Raiding in blues: The <Undergeared> Chronicles

[ardoRic]

Very impressive guys. I like what is going on here, although one thing that seems unfortunate to me is the fact that frost resist gear is purple ilvl 213 gear. This could severly cripple an undergeared group on sindragosa, as I foresee the frost breath destroying your tanks in phase 3. I'm by no means saying it's impossible, you guys have already beaten the odds, I'm just curious to see how you guys will pull it off with lower HP pools and minimal frost resistance. Best of luck when you get to that point, keep up the good work.

Many other people foresaw our raid not being able to kill Festergut. They were wrong, and I hope we can prove you wrong too.

The frost resist epics are not the only source of frost resist. There are frost resist greens (which also have stamina, like the ilvl 213 epics, but just lack the sockets). More importantly there are other ways to get frost resist without giving too much in return: head enchant, bracer enchant (for Leatherworkers), cloak enchant. These might just be enough when added the 130 FR from aura or totem, but we'll see when we get there.

Another way to beat the frost breath is by not letting mystic buffet stack too much. If our tanks switch at every tomb, they might never be in any danger.

EDIT: Also, you are my heroes. I'd consider a server transfer if I was in EU.

Pay a visit to our US branch.

Pretty sure they are just extending raid ID indefinitely.

This is true. And also why I'm still interested in word from US to know if the raid IDs were wiped or not with the 3.3.5 patch.

[Leggomyaggro]

As far as I can tell raid IDs did not reset. I still have a bunch of old ones that I can extend, however, whether or not ICC can be extended, I do not know, but I'd assume it will remain extendable.

It could also be recommended trying sindragosa with 4 healers in combination with old frost resist gear/head enchant/flask/etc. Using only 4 dps it still seems feasible that you could take her down before hitting the 10 minute enrage timer. Depending how rough heals are in phase 1, you could probably get away with 1 or 2 of those healers dpsing until phase 3 starts.

[pestillence]

I think you guys should let Blizz in on your adventures. I really believe if/when you down the LK your group should be rewarded with the "undergeared" title. Whether people recognize or criticize what you're doing it is definately an achievement.

[deyndra]

haha omg you're my gods! Was in a guild with my alt who just managed to bring down festergut and a hunter even had 5.9k gs LOL!

[APEX]

haha, you guys are great

[wingcommander]

I think you guys should let Blizz in on your adventures. I really believe if/when you down the LK your group should be rewarded with the "undergeared" title. Whether people recognize or criticize what you're doing it is definately an achievement.

Jenkins springs to mind. Anything is possible! I vaugely recall there was Jenkins Wow collecters/game cards too!

I went to tank ICC10 with 4.4k GS which was naxx25 gear + a few triumph items. In some ways I was being carried by my mates guild, but carrying a tank vs dps is harder and actually not dying because of gear was a good feeling.

Literally slightly less than 30k hps unbuffed outside and one shot the first 10 bosses on my first run!

But this thread just poons. Extremely impressive. Hats off to you guys.

[ardoRic]

I think you guys should let Blizz in on your adventures. I really believe if/when you down the LK your group should be rewarded with the "undergeared" title. Whether people recognize or criticize what you're doing it is definately an achievement.

How do you know there isn't already a Feat of Strength for doing this?

[ardoRic]

<Undergeared> will most likely be trying out Ruby Sanctum this Saturday.

Think we stand a chance?

[lancore89]

How do you know there isn't already a Feat of Strength for doing this?

Data mining...

[omidmash]

<Undergeared> will most likely be trying out Ruby Sanctum this Saturday.

Think we stand a chance?

If you can get past the trash and mini bosses, he himself is easy.

[ardoRic]

If you can get past the trash and mini bosses, he himself is easy.

On the two "properly geared" groups I was in, trash and mini-bosses were far easier than Halion. Granted that the trash hits rather hard because it's meant to stress out the damage decently geared tanks can take. But on <Undergeared> we use CC.

Funny story about CC: the other day I was in a lowbie group on my little mage and I was sheeping stuff. The tank didn't like that because "poly heals". I said "fine, I won't CC" and the general group reaction was: "CC?". So emblematic of WOTLK current state of heroics.

Halion himself doesn't hit that hard. When we switched to normal mode the words "pathetic" and "itch" were used to describe the damage people were taking. Halion on normal seems to be another skill fight, so I had an enormous grin on my face when I was facing him on my main.

[ardoRic]

<Undergeared> seems to only be able to kill bosses we've already killed over 9000 (!!) times on our mains, in an instance with a buff to all our damage, health and healing. We couldn't possibly even think of going into unnerfed content which we didn't have extensive experience on.

<Undergeared> stepped into Ruby Sanctum, which was released this week. Ruby Sanctum doesn't have any 25% buff, a blue geared group would certainly not even be able to handle trash, much less *gasp* kill bosses.

