Raiding in blues: The <Undergeared> Chronicles

[Mykk]

Nope u needed MH / SSC / TK gear before nerfs to kill BT bosses etc. Example najentus did around 10k aoe dmg when u used spike and if u didnt have that hp amount u died. My first najentus kill and we had about 3-4 priest who didnt have 10k hp so it was pretty risky to try but eventtualy we killed him. Also few bosses had enrage timers which didnt give u chance to wear full raid of blue items. Illidan was killed latest pvp items on etc but with blue items not a chance

[Patty]

I think this is great!

Very nice job indeed! So many people out there failing in simple bosses in full epic gear

[ArtOfShred]

Haha this is an awesome idea. I love when people come up with things like this to do.

I wonder how far you guys will be able to make it with the buff all the way up, will be very interesting to see. Good luck to you!

And ignore the nay-saying, it certainly makes my blood pressure rise a bit reading people hurling minor insults and trying to dissuade you from doing something fun in the game. I guess even such a simple concept as this just whooshes over the head of the average joe today. :-/

[bertugolu]

First off, awesome work

But, you got a tank who is gemming dodge. I think that since he has less then 20% dodge (15.something), all the dodge gems mean nothing. If you got 2% dodge or like 17% dodge, since 20% is removed, it's all the same

[andrs]

So sad you don't play on my server. And don't really have time to lvl up a new one. Otherwise this would be my cup of tea, ever since I started playing wow I've done crazy stuff like this.
Cleared full SM on my priest with only lvl 30's back in vanilla.
Soloing lvl 60 instances with my lvl 60 hunter with classic account. (BM-tank + bear + mend pet glyphs are sure OP)
And with my mage (first toon) in Vanilla I've always killed highlvled group elites. (hey, I even spent hours killing shit in Stoneguardkeep cause it gave slightly more XP, eventho it took alot longer to kill em)

Wish you the best of luck! Keep up the good work!

[Demoneq]

It's pretty impressive, yeah, though I don't think it proves that -anyone- can raid ICC (or actually Ulduar and higher tier stuff for that matter) in blues succesfully - your members, even if playing the classes that are relatively new for them, have to be good players in general (and likely have general earlier raiding experience), they spec properly, stay focused, they watch videos/read tactics and follow them, probably bring their own flasks and buff food etc etc. (do you use those, btw?)

It's not the same as a player in a mix of semi-random i200 blues, without enchants and/or gems, who has no raiding experience, never bothered to read up on his class and raid tactics, you know what I mean. (I was that kind of player in TBC, to a degree - I could do Karazhan and Gruul late in the expansion, with people from raiding guilds, who probably had T5+ gear, and effectively carried me *hides* but I doubt that bunch of players like me back then could do Karazhan just on their own, not to mention harder stuff - also, to sort of excuse myself, I was at least able to follow the explained tactics, move out of the fire, and CC things, playing a hunter then)

As for your own clearing ICC, you may imho lack the dps to kill the mage in Gunship encounter, or Blood Beasts, fast enough (because of the gear), and/or have too squishy tanks/too low healing output for Deathbringer. (that's just guessing though, since I never tried that)

Still, good luck with that, keep us updated.

Even if you beat the above, I'm predicting you won't have enough dps for Putricide's adds (on my guild's first attempts on him, it felt like I'm only killing adds, with almost no dps on the boss, until we got the hang of a fight, and they started to die faster - and we had the i232-264 gear, in 10 man) and Blood Queen/Blazing Skeletons&worms in Valthiria encounter (as well as the healing output to get her to 100% before you are overrun), or enough dps for the ice blocks on Sindragosa, assuming you actually get to her.
Good luck though, maybe you can prove me wrong.

[ardoRic]

probably bring their own flasks and buff food etc etc. (do you use those, btw?)

Good luck though, maybe you can prove me wrong.

Of course we do. We bring every possible buff we can get. If we don't have paladins, we have drums, same for runescrolls and priests. We always have a fish feast down, and all flask up. Would be silly if we didn't.

Thank you, and I hope that too.

