Ulduar 10 completed in all blues group

What junk?

Bah had the reply window open for a while.. didnt see your post. Meant that giant block of text that Panzer quoted

Goreon wrote:I'm in it for a quick badge run, not to prove a point. Either link your [EPIC] / [ACHIEVEMENT] or make way for the next bloke who will. THAT is the bottom line...

Something to point out about this one: I've done a lot of emblem farming over the past two weeks (Roughly 200 emblems worth, or ~55 different heroics). Most of this was done in groups of 20+ emblems at a time, which meant 6+ heroics at a go. I tanked, my Girlfriend healed for me, and we mostly chain pulled, multi-pulled and just generally did the kind of stuff that makes healers hate you (mostly because she got bored and didn't want to dps). The net effect was that from "Lets start a group"->6+ heroics done was usually around 3.5 hours, including a break around half way through so everyone could go grab something to eat/drink. A friend of my did the same thing, with his wife healing for him. He would usually take ~3 hours to do 4 heroics, and generally had a pretty bad experience of it.

Our difference was simple: He screened DPS, while I didn't. I grabbed whatever 3 dps were in LFM, with a slight lean towards classes towards classes which had synergy (ie, if there were 3 casters and 2 dps in LFM, I'd be asking the casters all at once). On the other hand, he would spend quite some time hunting for only dps that were in Naxx or better gear, mostly only people who were geared for Ulduar (in the traditional sense, not wearing blues). His DPS would all put out 3k+, my DPS would rarely top me (at ~2.5k dps as the tank).

What was happening was that I would be walking into the first instance within 10 minutes of deciding to start doing heroics (most of which was spent flying to UK, where we always started), while he would takes upwards half an hour sitting in Dalaran looking for good gears players. As soon as we finished an instance, I'd put forward what I was intending to do next, and ~90% of the time all the dps was willing to go. He would lose a dps after every heroic, which would always have to be replaced. I did heroics geographically (UK->UP->DTK->GD->Break->VH->Cot4->Nexus->ToC, for those of you interested), he always went for the "optimal" ones, which involved quite a bit of flying between them.

I have no evidence of this, but I believe a large reason we were able to go so fast was precisely because we didn't look for geared players. Whenever one of them left in the middle of a circuit, it was always someone putting out more dps than me (the tank). Without any evidence, it certainly seemed the DPS was so gratefully to be carried they would sit there and wait it out until I called a break, and since they were guaranteed any gear they wanted they didn't want to stop until I did. On the other hand, a geared DPS knows that they can find another PuG fairly quickly, and doesn't feel any reason to stay, especially since they (almost invariably) feel they are better than the rest of the group.

What I'm trying to demonstrate is that even with significantly lower output, sometimes carrying people is well worth it. Even though all three of my dps were (frequently) doing less than a single one of his dps, we went faster, with less problems (in fact, when he came on his alt and put out 3500 dps was the only time in all of those emblems I wiped, twice because of the "good" dps messing up pulls). If you have skilled tanks and healers, you can steamroll just about anything. As long as your DPS can put out the minimums for the fight (if there are any) you could quite possibly be better of just running in and trying it. In fact, that's something I want to try this weekend with the new ToC boss. Instead of spending 15 minutes before the pull making sure everyone understands what will happen, make sure the tanks (which we will before we start) and the healers know what's coming, then pull and fill the DPS in as we go.

No.

The reason you were able to do it was because the two most important components in the group (the tank and healer) were not only geared, but were also able to communicate well.

Again, this does not reflect real world instancing with PUGs, but it more closely aligned to Gevlon's controlled environment.

If you have skilled tanks and healers, you can steamroll just about anything.

Which sums up why your group works, regardless of the relative value of the DPS over random PUGgers across all group roles.

On the other hand, a geared DPS knows that they can find another PuG fairly quickly, and doesn't feel any reason to stay, especially since they (almost invariably) feel they are better than the rest of the group.

Not so. My server has an abundance of DPS (being a PVP server) and a critical shortage of tanks and healers. Even geared DPS will latch onto a good tank/healer combo come what may simply because of logistics.

