11-13-2014, 04:43 PM
Mok'ra, Tribe!
I've been fielding a number of questions about our guild plans for Warlords of Draenor, so I jotted some answers down here in an FAQ.
- Zlinka
Warlords of Draenor
a. Do I need to rush to level 100?
b. Do I need to level a particular class for the Warlords raid?
c. What will guild play look like in Warlords?
d. What day and time will the guild Warlords raids run?
e. When will we start progression (normal mode) raiding in Warlords?
f. What about LFR?
g. Where do I gear up for the Warlords normal-mode raid?
h. How big will the Warlords normal-mode raid be?
*******************************************************
a. Do I need to rush to level 100?
No. We want everyone to enjoy the new expansion to the fullest. The leveling phase of an expansion is a fun time, and it only happens once every few years, so have a good time! Don't rush though! Take the time to explore the new zones, follow the new quests, build your garrison, and play with friends and guildmates in the new zones, 5-mans, challenge modes etc.
*******************************************************
b. Do I need to level a particular class for the Warlords of Draenor normal-mode raid?
No. To the extent that we can, we want you to bring the character that you enjoy playing the most. The character you enjoy playing will have far more staying power in the raid than one you don’t enjoy, so that’s the one we want to invest in.
We will ask you to choose just one character to bring to the raid, though. Bringing an alt (unless specifically requested) disperses loot and slows progression, so we won’t be bringing alts until the end of the expansion. Once we have mastered content at a particular level our preference is to push forward to deeper bosses, harder dungeons, and heroic modes, not to gear up alts.
If you enjoy playing multiple roles equally, and are wondering which character to level, know that the guild tends to be short of tanks during the 5-man phase, when the small group content requires one tank per 5-man group. But in the raid phase, we tend to be short of healers, because the raid only needs two tanks for the raid but needs one healer for every 5 raid members. The bigger the raid, the more healers we need. We typically do not have a shortage of DPS.
So if you are looking to maximize utility for the raid, and have an equal preference for roles, a healer-DPS hybrid or, secondarily, a tank-DPS hybrid would give us more flexibility. But again, do not level a character you don’t enjoy playing!
*******************************************************
c. What will guild play look like in Warlords?
We will probably start small-group guild runs right away. We’ll be building our garrisons, exploring new zones, doing new quests, and leveling up together. We’re looking forward to challenge modes, 5-man normal and 5-man heroic dungeons!
While we don't currently have an Ironsong Arena team, if you are interested, feel free to organize one!
Everyone should grab their guildmates and jump into the normal and heroic 5-mans. As we get a critical mass of players at 100, we will organize a couple informal evenings of LFR raiding.
We will also run a progression raid. This is a tougher, rostered raid that tackles normal and eventually heroic-mode content. Completing this content requires class balancing, learned teamwork, and a commitment to attend the majority of the raids, so we will use a roster to fill it.
*******************************************************
d. What day and time will the guild Warlords raids run?
We will run guild raids on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. server time.
*******************************************************
e. When will we start progression (normal mode) raiding in Warlords?
Once players are at max level and sufficiently geared to tackle it. We really want people to be able to enjoy the leveling phase without feeling pressure to rush to max level and grind for gear right away. If you hit the level cap and are hungry for raiding, hit the LFRs hard and gear up.
We will therefore be flexible about a start date for the new Warlords raid. To give you a ballpark estimate, in my experience from previous expansions, it will take 1-2 months for everyone to get a character up to raiding level. I also don’t want to try to start up a raid during the hectic holiday season. So that puts our start date some time in January -- I am currently looking at a start date of Tuesday, January 13, 2015.
Based on our experience in the January 13 raid we’ll decide whether to go with a normal-mode raid on Tuesdays and Thursdays, or a Tuesday LFR + Thursday normal raid first.
*******************************************************
f. What about LFR?
Blizzard has set up the new expansion so that LFR is not a prerequisite for normal mode raiding. We can start normal mode raiding without it, using heroic dungeon gear.
That said, if people want to start raiding LFR before January, they can of course do so individually, and if there is enough interest we will organize some informal guild LFR runs — probably on Tuesdays and/or Thursdays at 7:30 — before we start the normal raid in January. We’ll play this by ear.
*******************************************************
g. Where do I gear up for the Warlords raid?
Right now there are four ways to gear up for raiding in Warlords: heroic dungeons, crafted gear, garrison quests, and gear bought with apexis crystals / PvP rewards.
* Heroic dungeons: to queue for these, you will need a silver proving grounds medal. These drop iLevel 630 gear with a small chance for a Warforged item which will have a higher iLevel. There are no lockouts on these. Grab some guildies and jump in!
