So now that we understand that the single most problem guilds have are the players themselves and the revolving door of guild membership we can begin looking at some other details that I feel are important to guilds.
Communication and management of drama's. These two areas are important to have a plan in place before a guild gets to big or these two area's will cause a guild to fail totally. Every guild has varying levels of success with this but for a guild to accomplish their goals and tasks as a group this is a must. Communication is paramount and doesn't necessarily mean guild chat. There must be a medium for sensitive subjects to be discussed without the rest of the guild being privy to such information. Free forum services are ideal for this in that you can easily set one up and then at least have the officers in the guild use it to cover necessary topics. If you can get the entire guild involved that's even better because it becomes a second home for the players to keep up with what is going on. Also these forums can be set up where only certain people have access to some of the threads and not others thus allowing for the guild leadership to have a place that is accessible on to them to discuss more sensitive subjects. This is far better than using in game methods to communicate as it's not dependent upon everyone being online to discuss something.
Guild drama is a beast of it's own and is the #1 guild killer in the game. No one should ever think they are immune or that it's not bad. When it begins it's always innocently enough, and in the best of cases will get to the point where players that are unhappy will just leave the guild. At worst, this drama will cause needless hours wasted in in-game chats trying to resolve problems that have no real life importance or bearing on reality. Actual in game issues seem to somehow resolve themselves fairly easily unless your talking about loot ninja's and people who steal from the guild bank, but these problems are much more manageable than issue's where players expectations are simply not feasible. The guild drama's that kill guilds rarely involve issues that can be fixed by running extra instances and such.
One of the biggest issue's I've come across is when one group of players feel like they can manage a guild better than the current leadership or that they are more capable. This is a problem that revolves around the basic tenant of personality incompatibility where one party (usually the one stirring the pot) refuses to see that they don't fit in a particular guild. During BC I saw this play out in LOST SLEEP in a bad way. One group felt like the officers were not doing enough to keep the players happy and the officers continually asked what these players needed from us to do. Other issues also got thrown not this mix and for a while the waters was murky indeed. In the end, some players left the guild, others were kicked out and the rest of us sighed in relief. In the end a lot of players felt that the officers should be devoting our full time to power-leveling their toons and making sure that they were constantly going into heroics and raids (which we were only just beginning to be prepared for). LOST SLEEP is a casual guild, built along the lines of a family guild, and isn't a "leveling guild," though we know a good number of players who do like to level their toons with us. The guild is more fashioned around the player taking responsibility of his own goals and the rest of us are there to help out when we can.
This is an interesting point, and one that is commonly misunderstood by a lot of players. Unless there is a stated goal officially from the guild, players 'should' be responsible for their own leveling, instances and gearing. Where casual guilds are nice is that there is usually someone around willing to help. This works in some cases but it can be also be frustrating for some players as well. I've heard many times as an officer that a guild doesn't help enough. This leads me to the question; what is enough? This is unfortunately a subjective question that rest solely on the person or player that asks it. Some players think that higher level players should always be available to help where as others feel that they should be able to schedule some sort of help and that it is deemed required that the help is there as scheduled. What this does to a guild is that it sucks up resources fast. When guilds have to ensure that higher level players are immediately available for such requests or that any run that is put on a schedule becomes mandatory, then you are asking players to put aside their own aspirations for the game and their toons in favor of someone else's whims.
This just cannot be done or even enforced. Even in the strictest of raiding guilds, the subject of mandatory schedules is a controversial issue, and they have to have them to some extent to ensure that the guild is able to progress through the content in a quick and efficient manner. This is less necessary today than it has been in the past, and this is probably where some players get the idea that anything that is scheduled should receive precedence over every thing else. The problem in a casual guild is that most players there have no desire to do this, and time to do such things is also a problem. When LOST SLEEP schedules runs, through anything, it is in the hope that enough people sign up as well as show up when it's time. We do attempt to enforce the starting times and if you sign up you'd better be there part, but there is no real consequence for people who don't comply because we're not structured in a way to give and enforce stringent consequences to players like this.
So, for a casual guild, this sets the stage for a whole slew of drama's from players. All of them are survivable, the GM only has to decide if he sides with personalities or principals. GM's who side on the side of personalities will eventually have their guilds ripped apart because of these kinds of dramas. But the GM's that side on the side of principals will walk through these events and come out on the other side, smarter and stronger. Tomaryke, LOST SLEEP's guild master, is probably one of the longest standing GM's on Gilneas in this guild and it show's when things are challenging or difficult for the guild. He'll always work to ensure that every player has a chance to have fun with the guild, but he won't go out of his way to meet some players selfish requests, nor will he tolerate players that become unreasonable or disruptive to the guild. Most of his officers have been with the guild for a really long time, and some of them since the guilds inception. This gives LOST SLEEP a tremendous amount of experience to draw from, and that does not include a number of players that have years of hardcore raiding experience and such who belong to the guild.
The point here is, every guild needs to have a clearly defined mission and goal. They need to recruit players who tend to match those goals and values. And they need to be willing to let the players come and go, for this will slowly build their reputation. LOST SLEEP has been on the server now for so long that there are quite a few guilds now on Gilneas that are trying to emulate us in one fashion or another. We have a good reputation on the server for being willing help other guilds as well as helping our own. We didn't ask for this reputation or emulation, but it is flattering to see that so many are trying to copy what we have done. We've never been a great raiding guild, but we have raided, we're not gods of PVP, but our presence has definitely been felt and seen in the BG's and Arena's. And on a good night, a member of LOST SLEEP can be seen almost anywhere in the game.
Malice is much like this guild in it's younger years. I feel that Malice, if it stays it's current course will slowly evolve into a guild very similar to LOST SLEEP. And that would be a great benefit to the server.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Ever Closer
So, Dhargaul has now hit the lofty level of 77 and has purchased his Cold Weather flying. Now that the regular flying mounts fly even faster since patch 3.2 has landed this week, this means he'll have a much better time accessing a lot of quests as well as more flexibility in getting around to do his quests. Now all I need to do is to raise the 1k in gold so he can dual spec. I also like the buffed stamina that shaman have gotten from the patch, though Dhargual is still a long way away from the 16k in Health that Zuluki has. Gear wise these two toons are looking for similiar gear so you would think that they would very similiar health stats, and when Dhargaul get to level 80 I hope this is true. I'm also beginning to really like to new totem bar addition for shaman. I'm still playing with it so it's not as refined as I would like, but I really like hitting one button and seeing my favorite 4 totems landing on the ground. This will make the harder fights go much smoother since I won't be missing cooldowns due to refreshing all my totems or having to drop them individually. Since I don't macro my totems or put them on my action bars, that means I'm using the mouse to drop them and clicking them one at a time alwasy slows down what I'm doing.
On another note, Zuluki is sitting very pretty at level 79 and only 4 bubbles away from 80. I fully plan on finishing her run on this by the end of next week. She's beginning her rep grinds now too for gear, as well as getting prepared to craft out her beginning epics. I am really excited about being this close to 80 with her and I have to admit she's my favorite toon right now.
Mohg, and Yrkoon are also getting some attention but not as much as my two main characters. Though it may not be the most optimal build, I'm really ready to get Mohg back to Combat Daggers as that seems to be the funnest build and playstyle for me, all I need to do now is to find 2 new daggers for his and he'll be set for a while. Yrkoon is in the same position as Dhar in that I'm now just waiting to have the funds so that he can dual spec Ret/Holy. I'm really eager to get dual specced before he hits Outlands so that I can begin building decent sets of gear for him.
All in all, I feel good about my characters and the state of the game right now. So hopefully his trend will conitnue. :D
Happy hunter all
Dhargaul.
On another note, Zuluki is sitting very pretty at level 79 and only 4 bubbles away from 80. I fully plan on finishing her run on this by the end of next week. She's beginning her rep grinds now too for gear, as well as getting prepared to craft out her beginning epics. I am really excited about being this close to 80 with her and I have to admit she's my favorite toon right now.
Mohg, and Yrkoon are also getting some attention but not as much as my two main characters. Though it may not be the most optimal build, I'm really ready to get Mohg back to Combat Daggers as that seems to be the funnest build and playstyle for me, all I need to do now is to find 2 new daggers for his and he'll be set for a while. Yrkoon is in the same position as Dhar in that I'm now just waiting to have the funds so that he can dual spec Ret/Holy. I'm really eager to get dual specced before he hits Outlands so that I can begin building decent sets of gear for him.
All in all, I feel good about my characters and the state of the game right now. So hopefully his trend will conitnue. :D
Happy hunter all
Dhargaul.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Guilds and Guild Mgmt Part 2
Player retention is a double edged sword that does not allow for a win-win situation. Guilds of all sorts have this problem and the biggest reason why is the player himself. Players will not stay where they feel unwanted, unchallenged, and unrewarded if they feel the guild will not help them to achieve their own personal goals. For these reasons and many more, this means that GM's will never resolve this issue. Even the most dedicated and tightly knit raiding guilds have difficulties with this issue. Here the most common mistake GM's make is trying to keep everyone happy.
I remember reading some time back that the GM for Nihilum (the world's #1 raiding guild who are now operating under a different name) said that his job was to insure he had the right person for the job in each of his raiding slots. Given that the guild only had 50 members, this is still a daunting task. While he considered gear important, he considered experience and the ability to fully play a class even more so. He knew that if every player was an expert at playing their class he could take them through any raid instance successfully regardless of how the guild was geared (for the most part.). Yet, like any other guild, players came and went, though with less frequency. He stated on the official EU forums once that he made no bones about keeping people happy, he just didn't do that. Success was his driving goal and everyone had to be on board with that goal or they couldn't be in the guild.
While this is easy to accomplish within a raid guild since your focus can be more narrowed, accomplishing this in a casual guild is much harder. The vast majority of casual players will only stick to a guild if they have friends there; otherwise they jump from guild to guild a lot looking for a good match. Then you have the players that could care less about the guild and only care about what they can get from the guild. Other players look for certain kinds of guild while leveling and a different kind of guild when they hit the cap. In all of this, the GM really has not say or influence over what will happen, he can only hope players will like his guild and stay.
The key here, I believe for any GM, is to let the players come and go but to try and get to know every person that comes through the guild. This way you can learn who is most compatible to your guild and the guilds goals. This way it will be easier to encourage these players to stick around and more of the will likely do this. While this process takes longer, it does slowly grow a solid core of players to work with as more and more of them hit the level cap. The thing to remember is that casual guilds will either grow slowly with a good measure of quality in the guild or you can go on a recruit ‘anyone’ binges to build your numbers quickly and then deal with the fallout later.
One last thought about player retention. Some players need to be doing things to feel a part of the guild, other’s need to see active players on the ‘who’ list and in chat, while others just need the title above their head. Whether or not guild activities are a presence in the guild seems irrelevant. I’ve been in large casual guilds that maintained a high number of players from all levels mainly due to the fact that the leadership was constantly planning guild events and such. This is a lot of fun and does build a significant community. I’ve also seen guilds who only scheduled dungeon runs and instances only that were successful as well. The key for the GM and officers is to have a presence, regardless of how that presence is carried out. And all of these people need to be actively looking for more likeminded individuals at all times.
