PUGs are getting ridiculous

[Illana]

Pretty clear you're not really getting it, or even trying to see someone else's point of view.

Point is, no matter what they have for gear, no matter what they have for achievements they are UNKNOWNS. You can look at shit like gear and achievements but people get carried to stuff at every point of content life cycles. These people are unknowns and not only that but a lot of the time they look for runs that don't really fit them (heirloom zerg runs being 1 example).

im just trying to make you see that the people who buy runs are the vast minority and VERY likely to not be pugging heroic siege after the boost itself.

it's also very easy to figure out if they've paid for a boost, they have 1 kill on every boss and none on normal or flex and have terrible gear in the places where they didnt get it in the boost run.

[Octa]

im just trying to make you see that the people who buy runs are the vast minority and VERY likely to not be pugging heroic siege after the boost itself.

it's also very easy to figure out if they've paid for a boost, they have 1 kill on every boss and none on normal or flex and have terrible gear in the places where they didnt get it in the boost run.

I'm not claiming by any stretch that a ton of people buy SoO runs or that they're the majority, you don't have to convince me of that. But it happens and some absolutely do pug heroic siege after just as some don't. If you wanna go through the armory of every person that whispers you on openraid that's cool, go for it. It still doesn't change the fact that both of these players are unknowns to you, you have no clue of their skill, their history, their commitment, if they were carried, if they weren't, etc etc etc. There's a million things you don't know. That's the whole point, people don't know anything about these random pugs they've never met and will likely never meet again.

In any case, there are usually reasons people require the gear they do and it is 99% of the time out of convince to them (loom runs) or because they're in the other group I described long ago in this thread. These groups are nothing new. I'm not arguing if they're right or wrong, but it's not a new trend and they've got reasons for doing it.

[Illana]

I'm not claiming by any stretch that a ton of people buy SoO runs or that they're the majority, you don't have to convince me of that. But it happens and some absolutely do pug heroic siege after just as some don't. If you wanna go through the armory of every person that whispers you on openraid that's cool, go for it. It still doesn't change the fact that both of these players are unknowns to you, you have no clue of their skill, their history, their commitment, if they were carried, if they weren't, etc etc etc. There's a million things you don't know. That's the whole point, people don't know anything about these random pugs they've never met and will likely never meet again.

In any case, there are usually reasons people require the gear they do and it is 99% of the time out of convience to them (loom runs) or because they're in the other group I described long ago in this thread.

still would take someone 20 ilevels lower with the achievement

ilevel is far from everything and more often than not pugs based on ilevel fail horrifically.

For example if someone whispered me 8/14 heroic exp 540ilevel that's MUCH more attractive than the 567 guy with 13/14 normal.

[kamuimac]

still would take someone 20 ilevels lower with the achievement

ilevel is far from everything and more often than not pugs based on ilevel fail horrifically.

for any other boss ye sure why not - for garosh sorry this logic dont apply - u need numbers to mke him into patchwerk - and person with 20 itlv lower gear wont make those numebrs no matter how he will try - not with how gear scales this expansion especially 20 itlv of secondary stats is enormous - person with this 20 itlv higher gear could be pushing 2 buttons and still will outdps the lower geared char - u can repeat skill>itlv as much as u want but not on garosh fight - on every single difficulty its a stupid dps check boss nothing else (very dissapointing since hc siege felt like last boss of expansion, by the time most of people get to garosh in 580 gear it was just check if u can push enough dps to make that fight much easier then it was supposed to be )

[GrumpySanta]

22 gems? Seriously? I think I have 21 in my cmode gear and I'm a Blacksmith and only missing like 2 BiS pieces. Not to derail the thread or anything but dayum.

1 Head (2 sockets if you're engineer)
1 Neck (casters get 2 gem sockets with Lei Shen neck)
2 Shoulders
1 Cloak
3 Chest
1 Wrist (+1 if you're blacksmith)
3 Gloves (+1 if you're blacksmith)
3 Belt
3 Legs
2 Feet
1 Ring 1
1 Ring 2
2 MH (bonus socket from legendary quest)
2 OH (bonus socket from legendary quest)

That's 26 (or more) gem sockets for people with 2 weapons or 24 for people with 1.

If you have 21 sockets in "bis gear", you're mistaken.

[Gandrake]

It's because you can do things like 1 tank Garrosh and people have gotten their achievement that way and have such a fucking mental deficit that they have difficulty comprehending every part of the following sentence:

"After the empowered whirl, adds will spawn from swirls... pick one and kill it away from the boss. We can't have them blowing up on the tanks." Some of them can't even stack for MCs.