* Crafted Gear: Top end crafted gear at launch time will be iLevel 640 for armor and 630 for weapons, with the ability to upgrade these later. You may want to focus on armor here as equally good 630 weapons drop in the heroic dungeons.
Professions are now tied to garrisons, so you can produce items without the profession if you have the appropriate building. However, if you have the relevant profession, you will be able to craft items twice as fast (3-4 days per item with the profession vs. 6-8 days per item without the profession).
* Garrison quests: Garrisons serve as the center of the follower meta-game. You collect followers while questing and send them on daily quests via a control center in your garrison. These quests last from 12-24 hours so you’ll log on, send your followers on quests, and then 12 or 24 hours later log on again and see your rewards. Followers have iLevels that can be upgraded by completing quests and with upgrades from the War Mill. When their iLevel is high enough you can send them on “raids” which have a chance to reward you with items that are an iLevel above what you are currently raiding. So if you are not yet raiding you will get rewards at the LFR level of 640. If you are in Highmaul Normal you’ll get Highmaul Heroic gear of 670. These are rare drops but it’s worth running quests in order to try for one or two items.
* Apexis Crystals: These are obtained by farming mobs and doing dailies, and replace valor points in WoD. They can be used to buy iLevel 630 gear that can be upgraded with further crystals to iLevel 645. This takes a huge number of crystals, though — about 2-3 weeks for a single item — so aim for just one or two of these.
* PvP rewards: as usual, but the first items are only iLevel 620.
In sum:
- run heroic dungeons for iLevel 630 drops
- craft 2-3 iLevel 640 items in your garrison
- get 1-2 iLevel 640 items from garrison follower quests
- get an iLevel 645 item from apexis crystals.
*******************************************************
h. How big will the Warlords normal-mode raid be?
The scalable raiding system will allow us to run a raid larger than 10 people. We are thrilled with this new flexibility. We will run a rostered raid of members who:
(a) meet the required iLevel (right now this looks like an iLevel of 630)
(b) have earned a silver proving grounds medal, and
© can commit to attending 80% of the raids.
(d) satisfy raid balance. We will need two tanks total (with an occasional need for a backup), and an approximate ratio of one healer for every five raid members. There is some flexibility here — we can probably run with a ratio of 1:4 or 1:6 if needed — but we can’t go too far off (1:8 is probably too low a ratio, for example), so we’ll build the raid within those parameters.
If you plan to meet these criteria, let me know by signing up below, or letting me know in-game.
-Zlinka
I've been fielding a number of questions about our guild plans for Warlords of Draenor, so I jotted some answers down here in an FAQ.
- Zlinka
Warlords of Draenor
a. Do I need to rush to level 100?
b. Do I need to level a particular class for the Warlords raid?
c. What will guild play look like in Warlords?
d. What day and time will the guild Warlords raids run?
e. When will we start progression (normal mode) raiding in Warlords?
f. What about LFR?
g. Where do I gear up for the Warlords normal-mode raid?
h. How big will the Warlords normal-mode raid be?
*******************************************************
a. Do I need to rush to level 100?
No. We want everyone to enjoy the new expansion to the fullest. The leveling phase of an expansion is a fun time, and it only happens once every few years, so have a good time! Don't rush though! Take the time to explore the new zones, follow the new quests, build your garrison, and play with friends and guildmates in the new zones, 5-mans, challenge modes etc.
*******************************************************
b. Do I need to level a particular class for the Warlords of Draenor normal-mode raid?
No. To the extent that we can, we want you to bring the character that you enjoy playing the most. The character you enjoy playing will have far more staying power in the raid than one you don’t enjoy, so that’s the one we want to invest in.
We will ask you to choose just one character to bring to the raid, though. Bringing an alt (unless specifically requested) disperses loot and slows progression, so we won’t be bringing alts until the end of the expansion. Once we have mastered content at a particular level our preference is to push forward to deeper bosses, harder dungeons, and heroic modes, not to gear up alts.
If you enjoy playing multiple roles equally, and are wondering which character to level, know that the guild tends to be short of tanks during the 5-man phase, when the small group content requires one tank per 5-man group. But in the raid phase, we tend to be short of healers, because the raid only needs two tanks for the raid but needs one healer for every 5 raid members. The bigger the raid, the more healers we need. We typically do not have a shortage of DPS.
So if you are looking to maximize utility for the raid, and have an equal preference for roles, a healer-DPS hybrid or, secondarily, a tank-DPS hybrid would give us more flexibility. But again, do not level a character you don’t enjoy playing!
*******************************************************
c. What will guild play look like in Warlords?
We will probably start small-group guild runs right away. We’ll be building our garrisons, exploring new zones, doing new quests, and leveling up together. We’re looking forward to challenge modes, 5-man normal and 5-man heroic dungeons!
