dimanche 29 novembre 2015

Who are the vanilla wow players on Kronos? (3) Cruelfate

This is the third part of a multi-part blog serie dedicated to discovering the Kronos players, especially those that maybe would not come on the forums and talk about their experiences. See [part 1 - Tekai] [Part 2 - Jakeltank]. I'm thankful to Cruelfate for accepting to answer my questions, thank you Cruelfate!

What is your current character and talents? Why did you decide on those ?

My current character is Cruelfate, a level 50 undead rogue in the guild <Myrmidon>. I am specced hemorrhage because I do PvP while leveling. I might switch to combat sword when I get to a higher level and do dungeons because it does more damage.

cruelfate_interview.png
Cruelfate's armory, with a recent Theradras kill in Maraudon

Is this character an alt? Do you have alts ? Can you tell me more about them ?

This is my main character, I have no alts.

Could you tell me a bit more about you? (who's behind this character, your mmo experience, what you feel relevant, etc)

I have been playing World of Warcraft since 2006 (when a friend of mine handed me a 10 day free trial) and I really liked the feeling that vanilla had. Everything was fresh, and new, I liked the world, the dungeons, the classes, it was the best moments I have experienced.While the Burning Crusade expansion was good it then started to get worse. In my opinion at this point Blizzard went in a wrong direction, world PvP was gone, classes got streamlined, the content got too easy, flying mounts happened, the community changed, etc. This ended up with me quitting retail some time after Mists of Pandaria.
 
What made you decide on this server? How did you find out about it ?

I wanted to try vanilla again, find the world PvP and the game I used to like. I looked for a vanilla server on Google and did some research. I found that Nostalrius had a too big population and players were saying it isn’t well scripted. Other servers had custom stuff, patch 2.4.3 and level cap at 60, instant level 60, bugs or no scripting, which were a big turn-off for me.

What are your current short-term (days/weeks) and long-term (months) objectives in-game?

My current short-term goal is to reach level 60. After that I will do dungeons with my guildmates to get T0 and T0.5. I will then do some PvP (for the gear) and start raiding when <Myrmidon> will have enough players for that.

What do you login for? Or the last time you logged on, what did you do?

The last time I logged in I did some quests to get ahead on the road to level 60.

What was the hardest thing you've had to do on this server? Can you be specific ?

There wasn't anything hard to do while leveling.

Did something make you wish to quit or switch server?

No. I really enjoy playing on this server, I didn't encounter any bugs so far. Kronos is the best vanilla/classic server I have ever played on. Good job :)

What were the last sad and happy moments you've had in-game? (positive or negative experiences)

I don't remember a negative moment right now. I am glad to have found a friendly community and no bugs at all so far.

What was the best moment you've had so far on the server? Can you be specific ?

My best moment was during some PvP, I was fighting a mage and he died the very moment he blinked, it was funny as hell :) .

Here we are at the last question : Would you like to add something?

I think the Kronos team is doing a really good job, I am enjoying it very much ! Keep doing that and don't add any custom stuff! :)
kronos_cruelfate_ui.jpg
Cheers from Cruelfate !

samedi 28 novembre 2015

Would the Kronos raiders do more PvP?

Many Kronos players complain about a lack of PvP and battlegrounds. Some say the problem is premades (groups of highly ranked and well equiped players queuing together for PvP), others say it is about gear or lack of incentive to do PvP. At the same time the raiding community seems to be thriving and few would say we lack raiders. So what if raiders did PvP? Would that solve the issue? That is today's question.

I started an in-game PvP poll on the Horde side on the 20th november 2015. It is now the 28th and the poll is ending. Results are [here] and presented below. 
A typical answer. Albeit one that is quite motivating :) 
Out of the 149 Horde raiders to whom I sent a message with a short questionnaire, 58 answered (39%). All the players that answered considered themselves raiders (>1 raid per week for 4 consecutive weeks), 58/58 (100%). The most represented guild was <Friends> with 25/40 (62.5%) members answering, followed by <Slackers> with 16/31 (51.6%), then <Arcanite Circle> with 9/39 (23.1%) and finally <Onslaught> with 8/39 (20.5%).
A high EU representation and low NA. Perhaps because my guildmates know me a little they were more active in this poll.
Out of those 58 raiders a total of 54 answered the second question. 20 (37%) considered themselves raidloggers (logging on mostly for raids) and 34 (63%) didn't.
Most players answering the poll didn't consider themselves raidloggers. That is good because it means they maybe participate in other activities. But it may also be because players that are not raidloggers are more prone to answering polls because they login more frequently and check their messages.

