This is it. We are finally up to the final boss in Wrath. I had played through Warcraft 3 and I loved Arthas as a character. When I controlled him as a human as he fell from grace, to killing his father, and destroying all of Azeroth as leader of the Scourge. It was an amazing experience. I own 2 copies of the Arthas novel. One that I read and other one is a collector's edition that my best friend had bought me. When Wrath had come out we both landed on howling fjord and one of the first quests given to you was to enter the spirit world. In the distance you see the Lich King and of coarse I had to walk up to him. He spots me and instantly kills me in 1 shot. It was one of the more epic moments in Wrath.
I leveled up to 80 and killed a bunch of his lieutenants, and gear out in epics to enter his citadel. I took out his guards and now I have entered his throne room and challenge him to the death. And death is exactly what he gave me and my 24 guild mates. I didn't think I would be doing what I am doing right now. I am the main tank for the lich king. As a paladin throughout vanilla WoW and Burning Crusade I would tank but no one would take me seriously for progression encounters. When Wrath came out I was good at my job. After quiting the game for a while I never thought I would be in a position where I would be standing toe to toe taking blows from the lich king but here I am. My best friend plays a druid tank and he is so jealous because he quit the game as well but wants to experience the Lich King.
So here we are, Last Hope vs the Lich King. We have been trying for a couple of raid nights to bring him down. Like other ICC bosses he is relatively complicated and has a lot of stages. Phase 1 is pretty easy. I tank the Lich King where he stands and he summons a whole bunch of minions. The stronger minions get tanked by the off tank and if you get a disease you run to the off tank and get cleansed. Once you hit 70% he forces you to the edge of the room while he casts remorseless winter. We have a small problem in this transition phase because he will spawn Spirits that have to be tanked. The problem is regardless of if I taunt or hit him with a hard attack he seems to one shot somebody around him. It is frustrating because it seems that they kill somebody as they are materializing and don't have a hit box that I can attack.
Phase 2 is currently where we are stuck. I have the best gear that I can possibly have minus a shield and he hits for about 30k a swing. He also will cast Soul Reaper on me which is 60k shadow damage after 5 seconds. While he hits hard the healers do a pretty good job of keeping me alive. What wipes the raid is the Valkyr's and the defile. The Lich King will summon 3 valkyr's that will pick up a random person and drop them off the edge of the platform if they aren't dpsed down. Our problem is to get them going in the same direction and stunning them enough before they get to the edge. The other problem is defile. It picks a random person and puts a black circle under them. If anyone is standing on the circle it grows. Often times it will kill the people standing on them and grow further so that other people are standing on it and thus wiping the raid. We're slowly but surely figuring out how to handle this encounter and we are showing progress. We still have one more transition phase and phase 3 to contend with before the boss goes down.
I really like the guild that I am in but one thing that I hate is the DKP system. There is never going to be a perfect dkp system but there are things that a dkp system should account for. The way it works currently is you get dkp for showing up and if there is an item that drops that you want then you can bid on the item. The problem is that it is a blind dkp bid. You have no idea what other people are going to bid and you can bid all your dkp, part of it, or the bare minimum. This is one of the most annoying systems ever invented. I believe that a dkp system should reward the people who deserve items. If you show up regularly you get dkp and you have priority on that item if you have enough. You spend the dkp you get the item. Because you spent the dkp you have less then before so you might not get the next item you want if someone else shows up about equally as you do. I have never ever missed a raid ever since I joined this guild. A lot of people show up whenever they want or hardly at all.
I have 100 dkp and items are usually between 5 -30 dkp. If an item I really want drops and every other tank wants it how much should I bid. I have no idea. If the next highest tank has 80 dkp do I bid 81 this way I am guaranteed to beat them. That seems kind of absurd to bid almost everything I earned since I joined the guild for one item. When I talked to the officers about it they acted like that is what you are supposed to do. I looked at them like they were insane. So to get 1 highly sought after item I have to basically use all my dkp to the point where I won't be anywhere close to getting another item for a while unless no one wants it. As a tank this isn't that big of a deal because I only have 2 other people to fight for. If I was a dps I would probably go crazy in this system and possibly gquit. Trinkets are an item that benefit a lot of classes and specs but there are so few of them that are very good. When they do drop there is a mad dash for them and the people who win them often times don't have any dkp to spend for a long time. If you are smart with your dkp certain slots just never get filled because its not worth lossing all your dkp over.
It is hard to find a balance between spending your dkp wisely and just wanting an item so badly that you pay a ridiculous amount. The thing I hate most about this system is that it rewards the most greedy and not necessarily the person who most deserves it. We had a tank who didn't show up regularly that one day just blew all his dkp on some tier tokens and just leave. It was a highly sought after items and the people who did show up regularly didn't want to blow over 40 dkp on it. He made out like a bandit and the guild is left there scratching their head. While the officers don't like this idea no one is willing to change the system to something that works a bit better. I believe gear should have priority on people who show up regularly and have a set price attached to it. Its hard to find a balance between giving gear to people who deserve it and have new people who show up get geared up as well. The thing I notice is that gear is plentiful. Most slots get filled up pretty quickly and new people get geared out relatively fast. We can still give those people gear but find a way to reward the people who show up with Priority on the highly sought after loot without giving themselves an aneurysm figuring out how much dkp to spend.
