Raiding in blues: The <Undergeared> Chronicles

[ardoRic]

You've failed to kill Saurfang, the first boss of any note. You've done, effectively, nothing.

You are nothing!

Both Terragh and Saurfang thought we had done nothing, however we have now been able to kill Saurfang, so I guess we have now, and only now by some people's opinion's, accomplished something.

Like I said last week, Saurfang was pretty much a sure kill with some improvement of our performance, and also that with the 20% buff he would sure be downed. I never actually thought we would down him in the first try even with the 20% buff, but alas we did. Saurfang went from repeatedly owning our faces with his last available strength (15% and 6% wipes), to not being of any consequence.

The group that killed Saurfang was:

Tanks: Maladroite Solaire
Healers: Manahog Koushirou
DPS: Ardoric Koltas Triev Chopsui Ulatekso Yiska



As can seen, we stormed the citadel and made a mess of things. BP gain was so low that he only cast one Mark on our space chicken, who ended up dead on the floor. No matter though, he died for the greater good: the death of the Deathbringer. His sacrifice was not in vain.

I think I made an angry poo-poo. It gonna blow!

After killing the Deathbringer we went on to the Plagueworks. After killing the first Herald without much issue, Koltas turns and says "stay back, I'll solo the other one". Half the people in the raid went "huh?". Turns out Koltas brought the Herald to Crok Scourgebane and we only had to deal with a couple of spawned essences.

The trick even worked rather well on Stinky, after a few adjustments on the pull (Koltas tried it alone and his corpse soon splashed the ground). And off we went to Rotface.

Yiska gave his spot to Metrios (a warrior) since he wasn't totally secure about the tactics for Rotface. Turns out neither was Metrios and one of the healers. We went with one tank, a dps (Koltas with a resistance spec) kiting, and three healers:

Tank: Maladroite
Healers: Solaire Manahog Koushirou
DPS: Koltas Triev Metrios Ulatekso Ardoric Chopsui

After some grief learning the fight, correcting mistakes, and whatnot...

Terrible news, everyone, Rotface is dead! But great news everyone, he left behind plenty of ooze for me to use! Whaa...? I'm a poet, and I didn't know it? Astounding!

Having some people not knowing the fight caused some learning wipes. Having low geared tanks and healers, made some tunnel visioning on the tanks causing some diseases not to be dispelled. But we got our acts together, and downed another ICC boss in blue gear. I think this one can be considered of substance too, so two bosses of substance are down.

Since we still had half an hour left on our raid, we went to see how Festergut would treat us.

Dead, dead, dead!

Yes, we died to Festergut, but not without living through a 3 inhale phase. Our tanks can take the pounding. We died since someone didn't know what the spores were for and didn't take all of them. That person died to Pungent Blight, which cascaded to everyone dying soon enough.

The question in everyone's mind is: "was the dps enough?". Well, the answer to that is: "not on that try". The dps on that try clearly wasn't enough to beat the enrage timer, but we only had one try, and I'm sure things would improve with further tries. Even if we can't pull enough dps on him with the 20% buff, he'll most certainly be down in circa 2 months, with the 30% buff.

[knopp]

very very nice guys good luck further in icc

[ardoRic]

Added a link to the Saurfang kill video on the OP, on Maladroite's point of view: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGgL80CLkAs

The text is a bit stretched, so I took the liberty to re-type it here:

But first, a pop quiz: How much does the ICC buff compensate for our blue gear?

This is a comparison of two tank gear profiles made in Rawr (links to their wowhead copies can be found in the video description). The higher ilvl gear is gemmed with epic gems but has the same enchants as I am using except on shoulders. All available raid buffs are used for both profiles.

From looking at the stats it's clear that the buff only helps increase the tank's health pool. Any upgrade above ilvl 200 increases survivability through higher mitigation stats as well as increasing the tank's health pool (ICC buff or no ICC buff).

A video for the Rotface kill is incoming and I'll update the thread accordingly.

Edit: the Rotface video is up: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZwtEIIzucA

[Celestial476]

Wow, very impressive, I really wish I had the time I would come join you guys up since doing these raids with nothing but blues seems pretty kickass.