Out of the 58 raiders 57 specified whether they participated in PvP (>1 battleground per week). 29 (51%) said yes and 28 (49%) said no. 17 of the 29 raiders that said they did battlegrounds went further and defined how many battlegrounds they did per week. The results ranged from 1-105, with a median of 10.
While many raiders do some PvP, they do a small amount of those.
Of the 58 raiders 55 answered the 5th question about current interest in doing more PvP. 45 (82%) said they wanted to do more PvP and 10 (18%) said they did not. The reasons are summed up in the graph below : 
Current barriers to PvP show more diversity than premades alone
The higher participation of <Friends> members may be due to the fact that I am in their guild. The lower participation of <Onslaught> members may be due to the fact I selected raiders from their guild doing a Molten Core run, during which many use alts instead of main characters. It is possible that such was also the case with <Arcanite Circle> members but I do not have information confirming this possibility. Many players answered "a couple", "many", "few" or such to the question about their battlegrounds per week and thus couldn't be considered. Admittedly the NA sample is quite small and may be harder to generalize.

There may have been some confusion with the second question (raidlogging mostly for raids) or mistakes made by the participants as two players answered yes but then also said they did battlegrounds in amounts greater than all other raiders did (105 and 70 BG per week respectively).

The current data shows that while a substantial portion of raiders raidlog (37%), the majority does not (63%). Half of the raiders (51%) already participate in organized battlegrounds, although they seem to do a small amount of those (10 BG median per week with population size = 17). A great majority of raiders are interested in doing more PvP (82%). The most frequent barriers involve premades (17%), lack of time and queue time (16%), other interests (14%), not enough players (9%), lack of gear (7%), not enough PvP at NA times (6%) and lack of diversity in BG and groups (6%). Interestingly 14% of the players said they did not encounter barriers preventing them from doing PvP.

Thus it can be said that a) raiders are interested in doing more PvP, b) raiders already participate in PvP in moderate amounts, c) many raiders can do PvP without issues, d) raiders in general do not raidlog and e) 7 main barriers prevent raiders from doing more PvP.

Future discussions should focus on bringing those barriers down with either community actions or moderator / gamemaster actions if the goal is to make the raiders do more PvP to solve the battleground shortcoming issue.

[See other articles about Vanilla] 

jeudi 26 novembre 2015

Ormlock's dreadsteed

Cheers to Ormlock and his new dreadsteed ! :D

A dreadsteed summoning soon incoming

I really need to think of a different strategy than "wait and hope healer keeps me alive" for this fight...

Here comes a new warlock to the dreadsteed-club! Hurray!

mercredi 25 novembre 2015

8th november 2015 - The end of a tier - Facing Nefarian (part 4, finale)

This is the last part of my experience on a vanilla server of Blackwing Lair, facing the last two bosses, Chrommagus and Nefarian. See [Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3].

5th try on Nefarian

Drakonids die as expected, mind-controlled are taken care of, no one dies in the breath, class calls are dealt with, skeletons spawn and the raid gets overwhelmed again. It is a wipe. Our tries being quite consistently getting up to 20% leaders decide to go to Orgrimmar, get the Dragonslayer buff and come again. Thus Ogrimmar portals are summoned, players make a circle in front of the bank to increase the chances of getting the buff and then we all use our hearthstones to Kargath and summon the missing few. We run back as a raid, hoping that no one will die in a stupid way.

Running back (different raid)
Killing respawns, rebuffing, setting groups again, summoning again. Some players logout to keep some duration on their flasks only to relog right before the try.

