Posts with tag progress

There was a time when the following were all known truths, enshrined in the game by its developers and its players.

• Raids all require 40 people to run.
• To run a 5-man instance, you have to assemble the group via friends or through people on your realm.
• The only acceptable warrior is a tanking warrior.
• The only acceptable tank is a warrior tank.
• Hybrids heal. If they don't heal, they're not hybrid. More importantly, if they don't heal, you don't bring them to your group.
• In order to understand how to use a weapon, you must learn how from a trainer and then go out and attack things with it hundreds of times.

These are just a few of the sacred cows that WoW inherited from other games and at one time treated as if they were bedrock assumptions, virtually built into the DNA of the MMO genre. And to paraphrase, if you meet the ancient MMO truth on the road, WoW must kill it.

I would argue that in nearly every case that the development team has looked at a truism (even one enshrined in their current design paradigm) and decided to change or remove that sacred cow, it has been for the good of the game. Perhaps this has not always been the case, but certainly very often.

The Classifieds brings you weekly updates on guild recruiting, rankings, splits and merges, progression and more. Have guild news or a Random Act of Uberness to share? E-mail TheClassifieds@wow.com.

Remember back during the holidays, when we had a nice cozy Breakfast Topic chat about the fellow who's been spotted schlepping his entire iMac to the local Panera Bread to play WoW? Sharp-eyed reader Paul discovered a followup article at Gizmodo, featuring five questions with the Panera Bread WoW Man. It's no headline news, but it's an interesting peek into how a fellow WoW player gets his fix.

Let's open up The Classifieds ...

I'm really impressed with BG Hero. We take a look at these stats sites pretty often, but I have never seen a site targeted strictly at PvP data like this one, and with such a clean and interesting view. Unfortunately, it's still getting off the ground, so we're probably going to give the server a run for its money with this link, but give it a few days and head back there when they've smoothed things out.

It'll track your plays and wins in each BG, obviously, but you can also get a whole bunch of graphs and numbers about how you're doing each time you play, including HKs per BG, and killing blows per battleground that you play. The app also tracks your totals daily and weekly, so if you get your character in there and let it update over a period of time, you can see just how you're doing. Pretty amazing stuff if you've been playing a lot of battlegrounds lately (and with the extra XP in there, why wouldn't you?). We're told the site is still being worked on, so expect more updates soon (and Phood is keeping info flowing on his blog), but in the meantime, it looks like a great way to look at your BG progress in more detail.

An unidentified reader wrote to WoW Insider explaning that while he is in a raiding guild, his life schedule does not allow him to raid. He feels he's being left behind as groups ask for higher DPS.

What practical advice is there for progressing in the game while being a player with RL obligations?

First off, I'd like to tell you that you're not an outlier, there are many of players in similar situations. Nearly all WoW players have real life obligations including work, school, and families. The two most important things to work on are balance and realistic expectations.

It's easy to get suckered into playing too much WoW. To balance WoW with life, you need to determine how much time you can spend in game, while leaving plenty to meet your other responsibilities. If you can, try to schedule WoW at regular times, that way you build relationships with folks you play with often.

Wow. It's already the end of January. Time flies by so fast that one twelfth of 2009 is already finished. Now would probably a good time as any to ask how you've done so far in Wrath of the Lich King. I'm rather proud that our little guild has downed 25-man Malygos -- I should probably tell Mike to give us a shoutout on Guildwatch -- and that the only thing left for us to do right now is Sartharion with three drakes. Sure, we didn't finish it all in an unimaginable three days, but I'm very happy nonetheless. On a personal note, my wife gave me a Nobles Deck, so I'm looking forward to turning that in for my Darkmoon Card: Greatness this week. It should go rather well with a pretty little hacking thing I got last week.

On the other hand, I've neglected my Shaman, who's sitting lonely at Level 70 in Warsong Hold. The only nice thing is that his Engineering is almost maxed out, so I should have no problem learning that Schematic: Mechano-hog when the time comes. I just need to force my lazy butt to level him. My Hunter has yet to step foot in Northrend, and I don't think I've ever logged my Death Knight past the initial leveling experience. My Warlock finally got four pieces of Plagueheart, so I'll try out how that 4-piece bonus works out. Maybe on Loken later, since I've still got some backlogged quests with those happy little giants.

Overall, I guess it's been a pretty good start of the year. I've gotten a bit of gear on some characters, decent progression in the endgame, and even enjoyed some success in my favorite thing to do, PvP. How about you? It's the end of January, how's your game coming along so far? Have you leveled more than one character to 80? Ventured into Naxxramas? Any Achievement is notable, even for seasonal things like getting the Elder title. In a game that rewards all our varied playstyles, I'm curious to know how everyone's doing so far.

We're waist deep in the content of Wrath by now, and despite the newness of the strange land, it all feels so familiar, too. Not only have we gone back to the gothic (yet sparkly) style of Old Azeroth, but we've been followed to Northrend by a whole lot of old friends.

I've been having a lot of fun bumping into 'old' NPCs and quest givers that I've helping out on my journey from 10 to 60, or 61 to 70. They add a real sense of progression and continuity to the world. I solved their problems years ago, and that's allowed them to move on in life, for better or for worse. It's also strangely heartwarming to see people I did quests for so long ago, like a little slice of nostalgia.

I've heard a few people hating on how many old world NPCs you run into in Northrend, complaining that Blizzard is just recycling old content. I quite seriously disagree in this case. Seeing NPCs progress in the world alongside us gives a much greater feeling of the world being a story, and as we go up in level, the world moves forward. I like it a lot, and I hope it continues into the next expansion, too.

We have an old gallery sitting around of some of the returning faces you'll see in Northrend, so you can check it out if you want. Be warned, there are some minor spoilers inside.

Ready Check is a weekly column focusing on successful raiding for the serious raider. Hardcore or casual, ZA or Sunwell Plateau, everyone can get in on the action and spend thousands of gold on repairs and consumables. This week, a pit lord dies.

Brutallus is the second boss in the Sunwell Plateau. A pit lord with swords for hands, he becomes accessible once you've redeemed Kalecgos and killed the two trash packs behind Kalecgos' platform. After watching a short event where Brutallus fights and kills Madrigosa, a blue dragon who you can see taunting him when doing the Dead Scar bombing quest, it's time to face the demon himself.

Many people have compared the Brutallus encounter to that of Patchwerk back in Naxxramas; rather than an execution encounter, this is a benchmark fight, and if your raid is low on DPS, your tanks fall short of gear requirements or your healers can't keep up, you'll run into difficulties. The main requirement is extremely high raid dps; with a 6 minute enrage and 10.5 million hitpoints, you're looking at just over 29k raid dps sustained over the entire fight. How much that works out to per DPSer depends on your raid composition, so let's look at what you need to bring for the fight.