I remember reading some time back that the GM for Nihilum (the world's #1 raiding guild who are now operating under a different name) said that his job was to insure he had the right person for the job in each of his raiding slots. Given that the guild only had 50 members, this is still a daunting task. While he considered gear important, he considered experience and the ability to fully play a class even more so. He knew that if every player was an expert at playing their class he could take them through any raid instance successfully regardless of how the guild was geared (for the most part.). Yet, like any other guild, players came and went, though with less frequency. He stated on the official EU forums once that he made no bones about keeping people happy, he just didn't do that. Success was his driving goal and everyone had to be on board with that goal or they couldn't be in the guild.
While this is easy to accomplish within a raid guild since your focus can be more narrowed, accomplishing this in a casual guild is much harder. The vast majority of casual players will only stick to a guild if they have friends there; otherwise they jump from guild to guild a lot looking for a good match. Then you have the players that could care less about the guild and only care about what they can get from the guild. Other players look for certain kinds of guild while leveling and a different kind of guild when they hit the cap. In all of this, the GM really has not say or influence over what will happen, he can only hope players will like his guild and stay.
The key here, I believe for any GM, is to let the players come and go but to try and get to know every person that comes through the guild. This way you can learn who is most compatible to your guild and the guilds goals. This way it will be easier to encourage these players to stick around and more of the will likely do this. While this process takes longer, it does slowly grow a solid core of players to work with as more and more of them hit the level cap. The thing to remember is that casual guilds will either grow slowly with a good measure of quality in the guild or you can go on a recruit ‘anyone’ binges to build your numbers quickly and then deal with the fallout later.
One last thought about player retention. Some players need to be doing things to feel a part of the guild, other’s need to see active players on the ‘who’ list and in chat, while others just need the title above their head. Whether or not guild activities are a presence in the guild seems irrelevant. I’ve been in large casual guilds that maintained a high number of players from all levels mainly due to the fact that the leadership was constantly planning guild events and such. This is a lot of fun and does build a significant community. I’ve also seen guilds who only scheduled dungeon runs and instances only that were successful as well. The key for the GM and officers is to have a presence, regardless of how that presence is carried out. And all of these people need to be actively looking for more likeminded individuals at all times.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Guilds and Guild Mgmt Part 1
Every so often I find myself in the position of watching issues in a guild play out and different results stem from those issues. Every time I see a guild go through these growing pains, I'm always curious to see how it affects the officers and guild master as that is a certain way to define the character of a guild. Guild drama is a given as is the response of the guild in handling it. In the alliance guild LOST SLEEP on Gilneas I've server as a Sr. Officer for around 2 years and been witness to a good amount of evolution within a guild. So it has been interesting to see my horde guild, Malice, experience one of the truths of casual guilds which is having a revolving door regarding membership.
Having tried to be a Guild Master of 2 guilds since beginning to play WoW 3 years ago, I can say that the job of the game masters of these two guilds is a full time job of sorts. Talks with both of them have shown me that these guild masters are the right guys for the job. My principle reason for saying this is; both of them want to have fun and share that fun with like minded individuals. So I'm going to share some of my thoughts from my own experiences.
One of the hardest things to do as a guild master, I believe, is to define the goal of the guild. If the GM decides to keep the guild casual then this is a lot easier to do, though end game concerns do complicate this at some point in the guilds existance. If a GM decides that raiding of PVP is his goal, then the goal is less burdensome but guild management increases a lot. Regardless of the guilds goal though, the GM should have a clear picture of the goal and how the guild should be achieving it, otherwise the guild will never grow or become anything other than a name over your head with a tabard.
Casual guilds are the easiest to manange in that a GM's primary concern is to ensure there are people in the guild and that they are like minded enough to want to stay in the guild and hopefully have fun. And this where the easy part ends. A lot of casual guild end up being more leveling guilds where people come to when they are low level and then leave when they hit the level cap. For all casual guilds this will be a constant, regardless of the guilds goal if the membership is large enough to keep the guild active. If the membership in the guild is small then the casual guild becomes more like a family guild. The larger casual guilds also have the pleasure of becoming casual raiding guilds, and here management of players and resources is key to their survival.
Survival, for a casual guild, is dependent upon a very active GM or a close and active group of officers. I think that there is a misconception on this though about the definition of being active. Active, I feel, means being involved enough in the guild to ensure that the GM and officers presence felt and seen. This does not necessarily mean that a GM of officer needs to be online every night and playing. The GM and officers do need to be active in making sure that they players are having their in game needs met as best as they can. The challenge here though is for the GM and officers to know what is a need and a want. Trying to resolve and/or meet every players wants is impossible and will drive GM's and officers away from helping players. Having a fairly well defined goal will help in resolving what is a need and a want within the guild.
Needs generally follow along the lines of completing class quests, having access to excess materials for use in developing professions in the guild (i.e. guild banks), the potential for non-PUG groups, and comraderie. Everything else is pretty much a want. Some guilds may add more to this, but for a casual guild this is pretty much it. Here though, it needs to be said that access to guild banks and groups for instances are not definites, players just should be allowed limited access or the ability to ask the guild first in these matters.
Regarding larger casual guilds, especially ones with a fairly good number of level capped players, good GM's will slowly delegate out some of the guild responsibilities. In my alliance guild LOST SLEEP, our GM is just that, the GM. Among the officers we're divided up along these lines of responsibilities; Guild Bank Officer, Raid Master, PVP Officer, Assistant GM, Guild Photographer, Guild Reporter, and so on. I am under the impression that several of the other larger casual guilds on Gilneas are set up similiarly. This has helped LOST SLEEP a lot in that it's not up to our GM to toil away his days working on ways to keep the guild members happy about end game content.
The main issue I see over and over with larger casual guilds in player retention. So many players are so fucused on getting the best gear they can and this usually means that the casual guilds lose a lot of players when they hit the level cap. In some ways this isn't a bad thing for casual guilds in that they will gain a reputation of being a good leveling guild and a lot of people will want to leve through while in the guild. The advantage of this is that the guild will see more new faces and will be able to add some of these players to the guilds more permanent roster when they find players that fit in well with the guild.
Having tried to be a Guild Master of 2 guilds since beginning to play WoW 3 years ago, I can say that the job of the game masters of these two guilds is a full time job of sorts. Talks with both of them have shown me that these guild masters are the right guys for the job. My principle reason for saying this is; both of them want to have fun and share that fun with like minded individuals. So I'm going to share some of my thoughts from my own experiences.
One of the hardest things to do as a guild master, I believe, is to define the goal of the guild. If the GM decides to keep the guild casual then this is a lot easier to do, though end game concerns do complicate this at some point in the guilds existance. If a GM decides that raiding of PVP is his goal, then the goal is less burdensome but guild management increases a lot. Regardless of the guilds goal though, the GM should have a clear picture of the goal and how the guild should be achieving it, otherwise the guild will never grow or become anything other than a name over your head with a tabard.
Casual guilds are the easiest to manange in that a GM's primary concern is to ensure there are people in the guild and that they are like minded enough to want to stay in the guild and hopefully have fun. And this where the easy part ends. A lot of casual guild end up being more leveling guilds where people come to when they are low level and then leave when they hit the level cap. For all casual guilds this will be a constant, regardless of the guilds goal if the membership is large enough to keep the guild active. If the membership in the guild is small then the casual guild becomes more like a family guild. The larger casual guilds also have the pleasure of becoming casual raiding guilds, and here management of players and resources is key to their survival.
Survival, for a casual guild, is dependent upon a very active GM or a close and active group of officers. I think that there is a misconception on this though about the definition of being active. Active, I feel, means being involved enough in the guild to ensure that the GM and officers presence felt and seen. This does not necessarily mean that a GM of officer needs to be online every night and playing. The GM and officers do need to be active in making sure that they players are having their in game needs met as best as they can. The challenge here though is for the GM and officers to know what is a need and a want. Trying to resolve and/or meet every players wants is impossible and will drive GM's and officers away from helping players. Having a fairly well defined goal will help in resolving what is a need and a want within the guild.
Needs generally follow along the lines of completing class quests, having access to excess materials for use in developing professions in the guild (i.e. guild banks), the potential for non-PUG groups, and comraderie. Everything else is pretty much a want. Some guilds may add more to this, but for a casual guild this is pretty much it. Here though, it needs to be said that access to guild banks and groups for instances are not definites, players just should be allowed limited access or the ability to ask the guild first in these matters.
Regarding larger casual guilds, especially ones with a fairly good number of level capped players, good GM's will slowly delegate out some of the guild responsibilities. In my alliance guild LOST SLEEP, our GM is just that, the GM. Among the officers we're divided up along these lines of responsibilities; Guild Bank Officer, Raid Master, PVP Officer, Assistant GM, Guild Photographer, Guild Reporter, and so on. I am under the impression that several of the other larger casual guilds on Gilneas are set up similiarly. This has helped LOST SLEEP a lot in that it's not up to our GM to toil away his days working on ways to keep the guild members happy about end game content.
The main issue I see over and over with larger casual guilds in player retention. So many players are so fucused on getting the best gear they can and this usually means that the casual guilds lose a lot of players when they hit the level cap. In some ways this isn't a bad thing for casual guilds in that they will gain a reputation of being a good leveling guild and a lot of people will want to leve through while in the guild. The advantage of this is that the guild will see more new faces and will be able to add some of these players to the guilds more permanent roster when they find players that fit in well with the guild.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Musing's on Balance
So Howling Fjord and Borean Tundra are where Mohg is plying this stealthy trade. As I've been getting back into the swing of playing him again, I've been pouring through the internet looking for rescources on playing rogues, gear, talent builds and general insight. Unfortunately most of the best sights I used to visit are no longer active. This seems to be epidemic in the Twisted Nether of blog land. All the people that used to maintain really solid, active blogs have stopped blogging and some have even stopped playing.
There is a good and a sad side to a lot of this. A lot of these players seemed to have set aside their families and real lives to play and share their experiences with us. They have slowed way down or stopped to go back to RL and their families. Who can blame them? It's never a good thing when a game replaces real life and real people.
The part of this experience that I got somewhat involved in last year, especially on my other WoW related blog Zuluparadise, is the communication about the experimentation that was happening then. People would actually discuss fairly fully the cause and effect process that was happening and the results were pretty interesting. The blogging community, I believe at the time was actually coming to a point where I would prefer to get the specifics for the classes I play there, rather than heading over to Elitist Jerks and having to deal with their arrogance. The information gained this was was also good because you would hear a lot more than "that's just the best way to do it."
So now, I have ideas about specific things that I cannot bounce off others who may have already been there so I have to rely on my own testing and watching other players on my server go, "your an idiot, newb." Ah well, things will work out fine, I just have to get there to really start playing the way I want to.
There is a good and a sad side to a lot of this. A lot of these players seemed to have set aside their families and real lives to play and share their experiences with us. They have slowed way down or stopped to go back to RL and their families. Who can blame them? It's never a good thing when a game replaces real life and real people.
The part of this experience that I got somewhat involved in last year, especially on my other WoW related blog Zuluparadise, is the communication about the experimentation that was happening then. People would actually discuss fairly fully the cause and effect process that was happening and the results were pretty interesting. The blogging community, I believe at the time was actually coming to a point where I would prefer to get the specifics for the classes I play there, rather than heading over to Elitist Jerks and having to deal with their arrogance. The information gained this was was also good because you would hear a lot more than "that's just the best way to do it."
So now, I have ideas about specific things that I cannot bounce off others who may have already been there so I have to rely on my own testing and watching other players on my server go, "your an idiot, newb." Ah well, things will work out fine, I just have to get there to really start playing the way I want to.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
So...... Life in Azeroth
[Zuluki] Last week Zuluki nailed level 79 and is taking a short rest from slaughtering gorilla's by the thousands for their leather. She passed 440 in Leatherworking so she can now craft anything she has the recipe for. Epics here I come!