6th try

We make it again past the drakonids and on Nefarian. No one has died. His health slowly goes down with all mechanics being dealt with, fear wards are used on the tank at the right times, priests stop healing on class calls, etc. At 25% health, an officer calls for people to slow dps and wait for the next class call. 23%, the class call affects warriors and increases their damage taken, leaders ask to keep waiting and stop the dps. 21%, shaman class call, officers decide it is better to kill all those totems and not do damage, wait for the next call. 21%, warrior class call again, officers shout again not to do any damage, to use bandage or do something else by all costs. ... And no one, no one dealt damage to Nefarian. Must I repeat it? NO ONE! That must be the very first and unique time I have EVER seen 39 players correctly coordinating and NOT doing damage for over a minute during a boss fight. I even had the opportunity to dance and take a screenshot of it. My guildmates are incredible!

Raiders not doing damage for a minute : A dream come true!
Here shown : A warlock raider doing his job perfectly during an end-boss fight
20%, class call again with infernals raining down on us and exploding seconds later. Skeletons spawn and start running at the raid. Mages try to kite them, frost traps are triggered, holy waters and grenades can be seen flying all over the place again and again. There is shouting on TS about using everything we have got. Some casters get aggro and die swiftly due to the group from the right not being crowd-controlled at all. I try to use Rain of fire wisely and stay far away from the undeads at all times but I also get aggro and no amount of running saves me. I can see that only a couple skeletons are still up, but many have died. The dead try to cheer the others, you can do it! You can do it! And the chaos ends. About 19 of our members have died.

Bagdemagus's video shows very well what a mess this phase can be
The fight goes on. While the damage has slowed down most healers are still alive and kicking, they alternate and try to keep the most mana possible. But the greatest danger is now passed and a couple minutes later Nefarian dies with 21 raiders are standing. Yeeeaaahhaaaah! We did it! "It was intense" some say on TS. Messages are sent on guildchat, the world chat, the guild message is changed. Many congratulate us.

Tier done! Great job from everyone!
To make it even better I get the Nemesis robe from Nefarian. While a small upgrade it has the benefit of telling everyone that sees you what you have accomplished. That was a great night! A night where progress happens, where motivation is in everyone and big dragons die! Thank you Kronos for making it possible :)

mardi 24 novembre 2015

Who are the vanilla wow players on Kronos (2) Jakeltank

This is the second part of a multi-part blog serie dedicated to discovering the Kronos players, especially those that maybe would not come on the forums and talk about their experiences. See [part 1 - Tekai] [Part 3 - Cruelfate]. I'm very grateful to Jakeltank for accepting to answer my questions, thank you Jakeltank!

What is your current character and talents? Why did you decide on those ?

My current character is Jakeltank, a level 45 protection orc warrior in the guild <Myrmidon>. I chose this specialisation because I like to tank. I know it is a unusual combination to use for leveling but I love having my shield around and playing like this.

Jakeltank's current armory, getting close to max alchemy

Is this character an alt? Do you have alts ? Can you tell me more about them ?

This is my main. I have a level 18 mage but I switched to this warrior because there weren't enough tanks. Indeed, I couldn't get a tank for the wailing caverns and I noticed other groups had the same problem so I decided I might as well help solve the problem leveling a tank.

Could you tell me a bit more about you? (who's behind this character, your mmo experience, what you feel relevant, etc)

I am a MMO-player, I tried out Guild Wars, Rift, Warhammer but nothing beat vanilla wow, even if Rift does get quite close. I used to play on vanilla right before BWL was released, and then on WOTLK which was pretty bad. In some way I am a casual raider, I just enjoy UBRS, LBRS, Stratholme and PUG raids.
 
What made you decide on this server? How did you find out about it ?

I posted a comment on a youtube video about Warcraft and someone recommended this server. I got all nostalgic listening to the login music and decided to give it a go.

What are your current short-term (days/weeks) and long-term (months) objectives in-game?

Long term I want to reach level 60 and start collecting T0.5. In the short-term I do not know... Maybe having some good time ? :)

What do you login for? Or the last time you logged on, what did you do?

The last time I logged on I did Zul'Farrak. It took us some time to find a healer and the run went well. I have to say I am surprised how well the stairs event worked, it is very well scripted.

What was the hardest thing you've had to do on this server? Can you be specific ?

The hardest thing I have had to do was earning enough money for my mount, I tried selling my alchemy potions but they did not sell well, some agility potions even did not sell at all.

Did something make you wish to quit or switch server?

Nothing made me want to switch server. I did consider taking a break due to IRL matters.

