Well, I've joined a new raiding guild. Strange how that changes your approach to play. When I don't get every Mark of the World Tree I can each day, I feel I'm falling behind. When I don't get every VP I can each week, I feel like I'm not quite measuring up. This outlook is bonkers, of course, especially as I joined saying that though I was decently geared, I was responding more to the guild leader's call for "social players" than raiders, but I'd raid as much as they'd let me.
We ran through BWD. I watched a few Tankspot and ZAM video guides and glanced at Icy Veins beforehand, which was useful, but probably not absolutely required. Knowing how to jump up on the Nefarian pedestals was probably the most useful result of the preparation. The Aliena guide on ZAM talked about staying away from either end of Oxynia, but I ended up being told to stay firmly behind her. Lots of tail whips there, but very few wipes.
I really was the n00b occasionally. A few times the raid (and guild) leader had to say, "Boomkin, DPS Nefarian now," or something similar. We did wipe four or five times, but there were a few players that were fairly overgeared for BWD, so we didn't have too difficult a time once folks learned strategy.
It was fun, though long. The move away from waves of trash to boss after boss was an interesting change. We turned up
Security Measure Alpha at one point, and even though it was my first run, the guild let me have it, which was great. We also have one restokin guildy that took an interest in Jal pre-raid, got my gear and talent tree spec'd "correctly" (I do miss Solar Beam while PvEing, though). He also brezzed me at least three times, and *very* quickly when I went down, which was appreciated. A few well timed whispers also kept me in the right places.
And it's that help that's probably the biggest change for me, other than the sheer number of instance and raid runs the guild does, when moving from small social to medium-sized raiding guild. This guy knew how to play balance, and balance was his off-spec. And he was patient as get-out, minus one communication when I said, "Can you show me your talents for resto?" and he interpreted that as, "Prove to me you're a talented resto player." The guild leader had asked if I could heal initially, and I said I could try, but hadn't off-spec'd yet and didn't strictly have healing gear, so I was asking how to set up the resto tree. That was a quick lol from anything nasty, though.
So raiding is fun. Putting a raid on your schedule is nice. Not really caring if I get any loot -- and getting some anyway -- helps. Having people patiently help you like mad is great. Finding replacements in seconds if someone has to drop is awesome. And the anxiety level during the mostly guild staffed raid run was a heck of a lot cooler than your typical PUG.
In other news, I'm still slowly adding VPs and quickly adding JPs. Bagged the
Relic of Norgannon after a PUG Heroic yesterday. Better than
Eonar , I think, because Eonar only adds Spirit, which I think essentially reduces to hit for us, and I'm finally hit capped (note to self: don't reforge SPI to HIT; there's no change). Before that, I went
Haunt of Flies, as my cloak stunk. That took me from 333 to 359 on the back. Though I added
Stormrider's Leggings, the difference looking back isn't enough over
Blazewing's Klt for me to have bit. The thinking was that I'd get the chest and gloves from VPs, so all that was left from JP T11 was legs. /shrug I think next on the JP list is a ring and trinket and then I'm nearly "done".
Jal's first VP item will probably be either
Obsidian Arborweave Gloves or the
Obsidian Arborweave Vestment. Tyler at Shifting Perspectives argues pretty strongly that I should ignore the gloves, but I'm not as sure. See below for a
quick exchange we had over on WoW Insider, edited a bit for stoopid grammar and clarity issues on my end.
Okay, admittedly, I only read Blood Pact because I *can* find an RSS for Tyler, but not one just for Balance dr00d Shifting Perspectives articles.
That said, how do you quantitatively factor in tier set bonuses? Contra T12, [Tyler] says...
"The most common thing that I see people do in situation such as this is that they always, always rush off for their tier gear first. The simple matter is this: Everything is an upgrade. ... Get the upgrades that you can get now first, and get the ones that come later, later."
Though locks apparently have hands alternatives, they're from Rag. You can PUG Heroics and get T12 gloves after a little over a week. It's tougher to raid in a social guild.
But okay, let's even say you *can* bag raid gear easily. How do you factor in T12 2P bonuses? You know, for laser chicken, how do you measure the worth burning treants? For locks, um, how do you factor in whatever you guys get? Don't Tier bonuses make T12 items disproportionally powerful compared to other Valor Point gear? Or, rather, why *don't* tier bonsues make T12 disproportionally powerful? JP gear is nearly free with 70 points per Heroic boss -- and that bonus doesn't max out; you can run Heroics indefinitely and keep bagging 70 JP a boss. But if I'm spending 2200+1650 = 3850 VP = a pretty solid month of PUGging, what are the numbers on getting 3850 VPs of non-tiered gear [which is essentially what Tyler suggested] before two tiered?