[Mohg] In the mean time, Mohg has decided that Howling Fjord is his playground for now. He hit level 71 this morning and is well on his way towards level 72. He's going to stay in the Fjord for a while knocking out quests like a madman. I've respecced him back to Combat Daggers/Fists. I like this better than swords, I need one more fist weapon for my main hand and life will be good. Slowly but surely he's making his climb to 80. Happy days.
[Dhargaul] Dhar is taking a break, though not needed. I really am shooting to generate enough funds for Dhar to get dual specced (Enhancement/Restoration) so until then he's not getting much play. Hopefully by the end of the summer he'll be there.
[Pallasathena] Not seeing much play.
[Helstorm] Not seeing much play except for the occasional dungeon run for loot.
[Yrkoon] Taking a short break before finishing the memorable STV!
[Mohg] In the mean time, Mohg has decided that Howling Fjord is his playground for now. He hit level 71 this morning and is well on his way towards level 72. He's going to stay in the Fjord for a while knocking out quests like a madman. I've respecced him back to Combat Daggers/Fists. I like this better than swords, I need one more fist weapon for my main hand and life will be good. Slowly but surely he's making his climb to 80. Happy days.
[Dhargaul] Dhar is taking a break, though not needed. I really am shooting to generate enough funds for Dhar to get dual specced (Enhancement/Restoration) so until then he's not getting much play. Hopefully by the end of the summer he'll be there.
[Pallasathena] Not seeing much play.
[Helstorm] Not seeing much play except for the occasional dungeon run for loot.
[Yrkoon] Taking a short break before finishing the memorable STV!
The Rework of this Blog
So, I"ve decided to combine my attention hopefully into a single blog. I'll be maintianing my blog for Zuluki for a while longer before I decide to retire it and move all my convertations and thoughts to this blog. From here on out readers will hear of my exploits as I play all my different toons. So keep tuned as I'll also get on my soap box from time to time ranting about game related issues.
Feel free to leave comments.
Dhargaul.
Feel free to leave comments.
Dhargaul.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Coming Back
Hey all, I"ve been gone for a long time. I'm still around slowly leveling, though I do have to admit that I've been leveling other toons more often then I've been playing here on my shaman. So without much further ado, I'll break into what has been happening in the last 6 months here in the next few days. :D
Dhargaul
Dhargaul
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Leveling Restoration....
So you think that you can't level as Restoration?
You might want to reconsider this with the new changes from the release of Wrath. When I specced to Resto a while back, I fully expected things to go slower and that I would have to be a lot more cautious in how I went about completing my quests. Well this morning I learned something interesting. In 4 seperate engagements I had to fight more than one mob. In all of the fights I never died and one of those fight was against 5 mobs. Now one of the benefits of being Resto is that due to talents and such it is very difficult for a mob or another player to kill you. This is to your benefit in that it will allow you the time it will take for you to kill off the mobs.
The fight tends to go like this: Drop totems (Strenth of Earth, Searing Totem, Healing Totem and Windfury) then you'll probably rotate as needed among: Earth Shock, Flame Shock, Water Shield, and Lesser Healing Wave. As long as Water Shield is active (and given that you've talented for Improved Shields) you should not have mana problems even in the longer 4+ mob fights. Otherwise keep Flame shock active and Earth Shock the mob to death.
I did have to use my Flame Elemental totem during the 5 mob fight to help DPS the mobs down so that I didn't have to worry about taking each and every mob on at full health. And I followed the Elemental totem with Magma totem for the additional AoE dps numbers. This significantly affected how quickly and easily this fight went down. The key to these fights, like a lot of Shammy engagements is understanding and managing your totems and heals during the fight.
You might want to reconsider this with the new changes from the release of Wrath. When I specced to Resto a while back, I fully expected things to go slower and that I would have to be a lot more cautious in how I went about completing my quests. Well this morning I learned something interesting. In 4 seperate engagements I had to fight more than one mob. In all of the fights I never died and one of those fight was against 5 mobs. Now one of the benefits of being Resto is that due to talents and such it is very difficult for a mob or another player to kill you. This is to your benefit in that it will allow you the time it will take for you to kill off the mobs.
The fight tends to go like this: Drop totems (Strenth of Earth, Searing Totem, Healing Totem and Windfury) then you'll probably rotate as needed among: Earth Shock, Flame Shock, Water Shield, and Lesser Healing Wave. As long as Water Shield is active (and given that you've talented for Improved Shields) you should not have mana problems even in the longer 4+ mob fights. Otherwise keep Flame shock active and Earth Shock the mob to death.
I did have to use my Flame Elemental totem during the 5 mob fight to help DPS the mobs down so that I didn't have to worry about taking each and every mob on at full health. And I followed the Elemental totem with Magma totem for the additional AoE dps numbers. This significantly affected how quickly and easily this fight went down. The key to these fights, like a lot of Shammy engagements is understanding and managing your totems and heals during the fight.
Monday, December 8, 2008
Basic Numbers for Restoration
So what are the most sought after Stats for Resto Shaman?
That's debatable and being hammered out in many places. Personally I have 4 stats that are of importance to me at this point while leveling. Spellpower, INT, Crit Chance and MP5. So lets cover a little about them.
Spellpower - At least while I am leveling this is going to be my most important focus. The biggest reason is the return. Yes it definitely adds to your overall healing numbers but it also goes a long way in determining how hard your offensive abilities hit. This is important now that I am Resto and don't have the raw offensive power of Enhancement. While I will never hit as hard as an Elemental shammy, I still want to hit as hard as possible.
INT - This is also very valuable as it also adds to spellpower as well as your overall mana pool. The more mana, the longer you can cast. Simple as that. It also adds to your spell crit chances which is also highly beneficial.
Crit Chance - Given the wide number of Resto abilities that only get better when you crit leads me to want to have a high rating here as well. I list this in the number 3 spot because crit is not a constant, therefore I want to always be looking to increase this, it isn't as important as SP and INT.
MP5 - This stat is valuable as it determines how fast you regenerate your mana. Outside of the obvious, this is a stat that I believe is possibly more valuable than crit. Time will tell on this as I level higher and I am able to experiment and learn more about how all of these numbers interact and determine what's happening when. Absolutely the higher this value the better cause this can have a huge impact on the course of a longer fight and your ability to keep up with your responsibilities in it.
Currently my numbers are definitley not even close to where I want in them in this regard, but at level 71 it isn't something I am beginning to sweat yet. As I get closer to level 80 then I will begin to take a closer look at what numbers I should be looking at. I am hoping that by then a lot of the theorycrafting sites have been able to come up with reliable numbers as minimums for the varying difficutlies of Raids and Dungeons. Thus far, all the theorycrafting for Resto isn't willing to give anything definitive yet. As more info becomes available and I get more experience in this spec, I'll do my best to keep everyone informed.
Dhar
That's debatable and being hammered out in many places. Personally I have 4 stats that are of importance to me at this point while leveling. Spellpower, INT, Crit Chance and MP5. So lets cover a little about them.
Spellpower - At least while I am leveling this is going to be my most important focus. The biggest reason is the return. Yes it definitely adds to your overall healing numbers but it also goes a long way in determining how hard your offensive abilities hit. This is important now that I am Resto and don't have the raw offensive power of Enhancement. While I will never hit as hard as an Elemental shammy, I still want to hit as hard as possible.
INT - This is also very valuable as it also adds to spellpower as well as your overall mana pool. The more mana, the longer you can cast. Simple as that. It also adds to your spell crit chances which is also highly beneficial.
Crit Chance - Given the wide number of Resto abilities that only get better when you crit leads me to want to have a high rating here as well. I list this in the number 3 spot because crit is not a constant, therefore I want to always be looking to increase this, it isn't as important as SP and INT.
MP5 - This stat is valuable as it determines how fast you regenerate your mana. Outside of the obvious, this is a stat that I believe is possibly more valuable than crit. Time will tell on this as I level higher and I am able to experiment and learn more about how all of these numbers interact and determine what's happening when. Absolutely the higher this value the better cause this can have a huge impact on the course of a longer fight and your ability to keep up with your responsibilities in it.
Currently my numbers are definitley not even close to where I want in them in this regard, but at level 71 it isn't something I am beginning to sweat yet. As I get closer to level 80 then I will begin to take a closer look at what numbers I should be looking at. I am hoping that by then a lot of the theorycrafting sites have been able to come up with reliable numbers as minimums for the varying difficutlies of Raids and Dungeons. Thus far, all the theorycrafting for Resto isn't willing to give anything definitive yet. As more info becomes available and I get more experience in this spec, I'll do my best to keep everyone informed.
Dhar
Monday, December 1, 2008
It's Done
So, I've done it. I've gone full Restoration.
I can now say for the first time this isn't so bad so far. I've already almost cleared a full half level of XP in this spec and while questing is moving a little slower, it's not impossible. Far from it actually. It is taking a little getting used to and I am having to make sure I am always using my totems but that's no biggy really. I haven't done a dungeon yet but I soon will and then we'll so how the healing thing goes.
As I get more famaliar with things I will start posting more on all that is good for Resto shaman. Hopefully I can begin to contribute here more fully with a good measure of understanding.
I can now say for the first time this isn't so bad so far. I've already almost cleared a full half level of XP in this spec and while questing is moving a little slower, it's not impossible. Far from it actually. It is taking a little getting used to and I am having to make sure I am always using my totems but that's no biggy really. I haven't done a dungeon yet but I soon will and then we'll so how the healing thing goes.
As I get more famaliar with things I will start posting more on all that is good for Resto shaman. Hopefully I can begin to contribute here more fully with a good measure of understanding.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Restoration???
So the debate is on. I've been Enhancement for almost my entire life except for a couple of months during my tenure of BC soon after I hit 70. I specced to Resto then and attempted to see what I could do. What I found was frustration.... I did well healing on group quests and when I would party up with my friends, but in instances I did really poorly. This is in part to not understanding a whole lot about healing and what spells and totems to use in what situations and such. I found I almost never used chain heal and this is probably the biggest reason I had difficulty. Now back then you also had to keep track of a lot of different stats and factors to ensure you were an efficient healer. Now though this isn't so true. With the changes that have happened since patch 3.0.2 and the release of Wrath of the Lich King Resto has a lot more ability to be offensive than before.
Blizzard wrapped up all the abilities like +heal, shadow, fire and such into spellpower. They also changed the co-efficeints and scaling this ability gets from gear. While the numbers look lower than what they were under the old formulas for BC, you are actually doing a little better in your heals and damage. The curious part of this is that very few people actually have figured out the formula's or affect this new system has on casters and healers, even though most people seem to really enjoy the added firepower they have so to saay.
For Resto shaman this does open the door to two things, more effective healing and being better able to level while specced Resto. Why? Because spellpower carries over to our offensive spells and totems as well. So depending upon how we build our talent trees this can be very beneficail in several ways. Another nice thing about the changes is that spellpower scales even better than ever before with our shocks and totems. Prior to these patches, we had to choose what we would be enhanceing with our gear. Most shaman just added overall spell damage and left specifics like +nature and +fire alone (although quite a few would do +fire) and that was if you were specced elemental. Resto shaman could not afford to do this so selecting any talents in the Elemental tree was futile at best. Now this isn't so true any more.