[ardoRic]

Added Gevlon's post on Rotface and Saurfang to the OP: http://greedygoblin.blogspot.com/201...-everyone.html

And also added the logs of that night: http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/aba0kwoygu7dukf4/

[Sunshine]

Cleaned up some of the junk in this thread. Remember, you're welcome to agree or disagree with this project and their results, but personal insults to the OP or any other posters are never, ever welcome.

Now, let's all have a group hug...

[Edok]

Just like to say this.. I think these people are trying to prove that gearscore means nothing. pugs ask for gearscore and DONT turn the buff off and there trying to prove you dont need to ask for it to be a good player or w/e so they shouldnt have to turn the buff off.

good luck lads and get as far as you can, loving this.

[Memory]

Just like to say this.. I think these people are trying to prove that gearscore means nothing. pugs ask for gearscore and DONT turn the buff off and there trying to prove you dont need to ask for it to be a good player or w/e so they shouldnt have to turn the buff off.

good luck lads and get as far as you can, loving this.

This guild is proving that large part of WoW population is running around with gear that has no use to them whatsoever. The posters claiming this guild didn't prove anything should ask themselves if they're the same players that can't clear ICC with level 264 gear or that can't get anything down past Saurfang with level 232 gear, etc.

[Dentro]

I really like the goal you've set for yourselves, I've been wanting to collect a set like that just to prove a point. I guess I don't have to anymore :P
Good luck with the rest of ICC.

[Sunshine]

They're proving that large part of WoW population is running around with gear that has no use whatsoever.

Even if someone is capable of successfully completing a fight in blue gear, I don't believe that having better gear has no use whatsoever. If you're severely undergeared for a fight, even if it's possible, it likely requires near-perfect execution and takes quite a bit longer than if you had much better gear. Better gear can lessen the impact of RNG on fights which have that element (e.g., it's less likely for your tank to die while a healer gets chain-MC'd/spiked/etc, or less likely for you to miss the enrage timer because a dps is incap'd).

If nothing else, getting those early bosses down faster and without error means you have more time available to attempt future bosses.

[Amgyn]

Wow! dey took our jerbs!

good work! I look forward to the putricide kill

[ytironim]

This guild is proving that large part of WoW population is running around with gear that has no use to them whatsoever. The posters claiming this guild didn't prove anything should ask themselves if they're the same players that can't clear ICC with level 264 gear or that can't get anything down past Saurfang with level 232 gear, etc.

No, it just proves that a large part of the WoW population is bad, that's not news to anyone, it's been apparent for quite some time. I'm in a guild attempting Lich King 25 hc and I still see this as a waste of time that doesn't prove anything.

If you really want to show how easy stuff is, just go kill Lich King hc and get your frostwyrms, in appropriate gear, whatever. The point this guild and everyone defending them is missing is that nothing they have killed is even supposed to be hard, none of the easy modes are, and now they even have the buff to help. The hard modes are the parts that are supposed to be hard, nothing else matters. Killing LK hc at all is far more impressive than killing everything else in there on easy mode in blue gear.

[Memory]

If you really want to show how easy stuff is, just go kill Lich King hc and get your frostwyrms, in appropriate gear, whatever. The point this guild and everyone defending them is missing is that nothing they have killed is even supposed to be hard, none of the easy modes are, and now they even have the buff to help. The hard modes are the parts that are supposed to be hard, nothing else matters. Killing LK hc at all is far more impressive than killing everything else in there on easy mode in blue gear.

That's matter of points of view. For example, I wouldn't say that killing the LK 25 HM is impressive at all, nor impressive is clearing some easy bosses with blue gear. If anything, being world first guild at killing the LK 25 HM (and few other bosses) was impressive. Instead, I am still convinded they're proving that most people in WoW waste their time with heroic dungeons and similar worries within an extremely flawed character progression system in order to get gear that has nearly no use to them.
What Sunshine said is actually true and by no mean I'm whishing everyone would have to artificially increase the difficulty of a given encounter, also if it's an undertuned one; I do still believe the system is widely flawed.

[Thazienne of AM]

How many people saw Naxx 1.0? maybe 1/3? If you keep this going, they lose players, cause every player wants to see everything.

Try less than 1%.