All because they have been carried to easy victory by cheesing bosses with players that have stupid amounts of gear. @550 ilv, Garrosh is about as difficult as a Heroic Boss and when you're looking to down a fight that difficult you are looking for people you think are likely to contribute.

[greenbay924]

I can't say I blame people for wanting a high ilvl requirement, though someone like me is completely screwed. Stepped away from the game for over a year, sitting at 529 ilvl now means no hope or prayer at a normal Garrosh kill before 6.0.

What would be a decent dps value to expect in a normal SoO run?

[Monoxide]

These days, AotC and 14/14 clear doesn't seem to be enough. If your alt isnt 560+ ilvl its automatic no.

Just a few months ago this wasn't really an issue :S

Mod edit: Keep pug (dog breed) discussion out of this topic please.

Pretty much this. My main is a Resto Druid, 559 ilevel. I have the legendary cloak, and I have the AotC Garrosh achievement dated back in October of 2013. I also have heroic Immerseus/Protectors/Norushen. I took a break in December 2013, just recently coming back about a week ago. I cannot join a SoO pug. I've tried. Apparently I don't qualify. Just gonna have to run my own, which is fine, but I agree with you, people are getting crazy with ilevel requirements. It doesn't matter that I have the experience. All that matters is that I'm a few ilevels behind, due to taking a 9 month break.

[Alroxas]

Apparently I don't qualify. Just gonna have to run my own, which is fine, but I agree with you, people are getting crazy with ilevel requirements. It doesn't matter that I have the experience. All that matters is that I'm a few ilevels behind, due to taking a 9 month break.

The primary symptom here is simply item level inflation which has gotten worse due to VP upgrades allow for +16 ilvs.

However, the real cause of this issue is due to the lack of reliable metrics to gauge player ability. From the RL perspective, how do they tell the difference between player A and B on a consistent basis within WoW? Item levels have been the cheap/lazy method because most people believe that higher item level (regardless of skill) equals better (or higher) throughput (in DPS, in Heals) or survivability (for tanks).

Better methods have included using achievements or number of boss kills, but ultimately the best way to determine a player's ability is simply logs. Combat logs plus the layout of a player's gear (ilv) and talents at the time they fight a standardized boss is the best way, but unfortunately it's time consuming.

However, this solution is not without it's own problems. In addition to being time consuming, there are players who don't run logs and so you'll be screening out a lot of eligible good players.

Additionally, there needs to be a way to filter out bad players, specifically a mechanism to show (objectively) how "good" a player is. Which leads to further discussion as to what weights go into being a good player? For instance, a DPS role would weigh actual DPS pretty high, but what about personal survivability (aka not standing in fire) or contributing to raid success (i.e. mages can greater invis out of mechanics in SoO so that other players can focus on their DPS/Healing). Also what about raid preparedness? Does being flasked, food buffed and using DPS potions take up a percentage of "good" players? What uptime should we be looking at here?

Ideally it would be amazing if there was some way to incorporate all these factors into an addon for WoW that allows an actual "rating" for RL to look at when they make their choices for their raids.

[Russler]

I can't say I blame people for wanting a high ilvl requirement, though someone like me is completely screwed. Stepped away from the game for over a year, sitting at 529 ilvl now means no hope or prayer at a normal Garrosh kill before 6.0.

What would be a decent dps value to expect in a normal SoO run?

Its not about hope or prayer when you are less geared then ppl who started progress on garrosh norm after 5.4 got realeased. Go and do some flex and maybe get som pugs going , start of with trying to get down the first 6-8 bosses in normal which can be done without massive amounts of gear as long as ppl got a general idea of what to do

[Illana]

I can't say I blame people for wanting a high ilvl requirement, though someone like me is completely screwed. Stepped away from the game for over a year, sitting at 529 ilvl now means no hope or prayer at a normal Garrosh kill before 6.0.

What would be a decent dps value to expect in a normal SoO run?

Normal SoO you should be breaking 200k. That's easily doable with 540 ilevel and legendary cloak and to be honest you dont even need cloak to do 200k+

people just rely far too heavily on gear to carry them and dont research their class and only play it to maybe 60% of its potential

[kamuimac]

people just rely far too heavily on gear to carry them and dont research their class and only play it to maybe 60% of its potential

yup and this are the exackt people that your are geting in - so why should we take 540 who plays on 60 % of potential instead 570 who plays on 60 % and barely makes dps for pushing garosh before 2nd transition ? if most players play like shit this means most of 540 also play like shit and shouldnt be taken in

[Illana]

yup and this are the exackt people that your are geting in - so why should we take 540 who plays on 60 % of potential instead 570 who plays on 60 % and barely makes dps for pushing garosh before 2nd transition ? if most players play like shit this means most of 540 also play like shit and shouldnt be taken in

someone who knows they have lower ilevel are much more willing to put effort in to prove that they are not a wasted raid spot since it's very easy to kick someone who's low ilevel AND underperforming.