Depending upon what your intent is, you can build a hybrid Resto/Elem shammy that is capable of being offensively powerful enough to do all his quests solo and have enough healing power to keep a 5-man alive. This build seems well designed for the regular BG's as well, though I'm not so sure about the Arena's. Other variations in include builds that allow for shaman to go deep enough in the enhancement tree to get DW, and retain solid healing as well. All of this is possible becaue of the changes and Blizz allowing better scaling of Spellpower with talents and spells. As for the exact specifics of this scaling and such, I have yet to determine why this is so.
This has be definitely debating that I will change specs soon to Resto. I am doing more research and when I can get a good handle on how this all work, I'll make the change and level my remaining levels in that spec.
Dhar
Blizzard wrapped up all the abilities like +heal, shadow, fire and such into spellpower. They also changed the co-efficeints and scaling this ability gets from gear. While the numbers look lower than what they were under the old formulas for BC, you are actually doing a little better in your heals and damage. The curious part of this is that very few people actually have figured out the formula's or affect this new system has on casters and healers, even though most people seem to really enjoy the added firepower they have so to saay.
For Resto shaman this does open the door to two things, more effective healing and being better able to level while specced Resto. Why? Because spellpower carries over to our offensive spells and totems as well. So depending upon how we build our talent trees this can be very beneficail in several ways. Another nice thing about the changes is that spellpower scales even better than ever before with our shocks and totems. Prior to these patches, we had to choose what we would be enhanceing with our gear. Most shaman just added overall spell damage and left specifics like +nature and +fire alone (although quite a few would do +fire) and that was if you were specced elemental. Resto shaman could not afford to do this so selecting any talents in the Elemental tree was futile at best. Now this isn't so true any more.
Depending upon what your intent is, you can build a hybrid Resto/Elem shammy that is capable of being offensively powerful enough to do all his quests solo and have enough healing power to keep a 5-man alive. This build seems well designed for the regular BG's as well, though I'm not so sure about the Arena's. Other variations in include builds that allow for shaman to go deep enough in the enhancement tree to get DW, and retain solid healing as well. All of this is possible becaue of the changes and Blizz allowing better scaling of Spellpower with talents and spells. As for the exact specifics of this scaling and such, I have yet to determine why this is so.
This has be definitely debating that I will change specs soon to Resto. I am doing more research and when I can get a good handle on how this all work, I'll make the change and level my remaining levels in that spec.
Dhar
Monday, November 24, 2008
Northrend and the Changes
Well, since I've last posted here many things have happened. Patch 3.0.2 came out with a free respec and then Wrath of the Lich King released. I specced back into Enhance to a full 61 pts and I headed off into Northrend to begin to level. This place is really impressive and I think Blizzard has done an incredible job creating this place. I've attained 71st level and I am making my way through the quests and hoping that I can keep a fairly consistent pace to level to 80. I really want to be level 80 before the middle of winter, but I am also not going to rush things.
I've found that since the changes for how the stats work what abilities are key for Shaman, that I beginning to not like enhancement as much as I used to. While I do have a huge array of offensive capabilities, I am finding it lack luster in actual practice. My spell rotations have changed some and with the added lava burst and spirit wolves, I find that I am really wanting to narrow my rotation tremendously. I've been toying around a lot with my spells and placement on my action bars, and I still have not found a comfortable way to do this. This has gotten me to thinking it may be time to try a different build to see what I think. Elemental really doesn't appeal to me a lot, but I'll look into it while resto does look better to me. A lot of me interest in trying Resto again is in how they have refigured the spell bonuses and such. With everything being consolidated into spellpower now, I feel that Resto is very viable way to go now given they should have more offensive firepower. Who knows, I'm researching it sitll.
Dhar
I've found that since the changes for how the stats work what abilities are key for Shaman, that I beginning to not like enhancement as much as I used to. While I do have a huge array of offensive capabilities, I am finding it lack luster in actual practice. My spell rotations have changed some and with the added lava burst and spirit wolves, I find that I am really wanting to narrow my rotation tremendously. I've been toying around a lot with my spells and placement on my action bars, and I still have not found a comfortable way to do this. This has gotten me to thinking it may be time to try a different build to see what I think. Elemental really doesn't appeal to me a lot, but I'll look into it while resto does look better to me. A lot of me interest in trying Resto again is in how they have refigured the spell bonuses and such. With everything being consolidated into spellpower now, I feel that Resto is very viable way to go now given they should have more offensive firepower. Who knows, I'm researching it sitll.
Dhar
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Thoughts on DPS Players & Teamwork
Fact and Fiction Regarding DPS (And the disappearance of the Tanks)
The more I read and learn about WoW the more I realize that there are huge gaps in knowledge of the game and what people think is important in the game. Another over stated issue in the game relates to DPS. This has become much more evident now that most warriors do not want to spec Protection anymore and the problem on Gilneas is near epidemic. Prot warriors are getting burned out from all of the tanking they do and no one wants to tank because of it. I watched a recent discussion in trade chat this weekend that went like this:
"(player 1)LFM Tank for Heroic ..., (player 2) you've been spamming for tanks for an hour, just look at all the warriors in your zone and ask someone. (player 1)LFM Tank for Heroic ... I have, everyone is either Arms or Fury and none of them want to tank. (player 3) Ask a pally then... (player 1)LFM Tank for Heroic ... done that as well. Seems I can find all the healers I need but no one is specced Prot., (player 2) that's sooo ridiculous, aren't there any tanks playing any more? (player 4) nope, tanking sucks.... (player 5) everyone wants one but tanks get no love. (player 1)LFM Tank for Heroic ... $@#$$%^&* "
Either way, most players find an abundance of dps and never a tank. In fact I've seen more and more Druids tanking these days on Gilneas than any of the other classes. Most of the die hard tanks are in the more serious raid guilds and they have no time or desire to tank outside of their raid schedules and who can blame them. The glory it seems lies in toping the DPS meters, and what does all of this mean?
There are 4 DPS classes that are designed to reign and compete for the top spot. Rogues, Fire Mages, Warlocks, and BM or MM hunters. Outside of these 4, the other dps classes fall into a secondary dps roll as many of them have other responsibilities in a raid group. Technically, if a class other than one of these 4 is at the top of the list, then something is unbalanced within that group. The importance of these classes being at the top lies in the fact they are your principal sources of pouring out lots of damage as fast as possible. And in many cases that is all they are suppose to do. The exception here is in situations that require a significant amount of CC and timig to work through an encounter, and in these cases other classes can rise above the traditional 4. So the question becomes, why is that so many players are so bent on being the best DPS player they can be?
The answer lies partly in the release of BT and even more so in the release of Sunwell. With these to raid instances the importance of putting out high amounts of damage has become something that needs to be looked into. On average a player in BT needs to be outputting around 1500 DPS to be able to kill the bosses in a timely manner. This equates to a raid party dealing 37.5k damage in a second. Now in Sunwell this amount is increased to 1800 DPS per player or 45k for the entire raid group in a second. In Sunwell this is critical as Brutallus is on rage timer and if he reaches that his rage time, which happens somewhere around 6 and a half minutes, the party will wipe. So for players going into Sunwell there has been an even bigger push to get their personal dps number really up there. The ripple affect of this is that players that are unfamaliar with the overall mechanics of the game and all the classes believe they have to have numbers at or above the 1800 DPS mark themselves. Herein lies the problem.
The top 4 DPS classes in proper gear and with the proper talent spec can easily reach 2100 or higher DPS. For everyone else, this gets a lot harder. Fury and Arms warriors can get there, but they will be at the limits of their gear possiblilites in game. Druids can also get there in cat form combining rogue gear with their druid gear. Shadow Priests can also just reach that pinnacle but for the other classes it is out of the quetions given gear and other factors currently in game. Overall though, in a raid group it will balance out to approximately 1800 DPS per player. As the top guilds have been gearing for these fights and as more and more players have been getting into the Arena's, DPS has really taken ahold of everyone on the server in some form or another. In this process, we've lost a lot of tanks. (Although as I understand this, it isn't quite a problem on the horde side.)
The real problem here is that in everyone's personal quest to become the top DPS'er for their guild, team or raid group they are losing focus on what really matters in these intances.
"Teamwork"
And what happens when there is teamwork? The "Impossible!"
In a recent battleground, for example, we were trying to take one of the towers in EoT. We weren't getting anywhere becuase the horde had a Tauren Warrior there in full S4 gear that was just devastating our attack group. Someone asked for help and two rogues came to help. The rogues kept this warrior under a constant stun-lock while we finished off everyone else so we could focus on him to kill him. Otherwise we were doomed. Another solid example of this lies in our guild's "Charlie's Angels" dungeon runs. These 5 players have successfully and quickly knocked out every 5-man they have been in without a "pure" tank. The stories can go on and on. The point is, without people willing to work and learn together, no amount of DPS will win the day. And this is what makes the worlds top raid guilds what they are.
From what I can determine the top 20 raid guilds in the world all one-shotted Brutallus when Sunwell went live. These guilds were no better or worse geared than the best guilds on Gilneas. This was only accomplished because of their high expectations of teamwork. Dishing out 10.5 million damage in 6 minutes or less isn't exactly an easy task when you only have 17 people that are DPS'ing the boss. It is doable, but it requires everyone to do their part and to make sure that all the buffs and debuffs stay up and constant. Otherwise things get trickly and questionable real fast.
Another factor that has led to the issue over DPS and the disappearance of tanks on Gilneas is the growing issue of threat management. This is another topic that I see in various chat channels on on the forums. While players are wanting to maximize their DPS, they are forgetting that the more damage you do, the more threat you do. This creates major issues for tanks and their ability to maintian aggro. As tanks generate threat the DPS classes need to be watching their threat meters so they don't pass a tanks threat level. For Melee classes this means you cannot pass 105% of a tanks threat, and if you do, you pull aggro and the mob or bosses attention. Ranged classes have it easier in the they can go to 120% of a tanks threat level before they have the boss running at them. And here is the interesting factor that all tanks face.
Regardless of gear, tanks generate threat at the same rate regardless of the boss, instance or any other factor. A tank in full Onslaught gear generates nearly the same amount of threat as a tank in full blues entereing Kara for the first time. The better geared your DPS classes are, the more damage they will do, and thusly the faster they will approach a tanks threat level. The only thing that a tank here has is survivability over a lesser geared tank. The DPS classes really have to pay attention to their spells and their meters until the tank has established full aggro on a boss, and then they can unload. Good groups will hold off, use lower ranked spells and such, until the tanks says "Go" and they everyone unloads. Even here though the melee classes still need to be vigilant as it is not hard for a rogue or shaman to steal aggro from a tank in these instances.
I've often pondered why there was such a vast chasm between PVE and PVP gear with regards to stats that directly affect damage. PVP gear is built, designed and to be used for the purpose of allowing for the maximum amount of damage to be output in the shortest amount of time possible. For DPS classes this means generating huge amounts of threat almsot instantaneously. PVE gear has always seemed watered down, but there is a reason for this. PVE gear is built and designed for sustainability, which means being able to do your job over a long period of time. This reduces the amount of threat you generate and it allows for a player to do more damage over a longer period of time than would be possible otherwise. This lends to the overall survivability of the group and gives the group the maximum amount of options to complete the instance. And it keeps the tanks happy as they don't have to work so hard in maintaining threat.