[ardoRic]

UPDATE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIyVPnemNOU is the video of our Festergut try. Many thanks to Maladroite for uploading all these videos. I hope we can soon bring more diverse points of view, if only our other FRAPSer didn't forget to turn recording on ^^

If you really want to show how easy stuff is, just go kill Lich King hc and get your frostwyrms, in appropriate gear, whatever. The point this guild and everyone defending them is missing is that nothing they have killed is even supposed to be hard, none of the easy modes are, and now they even have the buff to help. The hard modes are the parts that are supposed to be hard, nothing else matters. Killing LK hc at all is far more impressive than killing everything else in there on easy mode in blue gear.

Why does everyone keep making up points we're not trying to make, and giving us suggestions on how to make them better?

Lich King HC is NOT easy (hell, even the normal version is decently hard). We are not saying that everything in WOTLK is easy as pie and can be done in blues. I personally have the utmost respect for people who can gather a group of top-notch players in as good gear as they can get and down the hardmode versions of what we're doing (next week, I'll start tackling them myself on my main server).

This project is not aimed at hardcore raiders. This project is aimed at casuals, and normal (easy) content is what casuals do. We're raiding casually (once a week), so we're doing normal content. No one, not even hardcore raiders, raid without the ICC buff, I seriously don't get why people are saying "omg, if you want to prove your point you have to do this without the buff".

This project comes from the observation that Blizzard has the habit of nerfing content so much that everybody who can grasp the simple things of the game can do it regardless of the gear they're wearing. This project is aimed at the people who say "am I geared enough for this?" and "I'm not geared for that yet". More importantly, this project is aimed at the people who believe in the latter people.

We just mean to show that you are not missing content because you lack the gear or the time to "raid hardcore", you're missing content because you can't grasp the simple concepts of World of Warcraft. Blizzard provides all the means for you to do all the content in whatever gear you happen to be in (as long as it's level appropriate, of course). More importantly, if you believe that people are failing due to their gear, and not their skills, this project is showing you your beliefs are wrong.

<Undergeared> is about raiding as casual as can be, and still seeing and downing the content. We don't farm raids for gear as we use the gear we got from heroics and rep a long time ago in the beginning of WOTLK. The "don't upgrade gear" rule is there so we can show that WOTLK content can be seen even if you have no "luck" and get no upgrades. Again: Blizzard provides with the means to overcome this by nerfing content (or buffing players, as is the current ICC take).

This project does not translate directly to Trade PUGs. You probably can't just take a group in blue gear from Trade and storm into ICC and down the Lich King (even after we prove it can be done in blues). The impact this should have in your ICC Trade PUGS is on how far you expect them to go. I mean: if people in blues, some with no experience in ICC, can down up to Rotface, why on Azeroth is this pug with 5.5k+ gearscore requirement only aiming to kill one more boss? Even better: why the frell are they aiming to kill LESS bosses?

I've seen these "aiming 6/12" and "aiming 4/12" pugs even this week, after I downed Rotface in blues. I find those pugs just sad. Even if you end up not being able to do it, at least aim a bit higher than those casual class and (some) raid inexperienced dudes did in blues.

And also, I'd like to take the opportunity to thank Sunshine for the support on this thread, and for trying to keep it as clean as possible.

[draticus]

They're aiming for less because the people in trade/lfg are HORRIBLE. And they need them to be geared because they're HORRIBLE. You can't change the fact that they're horrible but a horrible person in blues does 2k dps while a horrible person in 5k GS epics does 5k dps. You need 5k dps to down some of the bosses so you take people with 5k gearscores. After all, a person with less than 5k GS is obviously someone who can't manage to get gear from heroics since you can get a 5k score without raiding.

Its great that you're doing this but it does not say anything at all about what pugs should be expected to do or what pug leaders should look for in gear. A lot of people are reading what you're saying there and trying to argue that their alt in blues deserves to go to ICC because gear doesn't matter and they're too lazy to run heroics. In the real world there is no one with your level of skill thats still at that level of gear(blues). The only people with bad gear for more than a couple of days are bad players or people with no time at all to devote to the game. If I didn't have enough time to build a decent character I wouldn't expect to see end game content.

I'm a casual football player and I don't have enough time to go to practice or work out but I still think I should be allowed to be on a football team because I want to be. I'm sure there was a football team full of people who didn't work out much and didn't practice and they won 4/12 games so its possible to succeed without putting time in right? So why does that team full of dedicated players who put in lots of time and are in much better shape than me think they have a right to not let me on their team?

