Posts with tag raid-finder-tool

There has been a recent thread on the EU forums getting quite some blue attention that's discussing the purpose of the raid finder, including some hefty criticisms of it, as you'd expect for any newer feature. I don't have the space to put all the blue posts in this article, but this is what the Wowhead blue tracker is made for. This thread made me sit up and think about what in fact the real purpose of this game feature was.

A rung on the gearing ladder

The raid finder, when it first appeared, was famously exploited for gear by guilds -- and indeed, it still is, although within the rules. Gone are the days of the glitches exploited by Paragon, landing themselves a ban. But those issues aside, the raid finder has become very much a step on the gearing ladder for any new character, and guilds put this to good use when gearing up their colleagues, going into the raid finder as a group or with several people all on the same token. So if a guild member had a new priest to gear up, a guild might join as a party of paladins, priests and warlocks to get that new priest several rolls on token drops, as the tokens could be passed between players.

Offering as it does not only higher item level gear than heroic dungeons but also tier pieces and the associated set bonuses, the raid finder was a valuable source of easily obtained upgrades for a new character. And so as it progressed, more and more players came into it that were cheating the item level requirements, making the fights longer and the rage more ragey. Do you remember the start of the raid finder? When the instances were new? How polite and excited people were to see the new boss mechanics! It was actually fun then.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Arcane Brilliance for arcane, fire and frost mages. This week we discuss some ways to make sure your mage's wardrobe is filled with only the prettiest dresses, most mysterious cowls, sparkliest wands, and ... er, staffiest staves.

Patch 4.3 has been with us for a good solid month now, and I sincerely hope that by now we've all escorted our mages through a good portion of the new content it offers. As all the best patches do, 4.3 has ushered in a fresh tier of gear and a new progression hierarchy to follow in getting said gear. Best of all, we have a whole new gearing tool to play with in the Raid Finder.

If you happen to be one of those mages who looks at his item level and finds it still languishing somewhere below the minimum requirements to join the battle to vanquish Deathwing, I believe a gearing guide is in order. Without further preamble, I present Arcane Brilliance's Handy Guide to Shiny Things, patch 4.3 edition.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Shifting Perspectives for cat, bear, restoration and balance druids. This Tuesday, we take a risk.

Well, I'm bushed. Post-BlizzCon, I reached that dreamy level of fatigue allowing me to hallucinate that I am on a Thai beach being served fizzy drinks by men in loincloths, and that was lovely while it lasted. But just as I had recovered from the delusion that this was ever going to happen, a freak snowstorm hit the American northeast and killed every tree and power line in sight. Folks, I spent a week without power or internet, and I am mad at the world.

Let's see. What did I have on the docket for this week? Responsibly and rationally evaluating what we learned at BlizzCon 2011? The hell with that. Let's start off by completely ignoring the new talents announced, and then getting into a quite possibly asinine prediction that I will try to pretend never happened if it doesn't come true.

Every week, WoW Insider brings you Arcane Brilliance for arcane, fire and frost mages. This week we spend some time sniffing around the PTR. Which is difficult, because all I can smell right now is burnt warlock. How do you guys get that out of your robes? Maybe some Febreze.

I have to admit: Nothing in patch 4.3 excites me as much as the Raid Finder. Not transmogrification, not the Deathwing raid, not the fact that we're drawing ever closer to me being able to roll a Pandaren kung fu mage. Nope, I'm excited about the Raid Finder.

There was a time during my WoW career when I was able to adjust my schedule around my guild's raid nights, but that time hasn't really existed for some time now. My family has grown, my work responsibilities have grown, and my WoW time has become increasingly limited and far more unreliable. I play when I can play these days, and it's nigh impossible to plan a raid schedule around that. I'd wager I'm not alone in this.

So the idea of being able to see much of the same endgame content and gear up enough to help my guild on my own schedule much the same way I gear up through 5-mans now ... that just thrills me to death.

But putting together a 25-man raid is an exponentially more complex endeavor than simply throwing together a 5-man run. How does this Raid Finder tool function in practice? Well, I've taken my mage to the PTR, and I've tested it out for myself. And I'm here to tell you:

It totally works. And it totally doesn't.