But alas, we did and we have the logs to prove it. Two of Halion's Lieutenants down, and the third being only a matter of time were killed by a group made up with people with no more than 3.3k gearscore.

Saviana Ragefire is a joke. She was dead on our second try, but make sure you bring someone who can dispel Enrage or you might take 8+ tries like I did on my druid with a 4.9-5.8k (or so people told me) gearscore group.

Baltharus the Warborn hits hard. And when you can barely survive his bladestorm, he splits into two equal bosses who hit equally hard. You'd think four 4.9-5.8k GS healers could heal 5.8k GS tanks better than five 3.3k GS healers can heal 3.3k GS tanks, but my druid's pug proved otherwise.

Next week, <Undergeared> faces General Zarithrian and Halion. That Twilight Dragon has his days numbered.

If you want to show people that gear is overrated, join us in EU-Arathor or US-Forgotten Coast. We can always use people so we don't always have to 9-man trash in blues.

[Spartanoble]

gz on 8/12

[ardoRic]

Gevlon, our project leader, has answered and interview about the project.

Just a little something to get to know the project a bit better.

[gamerunknown]

I think the reason PUGs go for 4/12 or 6/12 (despite outgearing content) is because of a time commitment issue. Either they're raiding casually and literally do not want to dedicate any time to wiping or they're in a more progressed guild but missed the run and don't want to do bosses which are progression for the rest of the raid. If you look here at World of Logs (can't link as a fresh account, sorry) the first 6 bosses (for a typical pug) are the only ones with a positive kill:wipe ratio.

Personally I do not like the philosophy of having low investments and low returns. I'm an unemployed student - off for 3 months over summer with not a lot planned. I have loads of free time to wipe and would like to try new bosses. But when you're a "social" as Gevlon would call it, you tend to agree with the consensus that it isn't worth wiping in a PUG raid for progression. This is especially true if your group better gear than those bosses drop because of crafted items/BoEs/badges and you wont ever see them again. As a side note, I think its interesting that Gevlon takes a more lenient approach to non-attendance than I would expect. I've seen hardcore raiding guilds use it to great success.

At any rate, congratulations on your accomplishments in Wrath of the Lich King and I hope you get the Lich King down before I do (I'm 7/12 with 3 pieces of my gear sanctified, hehe). Maybe there'll be another project addressing something else in Cataclysm... PvP in blues perhaps? Would be fun to roll something on the server just in case. Good luck!

[ardoRic]

I haven't posted here in a while, mostly due to not having much to post.

Couple of weeks ago we killed the last mini-boss in Ruby Sanctum and did a couple of tries on Halion. Last week we were 8 and could do nothing more than assess Halion's enrage timer, which we did. We confirmed Halion has an 8 minute enrage timer, that we can live enough in phase 1 to withstand it, and we also concluded that he needs a nerf in order for our blue geared team to be able to beat him. Not because tanks will die or healers can't manage (although it is pretty challenging, I must say), but mostly because there's no way we can do the dps required in our gear while doing all the movement and holding back that the fight requires.

So, with Halion out of the picture the idea for this week was to go back to ICC and finish what we started. Kill Putricide. Bad news everyone, we didn't make it. The Professor still lives. Not because we can't kill him with our gear since last time we were there he was down to phase three and the buff was only at 25% while it's grown bigger now. We didn't kill Putricide because we can't kill him when we're only 6, 2 tanks, 3 healers, 1 dps. So, Summer Slack kept us from the Putricide kill, and that's why I'm posting here again.

We can't fight Summer Slack in game, so I turn to the forums. We need more members to combat this unworthy foe. We need YOU to join us.

If you got time this summer, a level 80 character you don't use much, and the will to do ICC and still have a challenge with it, consider transfering to EU-Arathor Horde Side. You can also join in re-rolls or lower level characters, but that's pretty useless against Summer Slack as we need raid capable characters.

We will provide with the challenge to raid the hardest bosses in ICC10 (Putricide, Lanathel, Sindragosa and the Lich King) with a raid entirely decked out in blue gear.

Want to show that it's not GS that matters? We're the place to do it.

Join <Undergeared>, help us finish Icecrown Citadel and you can say you've really done something unique in World of Warcraft. We're currently the ONLY group doing this, the ONLY place you can experience ICC in blue gear and /laugh at all the people requiring 5.8k GS to kill Festergut.

(You can, and should, read what we're all about in the OP of this thread)

[Megildur]

I just wanted to reply to say you all really inspire me. I hope you can find more members to join you this summer, I look forward to hearing how you guys take down the Lich King!

[Baeldun]

Good luck on killing LK! very inspiring indeed.

[Lancer]

No way you guys will make it too lich king,sure okay skill>gear but still...if you a immense amount of raid AoE damage going out you're healers will go oom

[TrapTime]

WOW dude, This is a true hardcore guild replying blues gears instead purple. Pure skills... phew good luck downing to lich king if you guys can do it