What were the last sad and happy moments you've had in-game? (positive or negative experiences)

My last negative experience was when I suddenly realized I was low level compared to my guildmates and I couldn't join their dungeon runs. The most recent good moment was when I found a very cheap recipe for Elixir of giants on the auction house, I am sure it will be of use later.

What was the best moment you've had so far on the server? Can you be specific ?

My best moment was when I first joined this vanilla server after all those years. I felt so nostalgic. And then when I researched some cool recipes on the databases only to grind them, buy them or find them later, and grind the reagents until they drop.

Here we are at the last question : Would you like to add something?

I don't want to add anything.

lundi 23 novembre 2015

Kronos comic 1


[archives] [next >] [last >>]

If you want to know more about what those comics are, here is the introduction. The Kronos comics are also on Facebook here (this way you can easily check for updates) and the main forum thread to discuss them is here.

I also write some blogposts about my experiences and thoughts on Kronos, a vanilla wow server here.

I wish you a good adventure through my drawings and I hope you have a good time!

Cheers,

Tekai

The Kronos comics have now moved to Comicfury. Indeed this webpage host allows me much more freedom in the layout and pages of the comics. This also means going from one to another gets easier, I can make a favicon, play around with chapters and such and I can finally implement that random-page tool! :D

Note that a couple older drawings I hadn't yet shared were added to Comicfury when I moved.

dimanche 22 novembre 2015

8th november 2015 - The end of a tier – Facing Nefarian (part 3)

[Part 1] [Part 2] As we stood on the terrace an officer started explaining the strategy : We would separate in two groups with an equal amount of melee dps on each one and casters would go to the side they are most useful once the drakonid's resistances would be known. Then those without an Onyxia cloak would have to hide behind the throne until Nefarian has breathed, warlocks would stand out from the raid, casters would have to outrange the fears, melee would focus on occasionnal totems and hunters had to fix their weapon-switch macros. Meanwhile a different officer proposed to give out Onyxia cloaks to those that didn't have any. From what I could understand those cloaks had been stored for this very precise occasion and some had been recently bought from other guilds on the server as team effort. I didn't have one and I felt healers and tanks should have priority (especially because I didn't participate much in making them), but even with all my pleading I ended up with one. Damn, my guildmates are way too good with me, I'm not sure I deserve all of this. The raid was now prepared.

1st try

Drakonids start appearing, melee adjust their placement, the ranged dps go to each side they are best on. I notice a couple mind-controlled mates running from one side to another only to then get sheeped in place. Then a warlock standing in the middle of a ranged group gets mind-controlled. Hellfire follows hellfire and hellfire, it is too late when he gets stunned, most healers on our side and some dps are already gone. The drakonids aren't killed fast enough, tanks die, the raid wipes.

I am not dead, I am studying the strategy

I have to say it is incredible to have warlock soulstones and shamans in a raid, it saves such a huge amount of running back time. Still, Nefarian is on a 15 minute timer so we make a pause. ... And wait. ... And wait some more. The mood is good, people are motivated. Rebuffing.

2nd try

Reminding warlocks to stay somewhat farther from other players and mages to sheep faster. Drakonids spawn, the raid dps is not good enough and they overwhelm us, wipe again. 15 minutes to wait, rebuffing etc.

3rd try

Slight changes with the dps on each side. The drakonids spawn, they get killed on time, mind-controlled players are quickly taken care of. The first phase is set. Nefarian lands and breathes fire, killing an unlucky priest. Rovlin attracts him to the pre-set location (where Schnittel's imp is standing still) and gets some aggro while we move to our spots. Damage starts. I stand too much on the side of Nefarian, close to the bones and get hit twice with Tail Swipes which makes me move a little to my right. Doubtful about the infernals damage when they spawn I don't dare go closer to healers or other players. Leaders keep announcing future fears and class calls, reminding everyone about what to do. Infernals spawn twice (that's a lot of infernals with 4 warlocks), dealing weak damage and cause no problems. I do end up having some issues with mana but it gets fixed when a shaman asks me to stand closer to another warlock and benefit from chain heals. Totems get killed on time, polymorphs are dispelled, things go fine.