Overall the point to remember is that DPS is necessary, but it isn't something that should be sought out to the exclusion of all else. When your in a group, being at the top of the damage meters does not mean much. If your group completed the instance successfully and did not wipe, that means more than who did the most damage. All to often I hear people talking about individuals that always top the damage charts, but also always get groups killed because the eclipse the tanks threat all of the time and do not listen to reason with regards to watching their threat meters. The only time a person can take DPS to the hilt is if they are in the battlegrounds and they don't care about whether they win or lose, and they are there to see how many kills they can rack up. Outside of that venue, there is not a lot of places where being a DPS hog is needed or acceptable if a person isn't willing to watch and maintian his threat levels. Of note though, and I've witnessed this many times. Players that are super heavy on DPS that wait till the tank has fully established their hold on the boss can do amazing things damage wise and this is definitely what players should be doing.
On the whole, it has been unfortunate in that I've heard a lot of tanks talk about the lack of respect or help they get from players. We all know that there are a lot of younger players that are running around in really good gear, and unfortunately some of these players do not fully understand the mechanics behind the game as of yet. This leads to a lot of failed attempts in instances and raids and it has also led to the vast desert we are now in regarding tanks. I know that our own tank in Lost Sleep has voiced these kinds of concerns with regards to his dungeon runs in the past and I consider him to be one of the best tanks I've ever seen in action. So as we continue to grow and learn here in Lost Sleep keep in mind for as casual as we are we are also still a team.
The more I read and learn about WoW the more I realize that there are huge gaps in knowledge of the game and what people think is important in the game. Another over stated issue in the game relates to DPS. This has become much more evident now that most warriors do not want to spec Protection anymore and the problem on Gilneas is near epidemic. Prot warriors are getting burned out from all of the tanking they do and no one wants to tank because of it. I watched a recent discussion in trade chat this weekend that went like this:
"(player 1)LFM Tank for Heroic ..., (player 2) you've been spamming for tanks for an hour, just look at all the warriors in your zone and ask someone. (player 1)LFM Tank for Heroic ... I have, everyone is either Arms or Fury and none of them want to tank. (player 3) Ask a pally then... (player 1)LFM Tank for Heroic ... done that as well. Seems I can find all the healers I need but no one is specced Prot., (player 2) that's sooo ridiculous, aren't there any tanks playing any more? (player 4) nope, tanking sucks.... (player 5) everyone wants one but tanks get no love. (player 1)LFM Tank for Heroic ... $@#$$%^&* "
Either way, most players find an abundance of dps and never a tank. In fact I've seen more and more Druids tanking these days on Gilneas than any of the other classes. Most of the die hard tanks are in the more serious raid guilds and they have no time or desire to tank outside of their raid schedules and who can blame them. The glory it seems lies in toping the DPS meters, and what does all of this mean?
There are 4 DPS classes that are designed to reign and compete for the top spot. Rogues, Fire Mages, Warlocks, and BM or MM hunters. Outside of these 4, the other dps classes fall into a secondary dps roll as many of them have other responsibilities in a raid group. Technically, if a class other than one of these 4 is at the top of the list, then something is unbalanced within that group. The importance of these classes being at the top lies in the fact they are your principal sources of pouring out lots of damage as fast as possible. And in many cases that is all they are suppose to do. The exception here is in situations that require a significant amount of CC and timig to work through an encounter, and in these cases other classes can rise above the traditional 4. So the question becomes, why is that so many players are so bent on being the best DPS player they can be?
The answer lies partly in the release of BT and even more so in the release of Sunwell. With these to raid instances the importance of putting out high amounts of damage has become something that needs to be looked into. On average a player in BT needs to be outputting around 1500 DPS to be able to kill the bosses in a timely manner. This equates to a raid party dealing 37.5k damage in a second. Now in Sunwell this amount is increased to 1800 DPS per player or 45k for the entire raid group in a second. In Sunwell this is critical as Brutallus is on rage timer and if he reaches that his rage time, which happens somewhere around 6 and a half minutes, the party will wipe. So for players going into Sunwell there has been an even bigger push to get their personal dps number really up there. The ripple affect of this is that players that are unfamaliar with the overall mechanics of the game and all the classes believe they have to have numbers at or above the 1800 DPS mark themselves. Herein lies the problem.
The top 4 DPS classes in proper gear and with the proper talent spec can easily reach 2100 or higher DPS. For everyone else, this gets a lot harder. Fury and Arms warriors can get there, but they will be at the limits of their gear possiblilites in game. Druids can also get there in cat form combining rogue gear with their druid gear. Shadow Priests can also just reach that pinnacle but for the other classes it is out of the quetions given gear and other factors currently in game. Overall though, in a raid group it will balance out to approximately 1800 DPS per player. As the top guilds have been gearing for these fights and as more and more players have been getting into the Arena's, DPS has really taken ahold of everyone on the server in some form or another. In this process, we've lost a lot of tanks. (Although as I understand this, it isn't quite a problem on the horde side.)
The real problem here is that in everyone's personal quest to become the top DPS'er for their guild, team or raid group they are losing focus on what really matters in these intances.
"Teamwork"
And what happens when there is teamwork? The "Impossible!"
In a recent battleground, for example, we were trying to take one of the towers in EoT. We weren't getting anywhere becuase the horde had a Tauren Warrior there in full S4 gear that was just devastating our attack group. Someone asked for help and two rogues came to help. The rogues kept this warrior under a constant stun-lock while we finished off everyone else so we could focus on him to kill him. Otherwise we were doomed. Another solid example of this lies in our guild's "Charlie's Angels" dungeon runs. These 5 players have successfully and quickly knocked out every 5-man they have been in without a "pure" tank. The stories can go on and on. The point is, without people willing to work and learn together, no amount of DPS will win the day. And this is what makes the worlds top raid guilds what they are.
From what I can determine the top 20 raid guilds in the world all one-shotted Brutallus when Sunwell went live. These guilds were no better or worse geared than the best guilds on Gilneas. This was only accomplished because of their high expectations of teamwork. Dishing out 10.5 million damage in 6 minutes or less isn't exactly an easy task when you only have 17 people that are DPS'ing the boss. It is doable, but it requires everyone to do their part and to make sure that all the buffs and debuffs stay up and constant. Otherwise things get trickly and questionable real fast.
Another factor that has led to the issue over DPS and the disappearance of tanks on Gilneas is the growing issue of threat management. This is another topic that I see in various chat channels on on the forums. While players are wanting to maximize their DPS, they are forgetting that the more damage you do, the more threat you do. This creates major issues for tanks and their ability to maintian aggro. As tanks generate threat the DPS classes need to be watching their threat meters so they don't pass a tanks threat level. For Melee classes this means you cannot pass 105% of a tanks threat, and if you do, you pull aggro and the mob or bosses attention. Ranged classes have it easier in the they can go to 120% of a tanks threat level before they have the boss running at them. And here is the interesting factor that all tanks face.
Regardless of gear, tanks generate threat at the same rate regardless of the boss, instance or any other factor. A tank in full Onslaught gear generates nearly the same amount of threat as a tank in full blues entereing Kara for the first time. The better geared your DPS classes are, the more damage they will do, and thusly the faster they will approach a tanks threat level. The only thing that a tank here has is survivability over a lesser geared tank. The DPS classes really have to pay attention to their spells and their meters until the tank has established full aggro on a boss, and then they can unload. Good groups will hold off, use lower ranked spells and such, until the tanks says "Go" and they everyone unloads. Even here though the melee classes still need to be vigilant as it is not hard for a rogue or shaman to steal aggro from a tank in these instances.
I've often pondered why there was such a vast chasm between PVE and PVP gear with regards to stats that directly affect damage. PVP gear is built, designed and to be used for the purpose of allowing for the maximum amount of damage to be output in the shortest amount of time possible. For DPS classes this means generating huge amounts of threat almsot instantaneously. PVE gear has always seemed watered down, but there is a reason for this. PVE gear is built and designed for sustainability, which means being able to do your job over a long period of time. This reduces the amount of threat you generate and it allows for a player to do more damage over a longer period of time than would be possible otherwise. This lends to the overall survivability of the group and gives the group the maximum amount of options to complete the instance. And it keeps the tanks happy as they don't have to work so hard in maintaining threat.
Overall the point to remember is that DPS is necessary, but it isn't something that should be sought out to the exclusion of all else. When your in a group, being at the top of the damage meters does not mean much. If your group completed the instance successfully and did not wipe, that means more than who did the most damage. All to often I hear people talking about individuals that always top the damage charts, but also always get groups killed because the eclipse the tanks threat all of the time and do not listen to reason with regards to watching their threat meters. The only time a person can take DPS to the hilt is if they are in the battlegrounds and they don't care about whether they win or lose, and they are there to see how many kills they can rack up. Outside of that venue, there is not a lot of places where being a DPS hog is needed or acceptable if a person isn't willing to watch and maintian his threat levels. Of note though, and I've witnessed this many times. Players that are super heavy on DPS that wait till the tank has fully established their hold on the boss can do amazing things damage wise and this is definitely what players should be doing.
On the whole, it has been unfortunate in that I've heard a lot of tanks talk about the lack of respect or help they get from players. We all know that there are a lot of younger players that are running around in really good gear, and unfortunately some of these players do not fully understand the mechanics behind the game as of yet. This leads to a lot of failed attempts in instances and raids and it has also led to the vast desert we are now in regarding tanks. I know that our own tank in Lost Sleep has voiced these kinds of concerns with regards to his dungeon runs in the past and I consider him to be one of the best tanks I've ever seen in action. So as we continue to grow and learn here in Lost Sleep keep in mind for as casual as we are we are also still a team.
Making Gold and Becoming Rich
So You Want to be Rich....
While I'm somewhat reluctant to go into too many details on how to make 1000g on the AH in just a few short hours, I do know that many of you out there have had money problems just like me. Now I am definitely not the best person to talk to about saving money to buy those really big ticket items (i.e. Epic Flying Mount). I can generate a good amount of money in relatively little time. Over the last year since I hit level 70 I have toyed and experimented around for the best ways to generate income. I've read a lot of different information on the matter as well and have finally come to the conclusion it all boils down to each persons own dedication and time that they put into the garnering of gold that will determine how successful a person is. So what esoteric arcana is involved in becoming rich in WoW.... Let me shed some light on what I know.
In the Beginning (Your level 6 and flat broke)....
At this early stage your options for making money are severaly limited. Anything you vendor at this level will only net you a handful of copper and if you've been looking at AH prices a handful of copper will get you... NOTHING... So what can a beginning character do that does not have a level 70 main to pay his way? <> No, not really. Your best bet on making money to purchase your initial gear is in gathering professions; Herbalism, Mining, Skinning. Idealy you want to pick up two of the three with skinning being the only non-optional one. The stragedy here is as you run around doing your quests, skin, mine or pick everything you come across, and just spend a little extra time (30 minutes or so) just pursuing one of these professions. What will happen is that by the end of the week you will have 2 or 3 stacks of 20 mats from each of these professions. Then on Friday you can sell them so that on Sunday you can get your money and if needed get new gear. Depending upon what you are wanting to attain with your character there is something to consider. As you sell these mats, which will sell as there are a lot of people out there crafting things and leveling professions, plan on saving as much of the money as possible. Between level 1 and 70, you can easily level in gear that you find on drops and from quests rewards and dungeon runs. Gaining the riding skill, your mounts, upgrading your armor at level 40, and buying bigger and bigger bags will take up a good bit of that money. Most power leveling sites maintain that these are the "only" things you should spend money on, and that by the time you reach 70 you should have at least 18 slot bags on all your personal slots and in all your bank slots. Regardless of your goals, this I can tell you for sure. By following this short and easy plan, you can easily hit level 70 and have enough gold to get your flying mount and to purchase your way into some very good gear.
