Breakfast Topic: When goals are so close, yet so far
by Brittany Wells 
Sep 10th 2010 at 8:00AM
Kingslayer. Bane of the Fallen King. The Light of Dawn.
These are the titles that one gets for slaying Arthas on various difficulties -- Kingslayer for normal difficulty, Bane for 10-man heroic and The Light of Dawn for 25-man heroic. Kingslayer is cool. Bane of the Fallen King? Even cooler. The Light of Dawn? It's over 9,000 on the cool meter! I want The Light of Dawn so hard. I mean, how cool is it? So-and-so, the Light of Dawn. I'm pumped, I'm ready to go, I'm going to kill Arthas! I know the fight by heart, got my flasks and feasts, I got this!
Except for one small hiccup: I don't have a guild. Well, I do -- but they've gone "on hiatus till Cataclysm," which translates to "problems filling the raid, so taking a break will totally fix it." I'm relegated to watching trade chat desperately for 10-man PUGs that sound like they'll get to Arthas. They rarely do. Or they down Sindy, and then they call it, and I'm left angry. Come on, Arthas is right there! Can't we at least try?
I've relegated the Light of Dawn to the category of Very Cool Things I Will Never Have. I find it unlikely that Blizzard will leave such a prestigious title in game and let 12 level 85s get what was once solid proof that you and your guild were The Epitome of Amazingness. Something else I'm trying desperately to do is get my Hydraxian Waterlords and Wintersaber rep up -- but again, sometimes life doesn't lend itself to in-game goals.
Are you in the same plight as me, left grasping desperately for a Very Cool Something, but knowing that there's a 99 percent chance that it won't happen? What are you looking for? Do you think you'll be able to get it, or have you relegated yourself to sitting in the corner and pouting (like me)? Or are you one of those people who reached their goal, and scoff at the rabble/are bored with the game?
Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Guest Posts
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 6)
Dawn Moore Sep 7th 2010 10:32PM
There sure have been a lot of people claiming to be my Light recently...
Al Sep 10th 2010 8:52AM
Dawn = Moore Light.
(There's probably a better joke there, but it's the waning hours of my birthday and I'm still libated.)
Hal Sep 10th 2010 9:07AM
Guess you need sunglasses, then.
Grovinofdarkhour Sep 10th 2010 11:55AM
Happy birthday, Al!
Squelchy Sep 10th 2010 8:03AM
I already lost my main Very Cool Thing. It was the Amani War Bear.
Henchwench Sep 10th 2010 10:07AM
Likewise. Almost 20 successful ZA bear runs with 2 guilds, too. There was always some new group member or "returning vet" to the guild who'd roll against me and win.
Unain Sep 10th 2010 8:08AM
Same here on the: "on hiatus till Cataclysm," which translates to "problems filling the raid, so taking a break will totally fix it."
Our guild has problems getting a decent composition for LK hc 25 man. I'm glad that I was able to get LK hc 10 man and Halion hc 10 man done though.
kv83 Sep 10th 2010 8:09AM
If you are angry because of a PuG not trying to kill LK on 10M Normal... then you have a lot of other things to worry about than killing him on 25M Heroic :/
Rob Sep 10th 2010 8:10AM
I'm fairly sure I won't get LK down. I'm going to be raiding again for a few weeks but then I'm off (new job). Hopefully I can be a part of a guild LK downing. If not, then idk what I'd do. I'm kinda busy and I won't have a ton of time to spend on this. It sucks but i'd rather do something useful than slay internet dragons.
cygnus Sep 10th 2010 10:54AM
I find it equally 'useful' to slay 'internet dragons' and having a succesful career, both are gratifying and complementary of each other. Although I enjoy my job ( a lot ), my life would be.. hollow.... if there was nothing else. On the other hand, even if I love killing 'internet dragons' I do need to get the $15.00 every month.. and some food...
eclipse3979 Sep 10th 2010 8:11AM
As a player with very limited time and only a very small family guild, there are many things that I would love to do but can't. I'd love to be able to go into Naxx...just to start a raid. Unfortunately even during the weeklies, I can't get picked up for a pug even on the rare chance I have the time, because my main, a tankadin, does not have a "leet" gear score (its only 2k something) but the bible to the raiders (wow-heroes.com) shows I should be ok into Ulduar.