I leveled up to 80 and killed a bunch of his lieutenants, and gear out in epics to enter his citadel. I took out his guards and now I have entered his throne room and challenge him to the death. And death is exactly what he gave me and my 24 guild mates. I didn't think I would be doing what I am doing right now. I am the main tank for the lich king. As a paladin throughout vanilla WoW and Burning Crusade I would tank but no one would take me seriously for progression encounters. When Wrath came out I was good at my job. After quiting the game for a while I never thought I would be in a position where I would be standing toe to toe taking blows from the lich king but here I am. My best friend plays a druid tank and he is so jealous because he quit the game as well but wants to experience the Lich King.
So here we are, Last Hope vs the Lich King. We have been trying for a couple of raid nights to bring him down. Like other ICC bosses he is relatively complicated and has a lot of stages. Phase 1 is pretty easy. I tank the Lich King where he stands and he summons a whole bunch of minions. The stronger minions get tanked by the off tank and if you get a disease you run to the off tank and get cleansed. Once you hit 70% he forces you to the edge of the room while he casts remorseless winter. We have a small problem in this transition phase because he will spawn Spirits that have to be tanked. The problem is regardless of if I taunt or hit him with a hard attack he seems to one shot somebody around him. It is frustrating because it seems that they kill somebody as they are materializing and don't have a hit box that I can attack.
Phase 2 is currently where we are stuck. I have the best gear that I can possibly have minus a shield and he hits for about 30k a swing. He also will cast Soul Reaper on me which is 60k shadow damage after 5 seconds. While he hits hard the healers do a pretty good job of keeping me alive. What wipes the raid is the Valkyr's and the defile. The Lich King will summon 3 valkyr's that will pick up a random person and drop them off the edge of the platform if they aren't dpsed down. Our problem is to get them going in the same direction and stunning them enough before they get to the edge. The other problem is defile. It picks a random person and puts a black circle under them. If anyone is standing on the circle it grows. Often times it will kill the people standing on them and grow further so that other people are standing on it and thus wiping the raid. We're slowly but surely figuring out how to handle this encounter and we are showing progress. We still have one more transition phase and phase 3 to contend with before the boss goes down.
I really like the guild that I am in but one thing that I hate is the DKP system. There is never going to be a perfect dkp system but there are things that a dkp system should account for. The way it works currently is you get dkp for showing up and if there is an item that drops that you want then you can bid on the item. The problem is that it is a blind dkp bid. You have no idea what other people are going to bid and you can bid all your dkp, part of it, or the bare minimum. This is one of the most annoying systems ever invented. I believe that a dkp system should reward the people who deserve items. If you show up regularly you get dkp and you have priority on that item if you have enough. You spend the dkp you get the item. Because you spent the dkp you have less then before so you might not get the next item you want if someone else shows up about equally as you do. I have never ever missed a raid ever since I joined this guild. A lot of people show up whenever they want or hardly at all.
I have 100 dkp and items are usually between 5 -30 dkp. If an item I really want drops and every other tank wants it how much should I bid. I have no idea. If the next highest tank has 80 dkp do I bid 81 this way I am guaranteed to beat them. That seems kind of absurd to bid almost everything I earned since I joined the guild for one item. When I talked to the officers about it they acted like that is what you are supposed to do. I looked at them like they were insane. So to get 1 highly sought after item I have to basically use all my dkp to the point where I won't be anywhere close to getting another item for a while unless no one wants it. As a tank this isn't that big of a deal because I only have 2 other people to fight for. If I was a dps I would probably go crazy in this system and possibly gquit. Trinkets are an item that benefit a lot of classes and specs but there are so few of them that are very good. When they do drop there is a mad dash for them and the people who win them often times don't have any dkp to spend for a long time. If you are smart with your dkp certain slots just never get filled because its not worth lossing all your dkp over.
It is hard to find a balance between spending your dkp wisely and just wanting an item so badly that you pay a ridiculous amount. The thing I hate most about this system is that it rewards the most greedy and not necessarily the person who most deserves it. We had a tank who didn't show up regularly that one day just blew all his dkp on some tier tokens and just leave. It was a highly sought after items and the people who did show up regularly didn't want to blow over 40 dkp on it. He made out like a bandit and the guild is left there scratching their head. While the officers don't like this idea no one is willing to change the system to something that works a bit better. I believe gear should have priority on people who show up regularly and have a set price attached to it. Its hard to find a balance between giving gear to people who deserve it and have new people who show up get geared up as well. The thing I notice is that gear is plentiful. Most slots get filled up pretty quickly and new people get geared out relatively fast. We can still give those people gear but find a way to reward the people who show up with Priority on the highly sought after loot without giving themselves an aneurysm figuring out how much dkp to spend.
Tell your friend to transfer. We need a feral druid (cat or bear or both)!
ReplyDeleteEven though you may spend 81 DKP on said item, you'll earn that back in 4 weeks. (20/wk)
-Gluteas