Modern Mythology on Grinding....
For several years, strategy guides have stated that you should go to many different places depending upon your level and the kind of gear that you have and just go into this mindless killing drive where you kill all the mobs in a certain area over and over again. While this was proved to be a successful strategy prior to the release of Burning Crusade, it is a foolish one now. Grinding in this manner, especially outside of the Outlands will not generate money faster than doing quests. Blizzard has seen to this and fixed the matter appropriately. The only reason to be grinding is if your looking to gather a specific item on a fairly high drop rate from the mobs or to increase your reputation with some faction. Outside of these considerations, it is too easy to make money in so many other ways today than just pure grinding in the old school sense.
So, Now your Level 70....
There are two things that you definitely want to start doing when you hit 70 to generate income. Quest, quest and quest some more and start getting your dailies opened up. Once you hit level 70 quests will start paying 9 to 10 or more gold per quest you complete. So if you commit to a plan of completing 5 quests a day, you will get at least 50 gold a day from these quests. Dailies are the same except that you can keep doing them over and over again. Once you open up all your dailies you can do 25 of them a day. To complete 25 day you need about 3 hours of time to do them, but if you do complete all of them every day you will easily generate anywhere from 300 to 600 gold a day from these daily quests. Now add to that and do 5 to 10 quests a day and that's another 60 to 100 gold a day and you should be able to easily make at least 21k gold in a month. That is if... you have 5 or more hours a day to do this. If you are like a lot of us in the guild then having this kind of play time every day is just a pipe dream. Most of us have found a particular pattern of certain dailies that we do every day that we can do in an hour or less to make money. The easiest area to do this in on the Isle of Quel'Danas. Here if you can have up to 10 or more dailies to do in a small area, and this will generate a lot of rep so you can get some pretty cool stuff from the faction vendors. Just from doing 5 to 10 dailies a day any player should easily be able to generate 3000 or so gold each month.
The Other Side of Grinding....
The Outlands has really changed the face of the World of Warcraft. Here we have been given a whole new outlook on how to obtain our hearts desires in the game. Due to the nature of the crafting professoins we can all participate in ensuring that the crafters have an abundance of mats to get on the AH. Everything from leather, cobra scales, to new mining ores, to motes of all kinds and the list could go on forever. These all can get good prices on the AH for a little bit of effort. The biggest difficulty here is taking the time to farm these items and doing a little bit of research to learn the best places to farm these items. A lot of them can be gained from just doing dailies in various areas while you move about the outlands, other items actually will take some time and effort to get. On the plus side, if you decided to level up engineering motes of various kinds become surprisingly easy to get. Also something of note, anywhere there are demons you can farm the Marks and Fel Armaments for Aldor Rep, and anywhere you see Blood Elves you can farm Signets and Arcane Tomes. All of this means money in your pocket.
Professions, Can You Make Money?
Most players in the game will spend a small fortune on leveling up their professions. This almsot can not be helped and some professions are far more expensive than others. The question really becomes, can you turn these professions into a profit? The answer is no on one hand, and yes on the other. What do I mean by this? Well it boils down like this.... Professions like Leatherworking, Blacksmithing and Tailoring will probably not turn you that much of a profit by the time you consider everything that goes into making an item worth selling. Alchemy differs in that everyone needs Potions and such for instances and raids. While the profit margins are not that great, they are significantly better than LW, BS and Tailoring. Jewelcrafting is slightly better than Alchemy in that your items are in even more demand, especially at the rare and epic level. The only crafting profession that can actually make money by a good margin is enchanting. Why? Mats, mats and more mats. Enchanting mats are in very high demand and there never seems to be enough mats for everyone. Smart enchanters will never sell the items they get on their daily runs around the outlands, they will disenchant everything (except for some blues and world epic drops) sell the mats on the AH as they will get far more gold that way than from selling the items themselves. So remember that when you do decide to take a crafting profession, make sure you understand what will or won't happen when you reach the highest levels of it.
Putting it all Together....
I can easily make a 1000 to 2000 gold in 24 hours depending upon how much effort I put into getting there. I use a combination of all the methods explained above to ensure that I can cash in and afford what I want when needed. My professions are Mining and Enchanting. This gives me the ability to mine ores from all over as I move through areas that I place in my bank for a while. I disenchant every green item I come across and some blues too. Sunday through Friday I do my 6 dailies that I like to do religiously, and then I spend a couple of days just farming for motes of all kinds. I also spend a good amount of time farming for Marks and Fel Armaments as well each week. By Friday evening I have a good assortment of stuff in my bank that will go on the AH Friday night. On average I'll post; 1-2 Fel Iron Ore stacks, 2-3 Adamantite Ore stacks, 10+ Netherweave Cloth stacks, 20 or so Primals of all types, 3-4 stacks of Arcane Dust, 2-3 stacks of Greater Planar essences, and anywhere from 2 to 10 Large prismatic shards. So what does this all equate to? Let's see:
Fel Iron Ore stack = 15g X2 = 30g
Adamantite Ore stack = 20g X3 = 60g
Netherweave Stack = 2.5g X10 = 25g
Primals (on Avg.) per 1 = 20g X20 = 400g
Arcane Dust stack = 20g X4 = 80g
Greater Planar Essence stack = 100g X3 = 300g
Large Prismatic Shard per 1= 25g X10 = 250g
Total Gold earned in one Weekend: 1145g
This is added to the 400 or so gold I get from dailies during the week and to the 100 to 200 gold I get from other quests, vendoring and so forth to bring my average net to around 1700 gold in a week. Now this is true if I'm diligent, which I am not that diligent. Thus the reason why after a year I still do not have my epic flying mount. Now there are other methods to generate more gold depending upon your diligence and the time you put in to generate the money. And this also all depends upon a player not spending money while he is making money (something which I do all too often, is spend). As you can see, diligence will pay handsomely and this all can be accomplished in just a few short hours of gameplay each week. There is no reason why anyone cannot generate at least 1000 gold each week for themselves just by doing dailies and a small amount of farming.
So You've Gotten Some Money, But You Want More.....
This next section requires that you have an addon called Auctioneer (or some other similiar addon to monitor the AH). If you really are looking to become as rich as possible there are several methods for accomplishing this. One is to not stop doing everything mentioned up to this point and the next requires a certain amount of dedicated time and the possible use of an alt for the sole purpose of being a bank and AH toon.
To begin you want to scan the AH as often as possble using Auctioneer's scanner option for at least a couple of weeks. This will help Auctioneer establish a good database of items and prices and fair market values. From there you will want to start scanning the AH using Auctioneers sub addon called Bottom Scanner (which comes with the Advanced Auctioneer package). Bottom scanner will look for all items that are being sold for 10% or more below the lowest seen price in the database in the AH. When the scanner sees these items it will alert you and you can then quickly buyout the item cheap. You can also use the radio buttons on next to the category names to parse your searches to only include certain items or secions of items to make the scanning process go quicker. If you spend a little time doing this every day, you will begin to build up quite a collection of items that you found for cheap. After a time you will then go to resell those items in the AH for a higher price and thus turn a profit. The more you do this, the more you will become famaliar with what does and doesn't sell and what to buy cheap. The whole idea here is to get a real feel for the AH and the economy of your server. Once you have a firm grasp of this you can really begin to manipulate what happens in the AH.
There are a ton of strategies to manipulate the AH if your willing to take the time. One of the most commonly used ones is to watch certain items over a period of time. Items like rare and epic armor are really good for this. As people come across these items or craft them they sell them based upon past sales and what current prices are in the AH. Every so often using Bottomscanner you'll snatch up these items for really low prices as some people are less worried about they money they make on these items. Once you get a real feel for what they sell for and how often they appear you can begin to manipulate the system. The process works like this. You have one item, a helm, that is of interest. There currently are 2 for sell in the AH, one for 1000g and the other for 900g. You buy both. The next day you post two of your 3 on the AH listing one for 1500g buyout and bid for 1450g. Then you list the second one on an alt for a bid only price of 1100g. During the next 24 hours one or both will sell. Just make sure the bid only price is set an a 24 hour timer. If the bid only one sells you can list the 3 helm for bid only as well at the same or slightly higher price and watch it sell as well. If all three sell you will profit from the sells by over a 1000g or more. And even if only 2 sell, you still will gain a profit of at least 300 to 500g. As you get better at doing this you can begin to do more items like this, just don't do too many of them at one time. Keep it to 3 or so totally unrelated items such as; a weapon, a piece of armor and a darkmoon deck.
Another option works best on items like motes and such but you have to be careful on this one. The strategy works like this, when you see an item isn't being traded heavily but there seems to always be several posted. Buy them all out and then use a couple of alts to relist them for a little higher price. (If the items sells for 20g, resell them each for 25g). Then keep watch over the items. If someone else posts up the same items for a lower price, buy them up and send them to your alts. As they sell the item for the higher price, relist the one that you keep buying at the lower price. While the profits are not huge, they will add up over time. Where you need to be careful is that there are people who watch such auctions closely and if they think your farming for gold on the AH they will dump a lot of those items onto the AH for way cheaper in the hopes that you cannot buy them all. And if they see the same people doing this over and over they will keep dumping those items onto the AH to thwart what you are doing.
A word here about manipulating the AH and your servers economy. This is the current favorite model for gold farmers to generate money on servers. Manipulating the AH is the fastest way to make money if you have enough money to make this work. A lot of gold farmers will buy out any epic item and a lot of blue items as well as high priced enchanting and jewelcrafting mats and just stockpile these items. Then when there is a period where these items are not up for sell they will post them for a higher than average price. Or they will buy out existing ones and repost at higher amounts. Gold farmers work long and hard to push AH prices on all relavent items as high as they can. And given the ease of which a player can make money they feel this is justifiable. The problem here is that it really harms new players to the game as they cannot generate money like this. As a result new players are forced into a sad situation where they 'have' to rely on the game solely for their characters developement.
As a side note, it is often fun to watch your auctions when you begin to manipulate things in these ways. What you will see is the same buyers and sellers over and over again. They sometimes change their names, but you will realize they are probably the same person in RL. After sometime it is possible to discern who the gold farmers are and what they are willing to do to stay on top of the AH market on your server. Older long term veterans of the game will see this from time to time as well and they will do things to upset the farmers, like buy out all the items that the farmers are selling and then relist them for ridiculously low prices. These are great times to make buys as this further infuriates the gold farmers.
Finally one last stategy for enchanters is to buy out large portions of lower level greens to disenchant, then sell the mats. Almost always you will double the money you spent for these items.
So Your Richer Than God Now....
Once you become independently wealthy, what do you do with all that money?
Depends.
The answer to this question depends solely upon your individual desires. If you only really play with just a couple of toons then you could easily create bank alts that are in their own guilds with help from friends and then create your own guild bank vaults and such for mats and anything else you could enjoy. Technically if you only played one main player you could have 3 or more such guilds that are there to support and fund your main character as he moves through the World of Warcraft. While most people would not do this, there is a part of me that wishes I could. Most of these strategies that have been discussed I have done in one form or another. I've never been a big fan of outright manipulation of the AH, it can and is a very profitable way to operate. I really prefer the method of dailies and grinding for mats that people can use more than doing a straight buy/sell routine on the AH to make my money.Doing things this way also allows me to walk away from making money more easily when I'm working primarily on one of my alts.