While we don't currently have an Ironsong Arena team, if you are interested, feel free to organize one!
Everyone should grab their guildmates and jump into the normal and heroic 5-mans. As we get a critical mass of players at 100, we will organize a couple informal evenings of LFR raiding.
We will also run a progression raid. This is a tougher, rostered raid that tackles normal and eventually heroic-mode content. Completing this content requires class balancing, learned teamwork, and a commitment to attend the majority of the raids, so we will use a roster to fill it.
*******************************************************
d. What day and time will the guild Warlords raids run?
We will run guild raids on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. server time.
*******************************************************
e. When will we start progression (normal mode) raiding in Warlords?
Once players are at max level and sufficiently geared to tackle it. We really want people to be able to enjoy the leveling phase without feeling pressure to rush to max level and grind for gear right away. If you hit the level cap and are hungry for raiding, hit the LFRs hard and gear up.
We will therefore be flexible about a start date for the new Warlords raid. To give you a ballpark estimate, in my experience from previous expansions, it will take 1-2 months for everyone to get a character up to raiding level. I also don’t want to try to start up a raid during the hectic holiday season. So that puts our start date some time in January -- I am currently looking at a start date of Tuesday, January 13, 2015.
Based on our experience in the January 13 raid we’ll decide whether to go with a normal-mode raid on Tuesdays and Thursdays, or a Tuesday LFR + Thursday normal raid first.
*******************************************************
f. What about LFR?
Blizzard has set up the new expansion so that LFR is not a prerequisite for normal mode raiding. We can start normal mode raiding without it, using heroic dungeon gear.
That said, if people want to start raiding LFR before January, they can of course do so individually, and if there is enough interest we will organize some informal guild LFR runs — probably on Tuesdays and/or Thursdays at 7:30 — before we start the normal raid in January. We’ll play this by ear.
*******************************************************
g. Where do I gear up for the Warlords raid?
Right now there are four ways to gear up for raiding in Warlords: heroic dungeons, crafted gear, garrison quests, and gear bought with apexis crystals / PvP rewards.
* Heroic dungeons: to queue for these, you will need a silver proving grounds medal. These drop iLevel 630 gear with a small chance for a Warforged item which will have a higher iLevel. There are no lockouts on these. Grab some guildies and jump in!
* Crafted Gear: Top end crafted gear at launch time will be iLevel 640 for armor and 630 for weapons, with the ability to upgrade these later. You may want to focus on armor here as equally good 630 weapons drop in the heroic dungeons.
Professions are now tied to garrisons, so you can produce items without the profession if you have the appropriate building. However, if you have the relevant profession, you will be able to craft items twice as fast (3-4 days per item with the profession vs. 6-8 days per item without the profession).
* Garrison quests: Garrisons serve as the center of the follower meta-game. You collect followers while questing and send them on daily quests via a control center in your garrison. These quests last from 12-24 hours so you’ll log on, send your followers on quests, and then 12 or 24 hours later log on again and see your rewards. Followers have iLevels that can be upgraded by completing quests and with upgrades from the War Mill. When their iLevel is high enough you can send them on “raids” which have a chance to reward you with items that are an iLevel above what you are currently raiding. So if you are not yet raiding you will get rewards at the LFR level of 640. If you are in Highmaul Normal you’ll get Highmaul Heroic gear of 670. These are rare drops but it’s worth running quests in order to try for one or two items.
* Apexis Crystals: These are obtained by farming mobs and doing dailies, and replace valor points in WoD. They can be used to buy iLevel 630 gear that can be upgraded with further crystals to iLevel 645. This takes a huge number of crystals, though — about 2-3 weeks for a single item — so aim for just one or two of these.
* PvP rewards: as usual, but the first items are only iLevel 620.
In sum:
- run heroic dungeons for iLevel 630 drops
- craft 2-3 iLevel 640 items in your garrison
- get 1-2 iLevel 640 items from garrison follower quests
- get an iLevel 645 item from apexis crystals.
*******************************************************
h. How big will the Warlords normal-mode raid be?
The scalable raiding system will allow us to run a raid larger than 10 people. We are thrilled with this new flexibility. We will run a rostered raid of members who:
(a) meet the required iLevel (right now this looks like an iLevel of 630)
(b) have earned a silver proving grounds medal, and
© can commit to attending 80% of the raids.
(d) satisfy raid balance. We will need two tanks total (with an occasional need for a backup), and an approximate ratio of one healer for every five raid members. There is some flexibility here — we can probably run with a ratio of 1:4 or 1:6 if needed — but we can’t go too far off (1:8 is probably too low a ratio, for example), so we’ll build the raid within those parameters.
If you plan to meet these criteria, let me know by signing up below, or letting me know in-game.
-Zlinka