[Memory]

Nope u needed MH / SSC / TK gear before nerfs to kill BT bosses etc. Example najentus did around 10k aoe dmg when u used spike and if u didnt have that hp amount u died. My first najentus kill and we had about 3-4 priest who didnt have 10k hp so it was pretty risky to try but eventtualy we killed him. Also few bosses had enrage timers which didnt give u chance to wear full raid of blue items. Illidan was killed latest pvp items on etc but with blue items not a chance

Some asian guilds cleared BT just a couple of weeks after the BC was released in their region, with a lot of T3. Wish I could find some link, but with 'em being asian, ugh, not a chance. It was after Vashj and Kael nerfs tho, of course.
And about the priests getting onoshot on Naj'entus, the issue with priests was that they skipped T5 and went to BT with mooncloth gear, which totally lacked stamina, but I don't think 8.5k+ HP (which is the requirement, 10k is just to play it safe) is an unreachable aim with clever blue gearing. And as for the enrage, the only semi-tight enrage in BT was Naj'entus, I think, but I might remember wrong. I only see Reliquary of Souls unkillable with blue gear, to be honest (wonder about Mother Sharaz, but guess we could allow shadow res epic gear). Not saying Bloodboil would be easy ;D

And no, seriously, you didn't need MH (kidding? ), SSC, TK gear: BT requiremnts weren't so tight, the only challenging fights being RoS and Gurtogg (with gear having a major impact especially on RoS, while some tactical adjustement could have lowered Gurtogg requiremnts).

[malkara]

have to be good players in general (and likely have general earlier raiding experience), they spec properly, stay focused

I thought that speccing properly and staying focussed should be normal. Apparently it's a gigantic challenge to spec properly as I've seen on a lot of people. Not to mention staying focussed.

I wish speccing wrong would instead give negative effects. And the loss of focus would punish people even when overgearing content. But alas..

[ardoRic]

I thought that speccing properly and staying focussed should be normal. Apparently it's a gigantic challenge to spec properly as I've seen on a lot of people. Not to mention staying focussed.

I wish speccing wrong would instead give negative effects. And the loss of focus would punish people even when overgearing content. But alas..

It depends a lot on what you mean by "spec properly". I personally do not use the EJ cookie cutter spec because I need to afford a few survival talents (Elemental Warding) since I only have 14k HP unbuffed. A live elemental shaman doing 2.3k dps is better than a dead one who could do 2.4k.

This is one aspect of the various things you need to consider when raiding while grossly undergearing the content you're doing.

[Demoneq]

I wish speccing wrong would instead give negative effects.

It sort of does - you do less dps/less healing/less threat/are more squishy than properly pve specced character. Now add a raid full of wrong specced people, and they probably will lack those few thousands of raid dps to beat the enrage timer etc.

As for using Elemental Warding - I'm doing "normal" raiding as Elemental Shaman, and use that talent too, at the cost of 3 points in Convection, so I'm bit easier to keep up for healers. (and I almost never have mana problems anyway)

[Arcadem]

Grats and all but..

This isn't a real 200 itemlevel run.


+ 15% buff brings your tanks to 40/45k hp.

And tbh....I really don't see the omg this is so impressive part.

Lots of people did icc 10 in totc 10 gear etc, and the 15% + damage etc. brings on a higher item level than that tbh.

[malkara]

It depends a lot on what you mean by "spec properly". I personally do not use the EJ cookie cutter spec because I need to afford a few survival talents (Elemental Warding) since I only have 14k HP unbuffed. A live elemental shaman doing 2.3k dps is better than a dead one who could do 2.4k.

This is one aspect of the various things you need to consider when raiding while grossly undergearing the content you're doing.

Speccing properly is exactly what it says

You spec appropriatly for whatever the situation demands. Not just blindly follow EJ but use common sense if the situation requires it.

[Annalife]

That's surprising. Your paladin has 18k mana, your tanks have probably 30k and 35k respectively, raid buffed.

That would be very fun. Congrats to you all, shows that enough skill can really compensate for no gear.

This.

Very well done.

[Paladin885]

And tbh....I really don't see the omg this is so impressive part.

Lots of people did icc 10 in totc 10 gear etc, and the 15% + damage etc. brings on a higher item level than that tbh.

hmmm.... I did not know that ilvl 200 = ilvl 232.


With such low lvl gear that 15% buff isnt that special because their stats are so low they dont increase so drastically like mine does in my current gear. A tank with ~30k hp will not increase to 45k, thats more like a 50% buff. Hell, the guild even has raid-related communication limitations and enchants & gemming limitations (not to mention heroic blues have like very few sockets) so I give them credit where it is obviously due regardless of a minor buff or not.


