So... What ilvl to start ToT normal?

[Kanadei]

Well now that we know the patch is aimed for two weeks away, it's pretty clear to me that I won't be finishing up the tier before Throne of Thunder launches.

Now instead of doing one of the usual back and forths where people claim I must be an awful player to not have even finished the tier on normal, then I claim main swapping/server swapping/guild swapping/people away during the holidays has stopped my amazingly heroic-quality playstyle from surmounting these laughable normal modes, then they claim my previous progression speaks otherwise, and I claim I quit playing during cataclysm yadayadayada....

Let's just get down to business.

What is the ilvl everyone (particularly those of you on the PTR) think a raid should be hitting before doing atleast the first couple bosses of Throne of Thunder?

The LFR drops 502 gear so that seems like a reasonable guess, although that being said 502 is currently reserved for the top 5% of players or so (off the top of my head) so equally that might be a bit high.

480 is the level to get into the LFR for throne, but since we all know LFR is a big joke maybe that's rather low for progression of non-amazing guilds on this new content.

So, for the average guild raid and the average raiders (not heroic, not LFR, somewhere inbetween) what do you think would be a "safe" gear number to head into Throne without bashing your head on enrage timers/unhealable damage for a few weeks?

[Ashvael]

Well, you honestly should expect 500'ish, depending on the amount of bosses you want to kill. I don't think that's a number for the top 5% though. 30% (wowprogress numbers) of the raiding guilds have cleared HoF & ToES normal mode which drops full 496 gear. Now add item upgrades & possibly a heroic item or two out of MSV and you've got 500+. I think it will be possible with 490-495 but the more you have, the easier it gets obviously.

[Deleted]

Normal mode will usually be designed to be doable with the previous tiers normal mode gear, so I'd guess it'll be doable around 490 ilvl.

[artem123]

Normal mode will usually be designed to be doable with the previous tiers normal mode gear, so I'd guess it'll be doable around 490 ilvl.

they balance it around the LFR ilvl dont they? they did with this tiers, just ask someone who raid tested for the ilvl buff they got

[Kanadei]

Well, you honestly should expect 500'ish, depending on the amount of bosses you want to kill. I don't think that's a number for the top 5% though. 30% (wowprogress numbers) of the raiding guilds have cleared HoF & ToES normal mode which drops full 496 gear.

Yeah logic would say so, but I keep seeing wowtrack sigs with ilvls like 510 (top 0.6%) etc so I doubt that 30% of the population is between 509-500 (although I could be wrong).

490-495 does seem like a safeish margin, can anyone clarify this? For example, what kind of ilvl was the PTR test gear?

[Ashvael]

Yeah logic would say so, but I keep seeing wowtrack sigs with ilvls like 510 (top 0.6%) etc so I doubt that 30% of the population is between 509-500 (although I could be wrong).

490-495 does seem like a safeish margin, can anyone clarify this? For example, what kind of ilvl was the PTR test gear?

PTR gear was scaled to 502-517, depending on the boss.

[blackblade]

Well now that we know the patch is aimed for two weeks away, it's pretty clear to me that I won't be finishing up the tier before Throne of Thunder launches.

Now instead of doing one of the usual back and forths where people claim I must be an awful player to not have even finished the tier on normal, then I claim main swapping/server swapping/guild swapping/people away during the holidays has stopped my amazingly heroic-quality playstyle from surmounting these laughable normal modes, then they claim my previous progression speaks otherwise, and I claim I quit playing during cataclysm yadayadayada....

Let's just get down to business.

What is the ilvl everyone (particularly those of you on the PTR) think a raid should be hitting before doing atleast the first couple bosses of Throne of Thunder?

The LFR drops 502 gear so that seems like a reasonable guess, although that being said 502 is currently reserved for the top 5% of players or so (off the top of my head) so equally that might be a bit high.

480 is the level to get into the LFR for throne, but since we all know LFR is a big joke maybe that's rather low for progression of non-amazing guilds on this new content.

So, for the average guild raid and the average raiders (not heroic, not LFR, somewhere inbetween) what do you think would be a "safe" gear number to head into Throne without bashing your head on enrage timers/unhealable damage for a few weeks?

Somewhere between 480 and 510. I'd aim for a raidwide average for 490+, and working on the assumption that of 3 healers, 2 have above average gear, and 1 tank is above average, and the other is at least average.

If you're looking to lead a raid, that is.

As a tank/healer looking to get into a ToT-raiding guild: i'd wager ~495 (one or two LFR epics, the rest should be upper T14/Valor [which is cheaper post patch].)
As a DPS, gun for at least 490.

Higher is better, of course. Normal modes shouldn't be ball-crushingly-difficult. You'll want to get into LFR ASAP and start farming rep, though. The new VP items will do wonders for getting your shit in place.

[Deleted]

I have only 494 ilvl and I say, bring on the Normal mode, I'm not scared to tank it!

[Athorha]

Top guilds were able to clear msv normal (and heroic) in full 463 ilvl.

Those same guilds would probably be able to clear ToT normal in I'd say around a 496 (normal HoF / Toes) + 502 Heroic msv mixture. Other guilds will probably need to spend a bit more time farming the first few bosses of ToT / Raid finder until they can come close to clearing the end bosses of ToT normal.

