Casual->Hardcore possible?

[Brainheal]

I spent much of the time I've played WoW as a fairly hardcore raider. Didn't raid preBC, BC cleared all content except KJ prenerf. WoTLK, I've been an on and off player. After coming back from a 3-4 month break, I find myself fairly outgeared, with no-one running older content. At the moment, I'm in a casual raiding guild because they seem to be the only ones running things that match my current gear level, but I want to get back into the hardcore raiding game. Other than "lol, badgefarm moar," any advice as to what should be done to get back on the ball. To make things worse, I'm trying to transition from resto mainspec to ele mainspec (thus the resto/ele tier)

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...sh&n=Brainheal (armory isn't updating my spec to ele )
http://wow-heroes.com/index.php?zone...name=Brainheal

Thoughts?

Keep flaming to a minimum if possible.

[crayven]

the fact everyone gets new stuff from the bloody emblems is the REASON why no one does old content no more.

Our guild has only 2 legendaries and we don'tmake Ulduar no more coz " it gives no more loot" and no pugs EVER go there anymore coz" no loot" or "no point if i can get from emblems"

Emblem gear is BAD.

[Aesis]

Well... getting lower gears (Naxx, Uld) is a way to start going for Crusades.
In Korea we have pugs that go to Naxx and Uld for emblem and lower gear 'Shopping'. There are some stuff in there that are useful. But since 99% of any pug is gold based auction, me no likey likey.

[Choda]

ToC25 is puggable. Get some friends that won't shut you out because of your gear and run ToC25 every week. Soon enough you'll have your gear.

[Mowg]

the fact everyone gets new stuff from the bloody emblems is the REASON why no one does old content no more.

Our guild has only 2 legendaries and we don'tmake Ulduar no more coz " it gives no more loot" and no pugs EVER go there anymore coz" no loot" or "no point if i can get from emblems"

Emblem gear is BAD.

Actually if anything, Emblems have made lesser raids like Naxx/Ulduar more desirable, not the opposite. Both those raids hand out Emblems much quicker than Heroics, and it's the reason why they're even alive.

If Blizzard didn't upgrade their Emblems every patch, it would be almost impossible for a new player, alt or someone who took a break like OP to progress. No one would be doing Naxx, very few people will be doing Ulduar and every guild would be doing the most cutting edge content. In the rare case that a Guild would need more members, they would hardly take a person with ilvl 200 gear, when everyone else in the guild is sporting ilvl226+ gear.

If progression was Heroics > Naxx > Ulduar > ToC > ICC, then I'm afraid it'd be just like Vanilla, where only 5% of the entire WoW population could even participate in a KZ kill in Naxx. What Blizzard have done is given people more options and made the game enjoyable for more people, be they new players (the game is still in the shops you know) or people who took a long break from the game.

[Daedelus]

I agree, the ease with which you can gear up a char now is a good thing. Having good gear doesn't make you a good player, but preventing good players from joining a raiding guild just because of lack of gear is stupid. A lot of people don't like the fact that anyone can get iLvl 245 items now (258 is still out of reach for most) but anyone who raids for the loot is doing it for the wrong reason (in my opinion)

So to answer the question - run the daily heroic as much as possible, get as many badges as possible and you will soon have 226/245 gear - enough to get you in to a decent raiding guild.

[Shiira]

If you've done hardcore before then you can do it again as soon as you have the gear, and you're in luck; it has never been easier to gear up quickly than it is now.

As unhelpful as this is the best thing that you can do right now is make sure that you get totc 10 and 25 man cleared on normal every week, pugs will probably claim otherwise but your gear is fine. Also get the daily heroic done as often as you have time for it.

[sh0k]

1) complete daily heroic (30 minutes)
2) complete togc 10/25 weekly (provided a non terrible group, est 1.5-2 hour clear, including wipes)
3) complete voa 10/25 weekly (maybe 30 minutes including time fill the group/summon/etc)
4) complete ony 10/25 weekly (30 minutes including travel time)
5) come 3.3, farm the 5man (i predict release around december)

something important to note, is that each of these is VERY time efficient. little/no trash, straight up bosses, relatively easy content. htogc gets a bit complicated since it becomes far more gear based with some fail checks, but the above steps (1-4 for the time being) are often pugged with great success, not to mention it will net you ilevel232+ gear. moral of the story, its a joke to gear up, and given a raiding background, you wont have problems. to give you an idea, i recently started playing again despite a demanding work schedule, my guild only kills koralon in voa (which i disagree with because its free badges/offspec loot for very minimal effort, but can understand since better gear is so readily available).

good luck

(you wont need it)

[DaveTheHunter]

It is very easy to quickly get the gear to raid endgame. I quit playing right after ulduar came out, then started again recently. Within a month I leveled a druid from 1-80 and had better gear than my paladin. I am now one piece away from 4 pc t9 (10 man) and have a few 25 man pieces that I've picked up pugging with alts of the guild I used to be in. I've only been playing again for about 2 months.

I farmed a crapload of emblems, convinced my current 10 man only guild to go back and do ulduar hard modes to get my BiS trinket, and pugged 25 man ToC. That's all you need to do... oh, and don't suck. :P

[klurejr]

"lol, badgefarm moar,"

Unfortunately and fortunately that is the answer as has been stated a few times already.

It is pretty easy to PUG 10/25 Ony and 10/25 TOC, our casual guild is so casual we have people missing each week for those raids and pug a number of slots.