A Little About Mote Farming....
Some of you may wonder where are the best places to find motes, so I'll let everyone in on my sweet spots. :D
Motes of Air: 2 Places; Shadowmoon Valley by the Altar of Shadows, and Nagrand in the area where the void walkers are. (I prefer this place over the Plateau of Elements for several reasons, foremost of which is that the Plateau is always being farmed by more than 2 or 3 farmers.)
Motes of Water: 2 Places; From the eels in the lake just N of Shatt, and from the lake in Nagrand below the Plateau of Elements. A third area that can be good at times is in SMV near the place with all the Naga in the North.
Motes of Fire: Blades Edge in the far north. There is really no better place than this, although I have had surprisingly good luck on the Fire Elementals in Hellfire up where dailies are by Doomwalker.
Motes of Mana: Netherstorm.... Mana eels and the flyer thingy's.
Motes of Shadow: Nagrand in the area where Gron roams. There is an area of Hellfire that sometimes is good as well, drop rate is lower there though.
Motes of Life: Zangermarsh from the shambling giant thingy's.
Motes of Earth: They are all over the place, there is no one spot better than any other.
Moving on from this point is up to each of you. There are tons of websites and information out there available to players outlining numerous strategies for making gold. I know that there are currently and as well as in the past members that are particularily astute at generating gold and maybe they can post in response to this with their suggestions and insights. At this point in the game Blizzard has pretty much established the only way to not make money is to not work at it, and working at it is far easier with a much higher pay out then it was before. It is not hard to establish a routine of dailies to do each day and this will keep any player comfortable funded if they are not seeking the most expensive items to be had. If you want the best though, then it will take a little more work to get there but it is still easily doable. I know that everyone in the guild at one time or another has lamented how hard it was to afford the things they wanted, and many of us have been given lending hands from guildmates. This will continue no doubt as this is one of the things we do best in Lost Sleep, but at the same time, there really isn't a good excuse for not affording what you want. A little work and discipline can go a long way towards generating income for a player.
If there was one specific thing that I could say that keeps a player from being able to afford what they want, it is over spending on items that they probably don't really need. I know I've done this over and over on my toons as I enjoy keeping them fairly twinked as they level. It makes leveling easier in a lot of ways, but it also keeps me from affording some of the more expensive things that I want for my main character. Proceed from here at your own risk and with caution. You may just become rich!
While I'm somewhat reluctant to go into too many details on how to make 1000g on the AH in just a few short hours, I do know that many of you out there have had money problems just like me. Now I am definitely not the best person to talk to about saving money to buy those really big ticket items (i.e. Epic Flying Mount). I can generate a good amount of money in relatively little time. Over the last year since I hit level 70 I have toyed and experimented around for the best ways to generate income. I've read a lot of different information on the matter as well and have finally come to the conclusion it all boils down to each persons own dedication and time that they put into the garnering of gold that will determine how successful a person is. So what esoteric arcana is involved in becoming rich in WoW.... Let me shed some light on what I know.
In the Beginning (Your level 6 and flat broke)....
At this early stage your options for making money are severaly limited. Anything you vendor at this level will only net you a handful of copper and if you've been looking at AH prices a handful of copper will get you... NOTHING... So what can a beginning character do that does not have a level 70 main to pay his way? <
Modern Mythology on Grinding....
For several years, strategy guides have stated that you should go to many different places depending upon your level and the kind of gear that you have and just go into this mindless killing drive where you kill all the mobs in a certain area over and over again. While this was proved to be a successful strategy prior to the release of Burning Crusade, it is a foolish one now. Grinding in this manner, especially outside of the Outlands will not generate money faster than doing quests. Blizzard has seen to this and fixed the matter appropriately. The only reason to be grinding is if your looking to gather a specific item on a fairly high drop rate from the mobs or to increase your reputation with some faction. Outside of these considerations, it is too easy to make money in so many other ways today than just pure grinding in the old school sense.
So, Now your Level 70....
There are two things that you definitely want to start doing when you hit 70 to generate income. Quest, quest and quest some more and start getting your dailies opened up. Once you hit level 70 quests will start paying 9 to 10 or more gold per quest you complete. So if you commit to a plan of completing 5 quests a day, you will get at least 50 gold a day from these quests. Dailies are the same except that you can keep doing them over and over again. Once you open up all your dailies you can do 25 of them a day. To complete 25 day you need about 3 hours of time to do them, but if you do complete all of them every day you will easily generate anywhere from 300 to 600 gold a day from these daily quests. Now add to that and do 5 to 10 quests a day and that's another 60 to 100 gold a day and you should be able to easily make at least 21k gold in a month. That is if... you have 5 or more hours a day to do this. If you are like a lot of us in the guild then having this kind of play time every day is just a pipe dream. Most of us have found a particular pattern of certain dailies that we do every day that we can do in an hour or less to make money. The easiest area to do this in on the Isle of Quel'Danas. Here if you can have up to 10 or more dailies to do in a small area, and this will generate a lot of rep so you can get some pretty cool stuff from the faction vendors. Just from doing 5 to 10 dailies a day any player should easily be able to generate 3000 or so gold each month.
The Other Side of Grinding....
The Outlands has really changed the face of the World of Warcraft. Here we have been given a whole new outlook on how to obtain our hearts desires in the game. Due to the nature of the crafting professoins we can all participate in ensuring that the crafters have an abundance of mats to get on the AH. Everything from leather, cobra scales, to new mining ores, to motes of all kinds and the list could go on forever. These all can get good prices on the AH for a little bit of effort. The biggest difficulty here is taking the time to farm these items and doing a little bit of research to learn the best places to farm these items. A lot of them can be gained from just doing dailies in various areas while you move about the outlands, other items actually will take some time and effort to get. On the plus side, if you decided to level up engineering motes of various kinds become surprisingly easy to get. Also something of note, anywhere there are demons you can farm the Marks and Fel Armaments for Aldor Rep, and anywhere you see Blood Elves you can farm Signets and Arcane Tomes. All of this means money in your pocket.
Professions, Can You Make Money?
Most players in the game will spend a small fortune on leveling up their professions. This almsot can not be helped and some professions are far more expensive than others. The question really becomes, can you turn these professions into a profit? The answer is no on one hand, and yes on the other. What do I mean by this? Well it boils down like this.... Professions like Leatherworking, Blacksmithing and Tailoring will probably not turn you that much of a profit by the time you consider everything that goes into making an item worth selling. Alchemy differs in that everyone needs Potions and such for instances and raids. While the profit margins are not that great, they are significantly better than LW, BS and Tailoring. Jewelcrafting is slightly better than Alchemy in that your items are in even more demand, especially at the rare and epic level. The only crafting profession that can actually make money by a good margin is enchanting. Why? Mats, mats and more mats. Enchanting mats are in very high demand and there never seems to be enough mats for everyone. Smart enchanters will never sell the items they get on their daily runs around the outlands, they will disenchant everything (except for some blues and world epic drops) sell the mats on the AH as they will get far more gold that way than from selling the items themselves. So remember that when you do decide to take a crafting profession, make sure you understand what will or won't happen when you reach the highest levels of it.
Putting it all Together....
I can easily make a 1000 to 2000 gold in 24 hours depending upon how much effort I put into getting there. I use a combination of all the methods explained above to ensure that I can cash in and afford what I want when needed. My professions are Mining and Enchanting. This gives me the ability to mine ores from all over as I move through areas that I place in my bank for a while. I disenchant every green item I come across and some blues too. Sunday through Friday I do my 6 dailies that I like to do religiously, and then I spend a couple of days just farming for motes of all kinds. I also spend a good amount of time farming for Marks and Fel Armaments as well each week. By Friday evening I have a good assortment of stuff in my bank that will go on the AH Friday night. On average I'll post; 1-2 Fel Iron Ore stacks, 2-3 Adamantite Ore stacks, 10+ Netherweave Cloth stacks, 20 or so Primals of all types, 3-4 stacks of Arcane Dust, 2-3 stacks of Greater Planar essences, and anywhere from 2 to 10 Large prismatic shards. So what does this all equate to? Let's see:
Fel Iron Ore stack = 15g X2 = 30g
Adamantite Ore stack = 20g X3 = 60g
Netherweave Stack = 2.5g X10 = 25g
Primals (on Avg.) per 1 = 20g X20 = 400g
Arcane Dust stack = 20g X4 = 80g
Greater Planar Essence stack = 100g X3 = 300g
Large Prismatic Shard per 1= 25g X10 = 250g
Total Gold earned in one Weekend: 1145g
This is added to the 400 or so gold I get from dailies during the week and to the 100 to 200 gold I get from other quests, vendoring and so forth to bring my average net to around 1700 gold in a week. Now this is true if I'm diligent, which I am not that diligent. Thus the reason why after a year I still do not have my epic flying mount. Now there are other methods to generate more gold depending upon your diligence and the time you put in to generate the money. And this also all depends upon a player not spending money while he is making money (something which I do all too often, is spend). As you can see, diligence will pay handsomely and this all can be accomplished in just a few short hours of gameplay each week. There is no reason why anyone cannot generate at least 1000 gold each week for themselves just by doing dailies and a small amount of farming.
So You've Gotten Some Money, But You Want More.....
This next section requires that you have an addon called Auctioneer (or some other similiar addon to monitor the AH). If you really are looking to become as rich as possible there are several methods for accomplishing this. One is to not stop doing everything mentioned up to this point and the next requires a certain amount of dedicated time and the possible use of an alt for the sole purpose of being a bank and AH toon.
To begin you want to scan the AH as often as possble using Auctioneer's scanner option for at least a couple of weeks. This will help Auctioneer establish a good database of items and prices and fair market values. From there you will want to start scanning the AH using Auctioneers sub addon called Bottom Scanner (which comes with the Advanced Auctioneer package). Bottom scanner will look for all items that are being sold for 10% or more below the lowest seen price in the database in the AH. When the scanner sees these items it will alert you and you can then quickly buyout the item cheap. You can also use the radio buttons on next to the category names to parse your searches to only include certain items or secions of items to make the scanning process go quicker. If you spend a little time doing this every day, you will begin to build up quite a collection of items that you found for cheap. After a time you will then go to resell those items in the AH for a higher price and thus turn a profit. The more you do this, the more you will become famaliar with what does and doesn't sell and what to buy cheap. The whole idea here is to get a real feel for the AH and the economy of your server. Once you have a firm grasp of this you can really begin to manipulate what happens in the AH.
There are a ton of strategies to manipulate the AH if your willing to take the time. One of the most commonly used ones is to watch certain items over a period of time. Items like rare and epic armor are really good for this. As people come across these items or craft them they sell them based upon past sales and what current prices are in the AH. Every so often using Bottomscanner you'll snatch up these items for really low prices as some people are less worried about they money they make on these items. Once you get a real feel for what they sell for and how often they appear you can begin to manipulate the system. The process works like this. You have one item, a helm, that is of interest. There currently are 2 for sell in the AH, one for 1000g and the other for 900g. You buy both. The next day you post two of your 3 on the AH listing one for 1500g buyout and bid for 1450g. Then you list the second one on an alt for a bid only price of 1100g. During the next 24 hours one or both will sell. Just make sure the bid only price is set an a 24 hour timer. If the bid only one sells you can list the 3 helm for bid only as well at the same or slightly higher price and watch it sell as well. If all three sell you will profit from the sells by over a 1000g or more. And even if only 2 sell, you still will gain a profit of at least 300 to 500g. As you get better at doing this you can begin to do more items like this, just don't do too many of them at one time. Keep it to 3 or so totally unrelated items such as; a weapon, a piece of armor and a darkmoon deck.