Dangerous place to stay at, don't do that

... That is, until the skeletons spawn at 20%. While tanks try to stack, slow and get aggro on them, they spread out, hit players standing too close when hit with frost nova, burst me and the mages trying to kite them with Blizzards and wreak havoc on the raid. All our Stratholme holy water unfortunately don't change the outcome, we wipe. There is some talk about the skeletons having spawned twice while rebuffing, but no one is too sure. Officers suggest getting the Onyxia buff to make it through this phase, others want to try again. 15 minute sure is long when you have not much to do.

Skeletons zerg aftermath

4th try

Drakonids spawn, a tank gets mind-controlled, a couple melee dps in his group die due to aggro, it is decided to wipe the try. And wait 15 minutes a-gain. See [Part 4 - Finale]

mercredi 18 novembre 2015

8th november 2015 - The end of a tier – Reaching Nefarian (part 2)

[Part 1] It was 20:30 and I could hear my guildmates on TS and Rovlin's reassuring leading voice. I was waiting in Orgrimmar while my guild was raiding BWL, hoping for a spot that I could fill because I came in late. From what I could understand they were preparing for Chrommagus, making some adjustements with the hunter's macros and a try was on its way. It seemed like we had got a slightly harder breath combination this week and more tries might be needed. This piece of information gave me some hope as the longer they stay on Chrommagus the greater the probability that some will end up leaving.

Waiting in Orgrimmar...On a different day.

I could feel that I was quite nervous, missing out on Nefarian would be such a big loss for me... Realistically I still couldn't tell if I would be able to make it as sometimes no raider leaves during a whole run, and even if someone had to leave there were a couple other trials that could come too. Doing something else like a dungeon could have helped me get some distraction and not think too much about the raid... -But wait, I thought. If someone leaves soon, wouldn't they prefer the player that will come in the shortest amount of time?

That seemed quite probable indeed and it could have given me a better chance to get in the raid! So I used my hearthstone, got the flightpath to the Thorium Brotherhood outpost, crossed the Blackrock mountains gate (hearing that my guildmates were distributing the sands), hid for a short time to let a human priest move past me and ran towards the UBRS entrance only to catch <Friends> making positive comments about their progress on Chrommy. As I got on the UBRS balcony Chrommagus hit the ground... And there seemed to already be someone that would have to leave! Great, here was my opportunity! I immediately said on guildchat that I would like to come and seconds later the invite was here! Woohoo!

Luckily for me all the guards leading to BWL had been cleared not too long ago so I could access it easily. Thinking it would be good manners to show some effort I started running towards the Nefarian room. That was quite a bad idea as some adds had respawned and I didn't notice them which resulted in a dead Tekai getting whispered by a priest in the raid why I did not ask for a summon. Well, I had forgot that we could do that (shame on me, as a warlock even I have this spell ><).

... After a bit of ghost walk I finally got a summon. The loading screen faded, players started appearing. I was there. Ready to face Nefarian on his golden throne.

Welcome! I've got some inferno left for you, my friends.
[Part 3] [Part 4]

jeudi 12 novembre 2015

8th november 2015 - The end of a tier – Will Nefarian fall? (part 1)

That night I wanted to raid. I knew the guild was already 6/8 in BWL from thursday's raid. That meant Chrommagus was next and we had already killed him once, so it was fairly probable that he would die again. … That would mean the first night on Nefarian, the current tier's last boss. I can't miss that, I'm a raider, some would say it's in my blood, my flesh. I have to fight him, and I know the first kill is not anything like other kills. It matters.

Obviously I dreaded having to come at 20:00 ST when the raiding starts at 19:30 ST (most of the time I can't come earlier because of social reasons, they've been kind enough to accept me nevertheless). That's 30 minutes of every raid that I miss. 30 more reasons to be benched and replaced by some other random warlock, or worst (mages, I am looking at you, you dps monsters). That's also no dragonslayer buff for me and 30 minutes during which any boss can die. Including perhaps Nefarian. What do I know? Maybe he's not as strong as they say. I can't tell until I've got some tries on him.

Chrommy hit the ground last week, what tells me he won't this one?

Well guess what? Family members ended up coming later, things got delayed and at 20:20 I would still have been busy had I not decided to abruptly leave (I dislike doing that, but I dislike more making 39 players wait on someone). Luckily I was prepared with Teamspeak (TS) on and the game already launched, my required consumables in the bags, standing in Orgrimmar with a ready hearthstone set to Kargath (thank god, I kept forgetting to set it there during the first 2 raids and felt ashamed of it). Alas, the raid slots were filled. 