Instead of spending 15 minutes before the pull making sure everyone understands what will happen, make sure the tanks (which we will before we start) and the healers know what's coming, then pull and fill the DPS in as we go.

Which only supports the theory that linking the achievement has value.

I'm all for the whole "skill>gear" thing, and certainly wow-heroes scores aren't the ideal metric even for measuring that. But consider this: My druid, who hit 80 less than a week ago, has a score of 2284. She is already beyond reproach when it comes to joining any pickup raid, and I'm not exactly the best resto druid in the world (yet ).

Certainly someone with less access to resources like gold and spare guild bank materials will have a harder time, but I would argue that the gear requirement should be even steeper for characters who are not alts but in fact first-time 80s who lack experience with their class, the level cap, the raiding content, etc.

The bottom line is: someone who has garbage gear in the age of "welfare epics" has simply not put much if any effort into improving their character. So why should you invite them to a PUG where half of the people who appear to have good gear are incompetent anyway?

PsiVen wrote:I'm all for the whole "skill>gear" thing, and certainly wow-heroes scores aren't the ideal metric even for measuring that. But consider this: My druid, who hit 80 less than a week ago, has a score of 2284. She is already beyond reproach when it comes to joining any pickup raid, and I'm not exactly the best resto druid in the world (yet ).

Certainly someone with less access to resources like gold and spare guild bank materials will have a harder time, but I would argue that the gear requirement should be even steeper for characters who are not alts but in fact first-time 80s who lack experience with their class, the level cap, the raiding content, etc.

The bottom line is: someone who has garbage gear in the age of "welfare epics" has simply not put much if any effort into improving their character. So why should you invite them to a PUG where half of the people who appear to have good gear are incompetent anyway?

That's the thing. My alts don't have trash gear. They have good-enough gear, but they don't have achievements. I can pass gear checks. Well, I wouldn't feel guilty at all using underachiever to get in raids with some of you, then, if your answer to 'find a better raider' is to accept anyone who's been carried to achievements.

Well, obviously achievement checks are bogus for alts. I don't think it's unreasonable to ask that people have done fights before, so you can have a quick run without explaining things. Linking achievements is a very lazy way to check for that sort of thing.

Taking a group of experienced individuals who know their role in a fight forwards and backwards to an instance in blues is FAR different from taking knowledgeable and quality players in blues to that instance the first time.

While it shows that Uld 10 normal can be cleared in blues, with quite a few admitted wipes (by people who have this on farm no less)... it doesn't mean much more than that.

This DOESN'T display that skill>gear. It DOES display that experience>gear. Skill is some nebulous thing that I think means you have good addons/macros and a low ping ... or perhaps that your class/spec is OPed. Who knows. We KNOW the players who did this were experienced, we have no verification of their 'skill'.

The issue is not that skill>gear, this needs no proof. It's that gear is a decent substitute for skill in many cases.

mavfin wrote:That's the thing. My alts don't have trash gear. They have good-enough gear, but they don't have achievements. I can pass gear checks. Well, I wouldn't feel guilty at all using underachiever to get in raids with some of you, then, if your answer to 'find a better raider' is to accept anyone who's been carried to achievements.

That's the rub. No one is saying Gear or Achievements are the be all and end all.

What they are saying is without any other way of discerning between the quality player in blues and the lying scrub in blues, using Gear and Achieves is considered the lesser of two evils.

For those who feel they are being snubbed by this attitude and it's 'their loss', just remember there's 14 people right behind you WITH the right gear all asking for your spot.

If you want to get spots in blues to prove a point, then that's up to you. But you can't change the system where competition (especially for DPS spots) in raids is so fierce.

You either learn to go with the flow, or stay on your moral high ground in /4 and like it or not, that's the bottom line reality of this situation folks.

Goreon wrote:

mavfin wrote:That's the thing. My alts don't have trash gear. They have good-enough gear, but they don't have achievements. I can pass gear checks. Well, I wouldn't feel guilty at all using underachiever to get in raids with some of you, then, if your answer to 'find a better raider' is to accept anyone who's been carried to achievements.