Another option works best on items like motes and such but you have to be careful on this one. The strategy works like this, when you see an item isn't being traded heavily but there seems to always be several posted. Buy them all out and then use a couple of alts to relist them for a little higher price. (If the items sells for 20g, resell them each for 25g). Then keep watch over the items. If someone else posts up the same items for a lower price, buy them up and send them to your alts. As they sell the item for the higher price, relist the one that you keep buying at the lower price. While the profits are not huge, they will add up over time. Where you need to be careful is that there are people who watch such auctions closely and if they think your farming for gold on the AH they will dump a lot of those items onto the AH for way cheaper in the hopes that you cannot buy them all. And if they see the same people doing this over and over they will keep dumping those items onto the AH to thwart what you are doing.
A word here about manipulating the AH and your servers economy. This is the current favorite model for gold farmers to generate money on servers. Manipulating the AH is the fastest way to make money if you have enough money to make this work. A lot of gold farmers will buy out any epic item and a lot of blue items as well as high priced enchanting and jewelcrafting mats and just stockpile these items. Then when there is a period where these items are not up for sell they will post them for a higher than average price. Or they will buy out existing ones and repost at higher amounts. Gold farmers work long and hard to push AH prices on all relavent items as high as they can. And given the ease of which a player can make money they feel this is justifiable. The problem here is that it really harms new players to the game as they cannot generate money like this. As a result new players are forced into a sad situation where they 'have' to rely on the game solely for their characters developement.
As a side note, it is often fun to watch your auctions when you begin to manipulate things in these ways. What you will see is the same buyers and sellers over and over again. They sometimes change their names, but you will realize they are probably the same person in RL. After sometime it is possible to discern who the gold farmers are and what they are willing to do to stay on top of the AH market on your server. Older long term veterans of the game will see this from time to time as well and they will do things to upset the farmers, like buy out all the items that the farmers are selling and then relist them for ridiculously low prices. These are great times to make buys as this further infuriates the gold farmers.
Finally one last stategy for enchanters is to buy out large portions of lower level greens to disenchant, then sell the mats. Almost always you will double the money you spent for these items.
So Your Richer Than God Now....
Once you become independently wealthy, what do you do with all that money?
Depends.
The answer to this question depends solely upon your individual desires. If you only really play with just a couple of toons then you could easily create bank alts that are in their own guilds with help from friends and then create your own guild bank vaults and such for mats and anything else you could enjoy. Technically if you only played one main player you could have 3 or more such guilds that are there to support and fund your main character as he moves through the World of Warcraft. While most people would not do this, there is a part of me that wishes I could. Most of these strategies that have been discussed I have done in one form or another. I've never been a big fan of outright manipulation of the AH, it can and is a very profitable way to operate. I really prefer the method of dailies and grinding for mats that people can use more than doing a straight buy/sell routine on the AH to make my money.Doing things this way also allows me to walk away from making money more easily when I'm working primarily on one of my alts.
A Little About Mote Farming....
Some of you may wonder where are the best places to find motes, so I'll let everyone in on my sweet spots. :D
Motes of Air: 2 Places; Shadowmoon Valley by the Altar of Shadows, and Nagrand in the area where the void walkers are. (I prefer this place over the Plateau of Elements for several reasons, foremost of which is that the Plateau is always being farmed by more than 2 or 3 farmers.)
Motes of Water: 2 Places; From the eels in the lake just N of Shatt, and from the lake in Nagrand below the Plateau of Elements. A third area that can be good at times is in SMV near the place with all the Naga in the North.
Motes of Fire: Blades Edge in the far north. There is really no better place than this, although I have had surprisingly good luck on the Fire Elementals in Hellfire up where dailies are by Doomwalker.
Motes of Mana: Netherstorm.... Mana eels and the flyer thingy's.
Motes of Shadow: Nagrand in the area where Gron roams. There is an area of Hellfire that sometimes is good as well, drop rate is lower there though.
Motes of Life: Zangermarsh from the shambling giant thingy's.
Motes of Earth: They are all over the place, there is no one spot better than any other.
Moving on from this point is up to each of you. There are tons of websites and information out there available to players outlining numerous strategies for making gold. I know that there are currently and as well as in the past members that are particularily astute at generating gold and maybe they can post in response to this with their suggestions and insights. At this point in the game Blizzard has pretty much established the only way to not make money is to not work at it, and working at it is far easier with a much higher pay out then it was before. It is not hard to establish a routine of dailies to do each day and this will keep any player comfortable funded if they are not seeking the most expensive items to be had. If you want the best though, then it will take a little more work to get there but it is still easily doable. I know that everyone in the guild at one time or another has lamented how hard it was to afford the things they wanted, and many of us have been given lending hands from guildmates. This will continue no doubt as this is one of the things we do best in Lost Sleep, but at the same time, there really isn't a good excuse for not affording what you want. A little work and discipline can go a long way towards generating income for a player.
If there was one specific thing that I could say that keeps a player from being able to afford what they want, it is over spending on items that they probably don't really need. I know I've done this over and over on my toons as I enjoy keeping them fairly twinked as they level. It makes leveling easier in a lot of ways, but it also keeps me from affording some of the more expensive things that I want for my main character. Proceed from here at your own risk and with caution. You may just become rich!
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Preparations
At the earliest it seems, Wrath of the Lich King will be coming out in November. More than likely though the expansion will be released some time after the beginning of the year. Like everyone else I am eagerly awaiting this expansion so I can roll my first Death Knight. My dilemma though is what race do I wanna play. Do I want to roll horde or ally. And then which races; Gnome, Dwarf, Draenei or Undead, Troll, Orc or Blood Elf? I guess a lot of that will depend upon how they look at the setup stage, but we shall see.
Another item that I have to worry about are my existing toons. I want Dhar to definitely be in full epics by then and I would like to see Pallas at level 70 and acquiring her epics. Money is another factor that I am trying to prep for as I'm sure I'm not even close to what I'll need. I am trying to also have at least one horde character at level 70 by then as well. And let us not forget my fast leveling Warlock. And if we really want to get technical we can include any of a number of other alts that are spread around on servers due to my alt-itis.
Finally the decision must be made, who gets leveled first? Obviously my shammy is at the top of that list but a lot can happen between now and then and we'll just have to wait and see.
Another item that I have to worry about are my existing toons. I want Dhar to definitely be in full epics by then and I would like to see Pallas at level 70 and acquiring her epics. Money is another factor that I am trying to prep for as I'm sure I'm not even close to what I'll need. I am trying to also have at least one horde character at level 70 by then as well. And let us not forget my fast leveling Warlock. And if we really want to get technical we can include any of a number of other alts that are spread around on servers due to my alt-itis.
Finally the decision must be made, who gets leveled first? Obviously my shammy is at the top of that list but a lot can happen between now and then and we'll just have to wait and see.
Basics Part Two
As far as the ideal talent make up, there's a lot of debate. I have specced into the Elemental tree and the Restoration tree and found that both definitely have their bonuses. From the stand point of the elemental tree it's the biggest advantage has to do with the speed in which you can apply you shocks on you opponents. The disadvantage of this is I found myself going OOM much faster than the other build. In the traditional Enhance/Resto build I found that I actually output more damage over time and that I rarely have to pot or mana shield in intances or raids. PVP does see me having to recoup my mana more, but that's to be expected because of the nature of what happens on the battlegrounds.
With some of the proposed changes coming in WotLK, I'm really looking forward to seeing how the builds will work out. I know that with some of the improvements they have been talking about with regards to armor and such I will probably want to see if it is possible to put more talent points in to my armor buffing talent. Even though I'm not sure this will be really possible.
On a side note. Pallas recently respecced to a Fury/Prot hybrid (0/28/11) and I am really liking the difference in play. I can now use a sword and shield and do very good damage and I have increased my survivability quite a bit. I'm following the (0/30/31) talent build for hybrid off tanks. I feel that this will allow me more room to level fairly fast and to start learning to tank in 5-mans. If anyone has any thoughts on this, please leave a comment letting me know what you think.
With some of the proposed changes coming in WotLK, I'm really looking forward to seeing how the builds will work out. I know that with some of the improvements they have been talking about with regards to armor and such I will probably want to see if it is possible to put more talent points in to my armor buffing talent. Even though I'm not sure this will be really possible.
On a side note. Pallas recently respecced to a Fury/Prot hybrid (0/28/11) and I am really liking the difference in play. I can now use a sword and shield and do very good damage and I have increased my survivability quite a bit. I'm following the (0/30/31) talent build for hybrid off tanks. I feel that this will allow me more room to level fairly fast and to start learning to tank in 5-mans. If anyone has any thoughts on this, please leave a comment letting me know what you think.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Basics of Enhancement
There is a simple truth about being an Enhancement Shaman.
***DPS***
Any way you can dish it out.
For this shaman have melee attacks, stormstike, weapon enhancements, shocks, lightning shield, and totem to create a substantial wall of damage. All of these items lend to the overall damage a Shaman can dish out, and it is such a high amount I can output as much DPS as other melee classes that are bettered geared than me. And this is possible due to extremely tight gearing practices.
The most important stat for Enhancement Shaman is Strength. After this is Agility, Stamina and Hit. There is a lot of debate over the matter of agility and hit among enhancement shaman but after substantial testing and research I have come to the conclusion of that STR comes first, and the other 3 are tied for second. Overall our job is to add totem support for damage to the melee group or party, and secondarily to hit as hard as possible. To do this means that our AP must be as high as we can get it and this means we have to look at how STR and AP scale.
Elitist Jerks have researched the matter of scaling for STR and AP extensively and they concur that STR scales better than just straight AP. Shamans gain 2 AP per point of STR, and depending upon other factors in the way gear scales it may actually be a little higher than that. AP directly translates and doesn't gain much from scaling. So from a standpoint of gear selection, you want gear with STR on it. This means, a lot of the PVP gear is ideal, even though your trade off will leave you with a low hit rating. This isn't as bad as it seems if you specc'ed into Resto for the hit bonus.
***DPS***
Any way you can dish it out.
For this shaman have melee attacks, stormstike, weapon enhancements, shocks, lightning shield, and totem to create a substantial wall of damage. All of these items lend to the overall damage a Shaman can dish out, and it is such a high amount I can output as much DPS as other melee classes that are bettered geared than me. And this is possible due to extremely tight gearing practices.
The most important stat for Enhancement Shaman is Strength. After this is Agility, Stamina and Hit. There is a lot of debate over the matter of agility and hit among enhancement shaman but after substantial testing and research I have come to the conclusion of that STR comes first, and the other 3 are tied for second. Overall our job is to add totem support for damage to the melee group or party, and secondarily to hit as hard as possible. To do this means that our AP must be as high as we can get it and this means we have to look at how STR and AP scale.
Elitist Jerks have researched the matter of scaling for STR and AP extensively and they concur that STR scales better than just straight AP. Shamans gain 2 AP per point of STR, and depending upon other factors in the way gear scales it may actually be a little higher than that. AP directly translates and doesn't gain much from scaling. So from a standpoint of gear selection, you want gear with STR on it. This means, a lot of the PVP gear is ideal, even though your trade off will leave you with a low hit rating. This isn't as bad as it seems if you specc'ed into Resto for the hit bonus.
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