[Archknight]

It should be around 490 average, the better gear you have the better you'll probably do. Tanks and healers should have a bit more just in case. And well, from what I recall you should be able to progress on ToT normal if you have T14 normal gear, and not necessarily being required to do ToT LFR of any sort.

[Kanadei]

Top guilds were able to clear msv normal (and heroic) in full 463 ilvl.

Those same guilds would probably be able to clear ToT normal in I'd say around a 496 (normal HoF / Toes) + 502 Heroic msv mixture. Other guilds will probably need to spend a bit more time farming the first few bosses of ToT / Raid finder until they can come close to clearing the end bosses of ToT normal.

I don't know if I can back such a large discepancy.

The top guilds in the world cleared MSV in 463, the rest of us cleared it in closer to 470-475. I doubt they would need 498-502 ilvl as you are suggesting - otherwise this place would be way overtuned. Seems more likely to say they could clear it in 485 or so.

Still, has anyone done this on the PTR? And your ilvl? Is around 490+ the mark for heading in as a guild or do we want it higher than that?

[Ryuke]

LFR is no joke on ptr ATM then again it isn't balanced with 20+ people who have No idea what they're doing in mind. Going to assume you'll be able to clear the entire raid with more or less fully graded 496 gear and some heroic pieces. Other wise if the first boss isn't stone guards 2.0 for guilds then the more causal guilds will be farm the first 3 or so bosses for a while.

[Kanadei]

It should be around 490 average, the better gear you have the better you'll probably do. Tanks and healers should have a bit more just in case. And well, from what I recall you should be able to progress on ToT normal if you have T14 normal gear, and not necessarily being required to do ToT LFR of any sort.

No offense, but does this really have to be said? It's kind of a given that the better gear you have the better you perform, I'd go so far as to say its the entire point of raiding for better gear.

Similarly I'm pretty sure gearing priority goes healers > dps > tanks in this tier, tanks really don't need to be the most geared in order to progress thanks to active mitigations - that's why most heroic guilds gear their dps first, you are much more likely to wipe on an enrage timer than a tank death.

But what you said about t14 gear being good enough for t15 progression is closer in line with my expectations. Even if you haven't been upgrading gear, hopefully Blizzard has tuned this so that if you are in normal mode gear you won't have to farm LFR/HMs just to progress.

---------- Post added 2013-02-12 at 10:21 AM ----------

LFR is no joke on ptr ATM then again it isn't balanced with 20+ people who have No idea what they're doing in mind. Going to assume you'll be able to clear the entire raid with more or less fully graded 496 gear and some heroic pieces. Other wise if the first boss isn't stone guards 2.0 for guilds then the more causal guilds will be farm the first 3 or so bosses for a while.

Yeah LFR has a longer learning curve than raids due to the level of competence, I'd expect guilds to do it together for the first couple weeks.

So your numbers suggest around 500 ilvl to full clear the raid?

And you mention farming the first 3 bosses, are they markedly easier? What are the potential bottle necks looking like?

[Millennía]

I would say that 490+ is enough to start normals if the players are reasonably skilled and able to deal with mechanics to limit damage taken which will help the healers a lot. I certainly hope it won't be much higher because we have been farming normal MSV since October, HoF since December and ToES since January and most of us still have 490-495 ilvl

[Kanadei]

I would say that 490+ is enough to start normals if the players are reasonably skilled and able to deal with mechanics to limit damage taken which will help the healers a lot. I certainly hope it won't be much higher because we have been farming normal MSV since October, HoF since December and ToES since January and most of us still have 490-495 ilvl

Yeah this is what I meant by the top 5% or so being above 500 ilvl, it might be as high as 10% but I doubt Blizzard only wants 10% of the raiding population to be able to do normals on patch launch - I mean, they can see the numbers as easily as we can. They know how tiny the percentage of people who have cleared the current heroic tier is - let alone guilds below them.

[Archknight]

*snip*

Well, you do have a point. I should've been clearer in that regard. But I've seen and had some people that barely have any improvement no matter what gear we hand out to them. Oh well, apologies.

As for the second part of your post, I can't really add anything since I haven't really tested any of the 10 mans.

[Kanadei]

Well, you do have a point. I should've been clearer in that regard. But I've seen and had some people that barely have any improvement no matter what gear we hand out to them. Oh well, apologies.

Yeah that's fair enough, sorry if I was missing your point on that one. There's always the one guy who blames it on gear when even gear doesn't help improve their performance, I guess I was more just referring to ilvl in a vacuum in order to comfortably handle the raids mechanics without requiring a perfect performance.

[Deleted]

they balance it around the LFR ilvl dont they? they did with this tiers, just ask someone who raid tested for the ilvl buff they got

They did scale it up to lfr ilvl (502) for the first boss testing, so you might be right. Previous tiers have usually been doable in normal gear though.

[PrairieChicken]

Bare minimum will be 490+ish, and will require 500+ for optimal progression.

Maybe first couple of bosses might be faceroll freeloot.

[Kanadei]

Bare minimum will be 490+ish, and will require 500+ for optimal progression.

Maybe first couple of bosses might be faceroll freeloot.

Yeah I definitely thought 500+ to clear the raid, but can anyone confirm if the first few bosses are easier (well obv they are but how much) or if there is a few obvious gear checks?

For example, MSV you can clear Stone Guard and Feng easily just by learning the fights, Garajal is a dps check, then Kings is easy then Elegon is a dps check etc.