No Nefarian for me, let's go sleep and end of the story? Nope, not my style, I decided to go ahead and wait, hoping for the best and listening to their progress on TS. Honestly, it could have been a really crappy idea if they had come to Nefarian and killed it without me. 

But that night would not be the night where I would feel left out. [Part 2]

samedi 7 novembre 2015

Who are the vanilla wow players on Kronos? (1) Tekai

After playing for some time on Kronos I've been pondering about its population, who are they? Why did they come here? What makes them stay? I've decided to ask them in-game about that. But first, lets begin with me to show the way. See [part 2 : Jakeltank].

What is your current character and talents?
Tekai, undead MD/ruin warlock level 60.

Is this character an alt?
No, Tekai's my main. I do have a bank alt and a hunter alt.

Could you tell me a bit more about you?
I'm a 23 years old nursing student from Switzerland with a background in computer science, marketing and multimedia. I love going outside, wandering in the forest or running alongside rivers, reading scientific articles about health/science/video games and drawing short stories.

What made you decide on this server?
As I've said in Vanilla Journey I wanted to finish leveling to 60 on a vanilla server, experience how it was back then and try out raids. To make that possible I needed a server where boss mechanics and scripts work well and Kronos focused on that. It also had enough guilds to support raiding which was a good point. But what made up my mind was reading a bloggers journey.

What are your current short-term and long-term objectives?
 In the short-term I'd like to kill Nefarian with <Friends>, attune for Naxxramas, get friendly reputation with the Thorium Brotherhood and make a world PvP video (if the PvP isn't good then my bottom-low skills in PvP will make up for the entertainment). In the long-term I'd like to level another character to 60 and record all low-level dungeons, maybe try some other role like healing, then down ZG/AQ/Naxx.

What do you login for?
I mostly login to make mooncloth and sell arcanite CDs so I can fuel my raid needs. Sometimes I run a dungeon for gear (now I'm only missing a staff from UBRS, so I expect to play less). Otherwise I login to farm thorium reputation, Argent Dawn reputation or to make some gold, open random chests or track Alliance player to hunt.

What was the hardest thing you've had to do on this server?
So far it must have been to find out a guild that raided at the right time. I had a lot of trouble with that as most guilds start raiding at 19:00 ST when the earliest I can get tends to be 20:00 ST. If I could freely decide on the raiding times I'd start past 21:00 CET. Otherwise getting my dreadsteed mount required me to farm Dire Maul for many hours, but that wasn't so hard as it was boring.

Did something make you wish to quit or switch server?
Leveling had me wanting to quit many times. Grinding for gold made me want to quit too. And not finding a raiding guild also made me consider quiting. Now I feel that maybe killing the last current boss may make me go back to retail until the next tier opens up, I can't tell for sure.

What was the last sad and happy moments you've had?
I did a Stratholme live side run and the (admiteddly very tired) healer rolled need on Diana's pearl necklace, which was the only item I needed in the dungeon. He wanted it for PvP and didn't know I needed it, he then apologized for his mistake but I was quite exasperated by it (I know I can be incredibly unlucky sometimes and have to run content too much to get nothing). As for the happy moment, well one hour later I ran the same dungeon with the same rogue I had done it before and I got the necklace haha :D

What was the best moment you've had so far on the server?
The best moment was when I was with <Friends> and we killed Chrommagus together, I just love the feeling of raid progression, the shouting on guild chat and world chat, taking screenshots while roaring in front of a big dead bad guy, people happy on Teamspeak ^^

Chrommagus hits the ground!
[See other articles about Vanilla]

jeudi 5 novembre 2015

Raid preparation in vanilla wow

There is this idea about vanilla wow raiding that :
You spend hours preparing for raids, farming consumables, resistance potions, etc
Well, for most bosses up to BWL there are no dps checks or enrages (the closest to that is adds spawning or Vael's debuff), meaning as long as you bring enough healers, avoid unecessary damage and have decent tanks you'll live. On our first Ebonroc kill all dps ranged died after less than 2 minutes of fight yet Ebonroc still fell on the ground 7 minutes later, with rogues doing most of the job. And at this point you can survive in Molten Core without fire resistance gear if you're not a tank.