If you want to get spots in blues to prove a point, then that's up to you. But you can't change the system where competition (especially for DPS spots) in raids is so fierce.

You either learn to go with the flow, or stay on your moral high ground in /4 and like it or not, that's the bottom line reality of this situation folks.

I can pass a gear check, unless it's wanting Ulduar-10 gear for Naxx 10, which does happen, and in those situations, I just figure the raidleader wants to be carried to loot by players better than him. I can't pass achievement checks with alts, though, unless I use Underachiever. However, if you were the raidleader, I wouldn't feel guilty at all, because I know I can outperform 3/4 of the 14 people standing behind me.

I *nowhere* said I wanted spots in blues.

My original point that's been lost is that I see a lot of bitching about how bad puggies are, but, I see a lot of defense of using methods to screen out people that are guaranteed to get you the same puggies you're griping about over and over again, and leaving good people with decent gear on the sidelines. You just defended that practice again. If you defend the practice of taking people who've been carried to achievements over people who know what they're doing, but don't have that achievement, then I think you lose your right to gripe.

I get in the raids I want, really. I just have to use Underachiever to do it sometimes. I guess after what I've seen on this thread from people, I'll no longer feel guilty about it.

The thing is, you shouldn't end up with the same bad puggers over and over again as a PuG raid leader, assuming a decent server pop, you black list the morons. Additionally, you have not addressed the reason for filtering out lower geared people, that is the lower the gear of a person the higher chance of poor performance. Yes, this does mean plenty of decent people get filtered out but a lot more poor players are eliminated.

To use a real world example I experienced. For literacy tutoring, two years of college was required to be considered at all. But I lacked this at the time and would have been an ideal tutor considering I had a full year's experience with literacy tutoring under the very system they were using. Did I be grudge them? Not really, the average college student is a much better pool than the average high school grad.

mavfin wrote:

Goreon wrote:

mavfin wrote:That's the thing. My alts don't have trash gear. They have good-enough gear, but they don't have achievements. I can pass gear checks. Well, I wouldn't feel guilty at all using underachiever to get in raids with some of you, then, if your answer to 'find a better raider' is to accept anyone who's been carried to achievements.

If you want to get spots in blues to prove a point, then that's up to you. But you can't change the system where competition (especially for DPS spots) in raids is so fierce.

You either learn to go with the flow, or stay on your moral high ground in /4 and like it or not, that's the bottom line reality of this situation folks.

I can pass a gear check, unless it's wanting Ulduar-10 gear for Naxx 10, which does happen, and in those situations, I just figure the raidleader wants to be carried to loot by players better than him. I can't pass achievement checks with alts, though, unless I use Underachiever. However, if you were the raidleader, I wouldn't feel guilty at all, because I know I can outperform 3/4 of the 14 people standing behind me.

I *nowhere* said I wanted spots in blues.

My original point that's been lost is that I see a lot of bitching about how bad puggies are, but, I see a lot of defense of using methods to screen out people that are guaranteed to get you the same puggies you're griping about over and over again, and leaving good people with decent gear on the sidelines. You just defended that practice again. If you defend the practice of taking people who've been carried to achievements over people who know what they're doing, but don't have that achievement, then I think you lose your right to gripe.

I get in the raids I want, really. I just have to use Underachiever to do it sometimes. I guess after what I've seen on this thread from people, I'll no longer feel guilty about it.

So your attitude is that raid leaders should just take the word of every undergeared player out there as truth and allow them into raids/groups over people who CAN provide Epic and Achievement links and pass gear checks?

Do you realise just how damn absurd that sounds?

So if they say no, instead of getting decent gear you want to throw a tanny and cheat your way in?

And people wonder why Raid leaders just won't throw open the gates for all and sundry...

The thing you miss there is that Raid leaders have a duty of care to all players in the group, not just themselves. It's not a question of whether or not an under equipped player should be let in as the result of a controlled experiment elsewhere, but rather if that person is the best option for the job.

Given all things equal on the 'I Know the fight' assumption - without knowing the person at all - who do you take, the dude in blues or the one in full epics?