[ardoRic]

They're aiming for less because the people in trade/lfg are HORRIBLE. And they need them to be geared because they're HORRIBLE.

Don't cater to horrible people. Seriously... If before the raid someone hints at being an idiot, kick him. Horrible people shouldn't raid. They should either change their horribleness or not be allowed into raids.

Don't invite "inv 5.9k gs" people to your raids, invite people who can write a sentence, or who value experience more than gear (they'll most likely whisp you some achievement and not gearscore).

Evaluate the people you pug with before the raid, by asking questions or having a little chat with them. If you're joining a group, don't act like a moron. When you do get someone in the group, don't be shy to kick them if they don't correspond to your expectations (maybe they lied about their GS, faked the achievement, or are just plain asses).

If you screen people with more than just "inv 5.9k gs", you'll prolly get a a decent enough group, capable of downing more than 4/12 with 20% buff to their damage, health and healing. If you're leading a raid, for Christ's sake, LEAD. Don't lean back on people having achievements for them to magically do what they must. Say how you want things done, hand out roles. If only raid leaders lead, raids would go a lot smoother. Don't lead a raid if you don't know what needs to be done, it's true in guilds, should be true in Trade PUGs.

This project does not prove that anyone can do the content, this project proves that smart, dedicated people can do the content. Of course your Trade PUG won't hold together for several weeks, taking 11 tries to down Rotface. But if you have decent, patient people who won't quit and rage at the first wipe, you'll pull through.

Edit: This post is a personal point of view on the pugs issue. You argue that you need gear to compensate stupidity, I argue that you shouldn't take stupid into your raids.

Just think of this: a 5kGS who can do 5k dps but is a moron, will die early and do 0 dps. A 4k dps non-moron will not die and do 4k dps the whole fight. Guess who's better to have.

The point is not to take a 4k GS over a 5K GS guy, the point is take the non-moron over the moron.

[Yagamoth]

I don't see anything to prove, but I simply love the concept of raiding in blues

Keep going *_*

[draticus]

The point is not to take a 4k GS over a 5K GS guy, the point is take the non-moron over the moron.

If you recruit a group out of trade you're going to end up with maybe 4 good players, 12 mediocre players, and 8 horrible ones. You can keep replacing the horrible ones until you've got a bunch of mediocres but they're still not going to be able to down anything past saurfang unless they have really good gear. People act like you can just go to trade and ask for 24 skilled players and get them. Skilled players all already have regular raids. If you're forming pugs you're getting people on alts that don't know how to play as well as their main or people on mains that can't get a regular raid because they aren't good enough. I suppose on a high enough population server you might be able to spend a LOT of time sifting through the bads to come up with a group that's mostly decent but everytime I've seen someone try to be picky it takes so long that people start leaving.

And if you get to the instance and realize 8 people are horrible you can port back to town and replace them but 3 of the replacements are going to be horrible so you'll have to port back again, and again, and again. You just don't have time to weed out and replace all of the bad/mediocre players in a pug so the best and fastest way to achieve more boss kills is to require decent gear. It works.

Maybe on a high population server it would be a little easier but I can't imagine it being that different from a medium pop.

[raduking]

After all, a person with less than 5k GS is obviously someone who can't manage to get gear from heroics since you can get a 5k score without raiding.

That is actually wrong! I took the time and tried to gear my warrior (fury) exclusively from heroics (I don't count the frost emblems rewards since it takes at least 25 days to get 1 item - not counting sigils totems and such) and I bought all ilvl245 items available (head, shoulders, ring, trinket, thrown) and got all heroic loot from the new ICC 5 mans so basically a combo of ilvl232 and ilvl245 with some exceptions and guess what:

I was around 4850GS

just to remind you that for example
-there is no cloak that's higher than ilvl219 if you don't do any raiding
-there is no belt that's higher than ilvl226 if you don't do any raiding

probably if I craft the ilvl245 bracers and the chest I get close to 4950k GS but even then I won't reach 5k
and what I'm talking about here is a lot of time investment and luck on drops on which you don't have higher GS alternatives if you don't raid

so please don't talk if you don't know what you're talking about (thank you)