EDIT: hell, back in decemeber '08 I was doing naxx10 in T5 gear when everyone said you need X spell power and Y mana pool.

[ardoRic]

I've given the thread a more suiting title and updated the OP with the following information

Undergeared is a project started by Gevlon. It consists of a level 80 guild intent on clearing whole the WOTLK normal content using only blue gear. The purpose of this project is mainly to show that the "I'm not geared" excuse for not being able to do a certain instance, is not a valid one. This is the reason Gevlon created the project, not necessarily the reason people are in it, some of the <Undergeared> raiders, like me, are there for the challenge, or fun of doing the content whilst undergearing it.

The goal of the project is also to show that normal mode gear requirements are so forgiving that it will be possible to clear all of WOTLK content in only blue gear, and this includes the Lich King. Obviously we will be using everything Blizzard gives everyone else for this purpose (yes, talking about Hellscream's Warsong).

Where we are

Our guild is <Undergeared> on the EU-Arathor realm, Horde side. There is also a US branch of the project based on the Alliance side of The Forgotten Coast realm.

On the EU side, we raid Saturdays from 19:00 - 22:00 server time. (if someone from US side reads this, PM me the times you guys raid)

Rules of the game

The philosophy is that we do not use epic items in our ventures. This means that we cannot use epic gear, epic enchants, or enchants that would require an epic item to be disenchanted. We cannot enchant our gear with enchants requiring Abyss Crystals, and we cannot use epic gems.

We are permitted to make full use of the professions perks we choose, disregarding the above rule. This means we can use the epic Dragon's Eye gems if we're Jewelcrafters, and in particular (and more controversly) we can use the epic helm which is the perk of Engineering. In order to make choosing professions more a matter of personal taste, Gevlon has also allowed the use of epic leg enchants. We can't, however, use the Sons of Hodir epic shoulder enchant.

We raid one night a week, for three hours. This serves to prove that previous content does not need to be farmed in order to progress further.

In order to avoid the "you're just pro at your character, doesn't matter if you're in blues or epics" argument against the guild, all Undergeared members are to choose a class/role they've never played on. We intend to raid as class-inexperienced casuals.

No voice communication. People should know what they're doing without having to be called on it, so we do discuss tactics and such in raid chat and there is no need for ventrillo or any other form of voice communication.

What have we killed so far

The project started by doing the ICC 5-man dungeons, then heroics, then followed the normal raid progression path, from Naxxramas to ICC, where we're currently at. In particular, we've cleared

* ICC heroics (including the dreaded Halls of Reflection)
* Naxxramas 10
* Ulduar 10 - 12/14
* Trial of the Crusader 10
* Onyxia 10
* ICC 10 - 1/12

Join us

We only raid 10 man content because we do not have 25 raiders available. If you want to grow the project so that we can tackle the 25-man content, roll an alt or transfer a character you haven't raided much with to EU-Arathor (H) or US-Forgotten Coast (A).

You will get some financial support for your new character. At level 10, you will receive 100g to get you started (buy bags, mounts, seed gold for making more gold). At level 80 you can talk with Koltas (Gevlon's character in the guild) for a promotion to Raider where you will have to prove you're not a complete moron. After being promoted to Raider you will get your gear enchanted for free and 1000g for re-rolling a proper raiding profession (you should raid with crafting professions while you level with gathering ones for gold).

[chrisnumbers]

There is also a US branch of the project based on the Alliance side of The Forgotten Coast realm.

Unfortunately, the US guild has only five 80s and three characters in the 70's. The other seven in the guild are lvl 49 or under. Does this mean they gave up or are still working towards 80?

[Kereba]

Wow, just, wow.
Kudos to you guys!

[Lyssander]

We killed LDW and Lootship battle this evening.
We also got Deathbringer Saurfang to 6% and will kill him next week.

[Daedelus]

I like this project. Personally, if it were me in charge of it, I'd also allow any 'epic' items that are purchasable with rep - they are iLvl 200 and were available right at the start of WOTLK.
By the time the 30% buff comes around you'll probably be able to clear all normal content in blues, which is impressive and also a little bit depressing.

Good luck!

PS - are you keeping all the loot so you can use it to level in Cata?