If you want people to hold your hand into better gear, you're better off getting into a guild. There's no way in hell raid leaders across WoW are suddenly going to drop habits because of an experiement on Gevlon's site. That's absurd.

You keep using under achiever. I'll keep using Armory to boot then /ignore the cheats.

The 'this is my alt' arguement doesn't wash if you're in blues either because if you have a main, you have access to money, which means you can buy a good entry level set.

Debate it any way you like, as a raid leader myself and a Main tank, there's no way in hell I'm going suddenly open the door to wanna be's in blues when I already have 20 people at the door with full Epics and Achieves who can pass armory and gear checks easily.

Goreon wrote:The 'this is my alt' arguement doesn't wash if you're in blues either because if you have a main, you have access to money, which means you can buy a good entry level set.
.

You don't read very well. I never once said I wanted to get in on my alt in blues. My alts can pass gear checks, other than absurd ones like Ulduar-10 gear for Naxx-10. It's the achievement checks that I can't pass on alts, that makes me resent the achievement checks, so I get around them. Read what I write and you won't have to say that again.'

I don't bring toons in quest blues and greens to pug raids. I bring properly geared/enchanted/gemmed/specced toons that may not have the achievements. Are they in hard-mode gear? No. But they are in sufficient gear for the raid. And without using Underachiever, I still don't get in, because every raid leader like you wants to be carried. My best example of 'link achievement' stupidity was the Sarth raid that I got into w/o achievement because they needed a healer. 15 of the achievement linking 'pros' ate the first firewall. 12 of them ate the second one. I didn't eat a single one, kept the tanks up, and finished it. Sure, it's Sarth, and you're going to say it's not hard, but, if it's not hard, then why check achievements? And if checking achievements is so good, then why did 15 bads get in with it? I mean, I'm talking *lolnaxx* raids here, not brain surgery.

What it really comes down to, is the achievement-checking elitists are still bringing as many bads into raids as they ever were, so i'm amused that people keep defending the practice. The check-achieve raids have been no better, and sometimes worse, than the ones without it.

Gear and achievement checks don't matter when you actually put effort into selling yourself to the raid leader.

If my warlock were to hit 80 today, I could have him in ToC pugs (or Ulduar, since it's more challenging) within a week, at most. How? Well, I'd farm heroics and get some badges so that I wouldn't be all blue... and then I'd tell the raid leader how experienced I am, how skilled I am, how I won't afk, how, even with my gear, I won't come in anywhere near last, and, most importantly, how I won't let him down. And then I'd prove it.


If you're not willing to politely and adequately sell yourself, you probably aren't all that interested in joining the group in the first place, are you?

I'm not referring to your post in that statement mavfin. I was addressing the issue more broadly after I addressed your specific point.

I bring properly geared/enchanted/gemmed/specced toons that may not have the achievements. Are they in hard-mode gear? No. But they are in sufficient gear for the raid

The point you are missing however is that 12 people are also bringing a toon that is properly geared/enchanted/gemmed/specced with higher i levels and achievements which can be verified on Armory.

There's no logical reason why a raid leader would or should make the raid any harder than it should be. There's no reason to take someone who is lesser geared when there's an abundance of better geared players out there already.

Yes, in some cases it might be overkill - but that's not the point. We're talking about a case of supply and demand here and any experienced raid leader will happily tell you that the more geared and better spec their raid group is, the less likely it is to be a fail group.

Any experienced raid member understands they need to maximise their potential in order to be a valued member of their raid group. There's no way that 'just enough is good enough' will wash with other raid members who bust their arse getting gear, gems, enchants, raid buffs and rotations down to a T when you want to wander in with your sub par gear and expect to be carried - nor would I expect them to.

You have to make your own choice about how you're going to qualify for raid entry. If the status quo is raid epics to do VoA then so be it - in a day and age where welfare epix fall off trees you're going to have a hard time convincing anyone that your blues 'should be enough' and they should let you into their raid, based on your word alone that you're pro and know what you're doing.

Not a chance...