Accord, Argent Crusade, and Kirin Tor) by wearing the respective tabard while you’re in a 5-man heroic dungeon.

Level Up Cooking and Fishing: If you don’t already have these professions, they are wonderful for leveling hand in hand. Farming your own raid consumables not only saves you gold, but you can sell your surplus consumables on the AH for even more gold!

Read A Blog About Your Class: Learn about theorycrafting, and get to know your class better. There is a wealth of information on the internet that you can use to become a better player.

Raiding

First I’ll define the term ‘PUG Raid’. There is a difference between a 25-man raid formed of experienced raiders and good friends, and a 25-man raid formed with 25 complete strangers. When I say PUG Raid I’m referring to a raid with 25 random people, or pretty close to that. Most of us have been in one at some time or another, whether it’s to raid Naxxramas, the Black Temple, or even a pre-TBC raid. These raids usually fail pretty miserably, and while there’s not much that can usually be done to improve the outcome, there’s several lessons to be learned.

Lack of Etiquette: Bringing unknown people in for their first raid often sets the entire group up for trouble. There’s a lot of etiquette involved in 25-man raids. All it takes is one Leeroy wanna-be to face pull and ruin the experience for everyone. When you have 25 people raiding together, you’re not wasting one person’s time when it goes sour. You’re wasting everyone’s time. At the minimum, any person invited to a raid should at least be known to have manners. When you invite someone to a raid, it is good to make sure at least one or two people know the person isn’t an ass.

Lack of Gear or Skill: Some people will never be able to dodge void zones, death and decay, rain of fire, or any other types of “circles of death” no matter how many epics they are wearing. There’s just nothing you can do. For bosses such as Archavon, if you bring in too many newly-dinged 80s who can’t play their class, you sometimes risk not being able to beat the 5 minute enrage timer. A minimum amount of DPS output and skill is required for raiding. While inspecting someone’s gear won’t tell you if they can avoid circles of death or do a reasonable amount of DPS, it’s the next best thing to having someone vouch for them.

Lack of Strategy Knowledge: If someone’s well versed in raiding etiquette, is a skilled player, and has good gear, this usually isn’t much of an issue. Some people will pick up boss fight mechanics on the first try, and some will need several attempts before getting it down. That’s just how the learning process works. When you bring together a 25 man raid, of which half are new to the fight, it is inevitable that many will not have the patience to wipe several times until the new raiders learn the strategies. For instance, if you have a PUG with half new players and half seasoned raiders, after three wipes on Anub’rekhan you’re going to lose many of the good raiders at the very least. And when you replace them, you’re going to have to teach many of the incoming people how the fight works from the very beginning. The only way to avoid this problem is to make sure the people you invite know the strategies – which often isn’t the case with PUGs.

PUGs work great for 5 man instances. Not so much for 10 and 25 man, it seems. Any raider who knows what they are doing will most likely be inclined to join a guild where anyone who does not possess raiding etiquette or a fair amount of skill is not allowed inside in the first place.

Raiding

Patch 3.1 will bring us Ulduar, a brand new raid dungeon, and with it lots of new epics including Tier 8 items. Item level 226 epics will drop on 25 man, and level 213 epics on 10 man. There’s many ways you can get yourself geared for this new instance:

Gearing Up For 10-man Ulduar

You will want to have level 200 epics or higher if possible. Level 200 epics drop in Naxxramas, Obsidian Sanctum, and the Vault of Archavon. One level 200 epic will drop off the last boss in every heroic 5-man Northrend dungeon. Additionally, level 200 epics can be purchased from emblem of heroism vendors, and crafted through many professions. Some bind-on-equip epics do exist and can be occasionally found – but not without a high price tag!

Gearing Up For 25-man Ulduar

With level 213 epics equipped you are ready to head into Ulduar 25. You’ll be getting these from Naxx 25, VoA 25, OS 25, Malygos 10 man, Kel’thuzad 10 man, as well as emblem of valor vendors.

Raiding