As a bit of a lore nerd, and a fan of pallies, the story of WOTLK, was very interesting to me and I had wanted to be able to play through the raids to be able to experience it, particularly ICC. I've been playing since the end of vanilla and haven't been able to experience a raid at level yet.
Foxfyr Sep 10th 2010 8:25AM
If you want to fix that (that's a big if by the way... not everyone really wants to raid), you can very easily pump your gear score up to 5k by just doing heroics.
Get a full set of T9 with Truimph, and then fill in the pieces you're missing with Conquest items.
I realize you're casual so you may not really want to work at it, but I was able to get my druid tank up to 5k a couple days after hitting 80 with just heroic farming.
Stilhelm Sep 10th 2010 10:03AM
The thing to do is start your own Naxx raid. Advertise in trade the gear score range you're looking for. If you want to see it the way it was meant to be seen, put an upper limit on the gear score you're willing to take. Having a 2500+ wow-heroes GS tank, healer, or dps will allow you to brute-force many encounters.
Of course, you will wipe while everyone learns the encounters, but that's the way it was meant to be seen. If you like the people you pugged in, put them on an invite for another run. Once those people have gotten to be decent, then move on to Ulduar, the most fun raid in WotLK.
I did a relatively low-geared Naxx run on my shaman shortly after hitting 80. We had a well-geared tank, healer, and 1 dps. Even just those 3 with 5k+ in-game scores allowed many of the encounters to be brute-forced.
I put together a lower-gear run in ICC once. We had some guild alts, and I advertised in trade for a specific gear range, indicating we'd only do the first 4. We ended up doing the first 6 just like every other pug that wants 3k+ GS.
Tfish92 Sep 10th 2010 10:58AM
How can your gs possibly be 2k? Even if you are super casual my tankadin had a 2k gear score by the time I leveled it to 80, and that was just quest greens and some dungeon blues.
Krayl Sep 10th 2010 11:37AM
@Tfish92
He's referring to his Wow-heroes.com gearscore, which is different than the gear score reported by the addon of the same name.
For the sake of scale, my addon gearscore is 6350 which translates to a 3433 wow-heroes score. So that would put eclipse's addon score at somewhere around 4624 which is indeed fine for Ulduar and Naxx.
Although I must admit, I too was confused at first.
Swifteye Sep 10th 2010 12:53PM
This might be painfully obvious (and if it is I apologize; I certainly don't mean to "talk down" to you)... but there are some very nice 264 PvP pieces these days, and if you've been running the odd heroic here and there (and don't specifically spend your Stone Keeper's Shards on anything, if you're not a PvPer), you may find you've amassed quite a pile of the shards by now without even realizing it.
You can turn 30 Stone Keeper's Shards into 2,000 honor... maybe you can flesh out your gear a little with an honor-bought PvP piece or two... a lot of them are itemized exceptionally well, even WITH the itemization that's "wasted" on resilience.
Just a thought! ^_^
BigBadGooz Sep 10th 2010 8:11AM
Too bad I'm working too much to raid these days. I would love those titles and that purty mount
Gidge Sep 10th 2010 8:13AM
I want the skeletal drake, but my guildies are never on. Usually there are only 3-4 of us online on any given night. When we run ICC, we do 10 man and make it about half way through and then stop. I think the skeletal drake will be the one item I really want for my warlock that I will never get.
Any chance you guys think you will be able to get it once we hit 85?
Nina Katarina Sep 10th 2010 10:35AM
Extend your raid ID and keep trying. My 10-man is getting less reliable of late, we're all two or three achievements away from the mount but it's a different set of two or three for each of us. If my 10-man doesn't go on Friday I try the rest of the weekend to pug a 10-man, but I couldn't care less about the first wing and that's all pugs usually go for. I want blood quarter, Sindy and LK.
Clear as far as you can on the first week, then advertise in trade that you're doing later parts. Extend the ID, keep plugging away at it. There are other folks like me out there.
"Missing later ICC achievements? Come with us, we're doing BQL and Professor on 10-man."
sephirah Sep 10th 2010 8:13AM
"I find it unlikely that Blizzard will leave such a prestigious title in game and let 12 level 85s get what was once solid proof that you and your guild were The Epitome of Amazingness."
How many Hand of A'dal do you see around?
As soon as Cata will be out, everyone will switch to the new titles and quite likely there will be some prestigious ones (like "of the Nightfall" got in Naxx gear) for the hardcores.