People who have been carried to 570+ gear just think they deserve the spot just because of ilevel and think their safe because they won't be the first ones kicked by a raid leader who cares about ilevel.

[GrumpySanta]

I can't say I blame people for wanting a high ilvl requirement, though someone like me is completely screwed. Stepped away from the game for over a year, sitting at 529 ilvl now means no hope or prayer at a normal Garrosh kill before 6.0.

What would be a decent dps value to expect in a normal SoO run?

You should be able to get into flex part 1 and 2 with 530 ilvl, get your crafted gear and farm 535 gear on timeless isle, yes it's boring, but by doing that you can easily get 530-540 ilvl, which is enough to join first 4-8 bosses on normal groups on openraid.eu. To clear whole of SoO you should be doing around 200k, which is more than doable in 540-550 ilvl without metagem/cloak.

I'm kind of in the same boat as you, I just started playing again 3 weeks ago, but now I'm at the point where there's barely any upgrades in gear for me in normal SoO (I'm 4 items from full normal gear) and I cannot get into a Heroic SoO group other than the groups who clear1-4 bosses on heroic, even though I cleared most of the raid on heroic with even worse gear than I got now almost a ye

[Ealyssa]

actually it makes a huge difference

No it clearly doesn't. I'm on the beta and tried with different chars to lvl 93+. From ilvl 510 to ilvl 570.
Every single chars past 520 (under LFR level) pretty much "oneshot" mobs.

What make the most difference is if you have the legendary cloak or not (the melee proc alone can kill a mob).

[kamuimac]

someone who knows they have lower ilevel are much more willing to put effort in to prove that they are not a wasted raid spot since it's very easy to kick someone who's low ilevel AND underperforming.

People who have been carried to 570+ gear just think they deserve the spot just because of ilevel and think their safe because they won't be the first ones kicked by a raid leader who cares about ilevel.

the person in 540 itlv can be nicest person in the world - still being nice dont kill bosses - numebrs do - if he is unable to perform on the same lv as the rest of group he is a liability and unless its a boost he bought for gold he has no buisness looking for carry unless he is a guildie.

and stop with this carried to 570 - my paladin has 0 gear from normal - just ordos/celestials cloak and normal loom wepaon and few still unupgraded flex pieces after 11 resets after he dinged 90 and is siting on 565 - when i will finish upgrading it it will be exackly 570 with 0 normal boss kills so u dont need to be carried anywhere - game is giving u ways to gear up - u just need to spend few weeks on geting that gear instead coming back from long break and expecting people to caryr u cause once upon a time u were hardcore raider and u gonna use that as get free from jail card till the end of days.

[Slone]

I have done hundreds, possibly thousands, of challenge modes

thousands huh? 24/7 challenge modes

[Deleted]

thousands huh? 24/7 challenge modes

2 boosts a week is almost 1000 CM a year. Not too far fetched.-

[Deleted]

PUGs been always "ridiculous"

Solutions have always been:

1. Make your own and then take the "correct" ilvl 14/14 "cleared with main" idiots afking to your pug and progress for 8 hours with them, if thats your thing. Many people dont even try to play their alts properly. So getting over the top ilvls insures your success, there WILL be lazy bitches you have to carry.
2. Join a proper big raiding guild with nice progress that run altruns. You most def get into them if your not bad.
3. Ive always managed to get myself into pugs even without the high ilvl or achievs. Its just couple sentences you have to say. Not the "inv plz". But then again if youre low ilvl you gotta know your shit even better.

[Octa]

thousands huh? 24/7 challenge modes

When you're selling CMs, running with people with well optimized gear who know CMs in and out, all the tricks, mobs to skip, ways to abuse vengeance, what pulls you can handle, where to use CDs and when to swap trinkets, engineering so you can pot the whole time, etc; CMs become pretty trivial. We can do a full 9/9 carry in under 2 hours pretty easily. We can do an entire 9/9 carry without voice communication easily. On top of the carries CMs are extremely fun for me so I run them for fun, I get the transmogs on all my classes. I'm not sure why it's such a stretch to believe this lol