Being a part timer, Valor Points are something I can still earn without raiding. I think I go 2xT12 first, and gloves being only 1650, I think I start there. ?? If I can find 20k, I get valor bracers too. /shrug
@Tyler -- The what amounts to a "price of entry" logic is interesting. There's a sort of T12 price of entry per piece -- 1650 VPs -- and then a price to get that more efficient piece -- 2200 minus 1650 = 550 VPs. 550 VPs gives me a pretty good jump start on VP bracers if I don't have 20-30k gold sitting around, and gives me the T12 2P.
That's why I'm still thinking that I want a set with the most pieces possible with my VP that still includes a 2P bonus, though. I'm assuming you can keep the T11 2P bonus on top of the T12 2P. Now you're one drop in BoT away from having ((Chest or Legs)+Shoulders) * T11 + (Hands+(Legs or Chest)) * T12, and you can find a good BoT PURaid relatively easily, all things considered.
That's the way I was leaning, anyhow, and with your "T12 set bonus isn't >>> T11 set bonus" suggestion, gloves for VP seems even more like the cheapest way to get "2P+2P ~ 4P" and your valor bracers more quickly.
I mean, sure, if you could have any two T12 pieces and points isn't an object, you go legs and chest. But here, I think it comes down to if having valor bracers more quickly offsets having fewer good stats on the T12 gloves. Is (again, on Boomkin; sorry to hijack the thread)...
86 Int
157 Sta
266 Mastery (1.48)
683 Armor
30 Haste (0.23%)
1 Sockets
-177 SPI (so hit, like you say)
... (the diff of T12 chest over T12 hands) worth 550 VPs? I guess you could argue yes. But 44% of 227 INT = 99.88, and 44% is how close you are to valor bracers and their 227 INT with 550 VPs.
Perhaps it largely matters what T11 pieces you already have.
Thanks for the reply. It's really too much for a casual guy to think through and feel confident about. Bring back BC and point-blank wrath-spam! ;^)
This exchange really shows the disconnect between WoW Insider posts and your typical casual player. Even after I've stressed casual gaming and PUG reward VPs as the only means to getting T12 gear, Tyler continuously seems to be assuming things that casual gamers just don't have access to get -- unlimited valor points and raid drops.
There's a huge disconnect between the "Here are the three best items in each slot" guides we sometimes get and the way most gamers, even max-level gamers, are almost certainly playing. As soon as I get two Tier 12 items, I'm done with the PUG grind. If the guild tells me I need more, no problems, but hopefully we can raid for them.
The chest is the only points-only tiered piece, right? I mean everything else in the Tier 12 set potentially drops from somewhere, right? If I was still in casual/social land, if it weren't for what have to be kewl buring treants, I'm probably done chasing VPs after a single item, and the second can show up whenever it wants.
7-12-2011 @ 8:29AM
Tyler Caraway said...
Gloves are the cheapest Tier piece option to get with Valor Points, this is true, but that similarly makes them the worst option. Gloves have the lowest "weighted" itemization. Slots are not all created equal, chests, pants, and helms generally have the most stats on them in comparison to gloves, wands, and rings. BH also has a chance to drop gloves for you, so getting your gloves first bars you from benefiting from that option outright.
If you aren't a raider, then does it really matter which pieces you get first? If you want your two piece -- which is all you can get without raiding -- then you would still get the chest and pants over getting the gloves. Further, the gloves, and even the chest to a degree, are rather worthless to non-raiders. They've got a lot of hit on 'em.
As for set bonuses:
All set bonuses are usually pretty decent, and all of them are better than not having them in most cases -- I'm seriously starting to doubt the new balance T11 four-piece does anything -- but what people often overlook is that new set bonuses usually aren't worth more than old set bonuses.
Outliers aside, the paradigam works a little bit like this. Your T11 2-piece is worth, say, 500 DPS and the 4-piece is worth 1,000 DPS (some specs/classes may have that reversed, but generally you have one strong bonus, one weak bonus.) Now, T12 set bonuses aren't actually going to be worth all that much more than T11 bonuses. Set bonuses aren't a scalar thing, they are usually all designed to offer approximately the same level of DPS as before. So, from the above, your T12 2-piece would be worth around 1,000 DPS, maybe 1,100 DPS, and your T12 4-piece would be worth around 500 - 600 DPS.
[This is really confusing the way he wrote it. It sounds like your 2P T11 bonus is the "weak bonus" of the set and the T12 2P is the "strong bonus". So if you have inifinite T11 gear and only 2 T12 pieces, you really want to go 4P T11 and 2P T12, which is perfect, right?]
As long as you retain all set bonuses [he really seems to have missed my point; if I'm only getting soloable items, I can't retain all set bonuses. If fact, I'm only guaranteed three tiered pieces total], you generally don't see a difference in weighting Tier items over other items. The only time you ever want to "rush" Tier first is when you have an exceptionally weak old Tier bonus but an exceptionally strong new Tier bonus. If the old Tier 11 4-piece bonus was the Tier 12 2-piece bonus, then you would absolutely rush for it -- and the reality is that druids probably should be rushing their Tier since the new 4-piece [on Tier 11?] is awful -- but in general set bonuses are fairly well balanced between themselves.
[emph throughout mine]