Daily Heroic is a good idea too, I really hate that the new badge gear and loot from Ony and TOC are > Ulduar, but that is the way it is when new content is released so fast.

My guild is at a turning point where I think we are going to lose some people, and need to do some major recruiting. Last week we put 25 TOC on the calendar for the main weekly raid and had some nubs complain that we were not doing Naxx. /facepalm. I wish i was online at the time so i could of bitch slapped a few people. With the badge gear there is no reason to go into Naxx anymore, period.

[Legendarius]

Jeez. Not this shit again.

[Brainheal]

Jeez. Not this shit again.

Congrats on first flame.

1) complete daily heroic (30 minutes)
2) complete togc 10/25 weekly (provided a non terrible group, est 1.5-2 hour clear, including wipes)
3) complete voa 10/25 weekly (maybe 30 minutes including time fill the group/summon/etc)
4) complete ony 10/25 weekly (30 minutes including travel time)
5) come 3.3, farm the 5man (i predict release around december)

something important to note, is that each of these is VERY time efficient.
good luck

(you wont need it)

I've been trying to do this every week, voa and ony are easy, along with the heroic but people don't like to pug togc very often, from what I've seen, and my guild isn't doing it, so I guess I should just look for a straight raid guild eh?

ToC25 is puggable. Get some friends that won't shut you out because of your gear and run ToC25 every week. Soon enough you'll have your gear.

I'm sure it's puggable but people just don't pug it on my server. :[

[sd78]

the fact everyone gets new stuff from the bloody emblems is the REASON why no one does old content no more.

Our guild has only 2 legendaries and we don'tmake Ulduar no more coz " it gives no more loot" and no pugs EVER go there anymore coz" no loot" or "no point if i can get from emblems"

Emblem gear is BAD.

100% correct.

Blizzard made Uld completely redundant by adding the stupid emblem system and a new tier of raid content that gets farmed by PUGs every week.

[sd78]

1) complete daily heroic (30 minutes)
2) complete togc 10/25 weekly (provided a non terrible group, est 1.5-2 hour clear, including wipes)
3) complete voa 10/25 weekly (maybe 30 minutes including time fill the group/summon/etc)
4) complete ony 10/25 weekly (30 minutes including travel time)
5) come 3.3, farm the 5man (i predict release around december)

something important to note, is that each of these is VERY time efficient. little/no trash, straight up bosses, relatively easy content. htogc gets a bit complicated since it becomes far more gear based with some fail checks, but the above steps (1-4 for the time being) are often pugged with great success, not to mention it will net you ilevel232+ gear. moral of the story, its a joke to gear up, and given a raiding background, you wont have problems. to give you an idea, i recently started playing again despite a demanding work schedule, my guild only kills koralon in voa (which i disagree with because its free badges/offspec loot for very minimal effort, but can understand since better gear is so readily available).

good luck

(you wont need it)

THIS.

I cancelled my account last month because Activision have turned the PVE content into a farce aimed at giving Bad Players free epics.

[moarqqplz]

hey there, ive never been in a raiding guild and i pug 25 man toc every week. But i have fun doing it and the pugs im in dont usually ever fail. so there. dont know if its relevant but thats my imput ;D

[Sarcasm]

Actually if anything, Emblems have made lesser raids like Naxx/Ulduar more desirable, not the opposite. Both those raids hand out Emblems much quicker than Heroics, and it's the reason why they're even alive.

In the time it might take to get a decent Naxx10 group together (let's say, half an hour, if you're lucky) and actually clear the raid (might take 3 hours, because you're of course carrying half the raid, plus people AFK a lot, other people get kicked off and you have to find more, plus you spent time at the beginning flying over to Naxx so you could summon 8 people, etc.), that's 3.5 hours to clear Naxx10 for what, 15 badges? It takes half an hour to clear a heroic for 4 badges each, you can make almost twice as many badges running heroics in the same amount of time it takes you to run Naxx10. As the raids get harder (and I use that term loosely), the badge rate just keeps going down.

[Mowg]

In the time it might take to get a decent Naxx10 group together (let's say, half an hour, if you're lucky) and actually clear the raid (might take 3 hours, because you're of course carrying half the raid, plus people AFK a lot, other people get kicked off and you have to find more, plus you spent time at the beginning flying over to Naxx so you could summon 8 people, etc.), that's 3.5 hours to clear Naxx10 for what, 15 badges? It takes half an hour to clear a heroic for 4 badges each, you can make almost twice as many badges running heroics in the same amount of time it takes you to run Naxx10. As the raids get harder (and I use that term loosely), the badge rate just keeps going down.

What makes Heroics any different? People can still AFK there, get kicked off and get carried etc. Naxx10 is pretty much on the same difficulty as the tougher 5 man Heroics. Nowadays, with the Emblem system upgraded, most people have more than enough gear to complete a Naxx run efficiently, and really 3.5 hours is not the norm.

If the same people take 3.5 hours to finish Naxx, then it would take them even longer to complete 4 Heroics (lets give them the benefit of the doubt and say it takes them 30 minutes to complete the instance, and they spend 25 minutes between each Heroic due to WC breaks, Tanks/Healers needing to be replaced, people AFKing etc. - in total it would take them nearly 4 hours to achieve 16 EoC's). If your server is good enough, pugging Ulduar is probably the fastest way to earn EoC's, since there's very few trash there. When patch 3.2 arrived, I remember PuGs for Naxx on my server exploded, and I suspect the same will occur come patch 3.3 (especially with the debut of the Weekly Raid quest).