Wing buffet aggro reset in our face

Let's go by the book, assuming you follow guides the standard raid preparation for a warlock is like that (average AH costs on Kronos, november 2015 in parentheses) :

Elixir or shadow power / Arcane elixir 5x (2g per unit on AH)
Flask of supreme power 1x (45g AH)
Major mana potion 5x (2g AH)
Major healing potion 5x (1g AH)
Heavy runecloth bandage 20x (2g per stack AH)
Greater fire protection potion 5x (1g AH)
Wizard oil 1x (4g AH)
Gold for repairs (5g)
Soul shards 32x

And if you're going for max possible consumables and buffs as a warlock you might think about :

Rallying cry of the dragonslayer
Warchief's Blessing
Songflower Serenade
Food buffs / Lung Juice cocktail / Cerebral cortex compound
Juju guile/Juju Ember
Sayge's Dark Fortune of Damage
Slip'kik's Savvy
Major Troll's Blood Potion, Free Action Potion, Restorative Potion


Waiting for raid buff

Considering I raid 2x/week, that means I need about (20+90+20+10+4+10+8+10 = 172 gold) per week. Now, I am in a guild that doesn't wipe much, as such I use very few of my consumables each raid. Maybe only 3 elixir, 1 major mana potion (Life Tap is good enough), 1 major healing potion (death coil, bandages or a healthstone does the job), 5 bandages, 20 soulshards and 2 fire protection potions. That reduces the cost by (8+16+8+3+6 = 41g), so those days I need (172-41 = 131g) per week. I'm getting all my consumables from the auction house.

I'm also a tailor and an alchemist, which allows me to sell mooncloth (15g, 2g to pay for the felcloth) every 4 days (13/4=3.25g/day) and arcanite CD (5g) every 2 days (5/2=2.5g/day). This is a reliable method, it takes a very short amount of time and ends up giving me (5.75*7= 40g) per week. Roughly.

I farm the soulshards either during the raid or right near the entrance, killing the Searing gorge spiders. That is about 15 seconds per spider, or 8 minutes for 32 shards. But I could also get them while doing dungeon runs or farming. It is not because I'm having fun that I can't prepare for raids at the same time.

If I have to get some gold I tend to go to Arathi Highlands and farm the fire elementals for elemental fires (1g per unit on AH) at late hours where there is few competition. It takes me 3 minutes to kill all of them, I get 3x elemental fires on average and then I have to wait 10 minutes for respawn, so it is 18g/hour. It might seem low but if I consider only played time then it is 1g/minute or 60g/hour which is plenty and there is no risk of dying, no special attention required, low effort.

Elementals dot-farming
Realistically flasks are not needed per se for raiding (not enforced by guilds, bosses die without those) and most dps players don't use them, so you could reduce my weekly spendings by 90g (131-90 = 41g). That is well within what I can get in less than an hour with my professions.

So, does raiding in vanilla require hours of preparation (for consumables & buffs) ? Well, unless you have already got a lot of gold (baron AH), if you're a tank, if you wipe a lot, if you don't have money-making professions and if you want to be a dps prepared to the teeth, yes. But if you are an average dps raider in a good guild with alch/tailoring and don't want to make the extra mile, you could not farm at all (or less than an hour per week) and still raid fine.

It may be somewhat different once we hit ZG/AQ/Naxx and have to get more resistance gear, buy attunements, etc. I'm not convinced because we have plenty of time to prepare and we know what we need, but we'll see. For further posts about raiding see [Facing Nefarian in BWL].

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mardi 3 novembre 2015

Vanilla socialization & social recognition

Socialization between horde and alliance were a lot better because bgs were fights among players from same server only so high ranked ppl knew each other. Also we knew what guild had the server first or second or third boss kill without the need of achievements broadcasted server wide and we knew who had a legendary weapon and they weren't many, they were max 4-5 ppl in the entire server but this depends on servers guild raid progress.  Link
I wouldn't be able to tell whether the socialization between different factions is better or not on Kronos. There's definitely competition about raid server-firsts between factions and there's a big competition about who gets to be warlord (with some vocal folks on the forums). Some Horde PvP players like their Alliance counterparts and duel them in videos, others hate them to the point of collecting screenshots of all the times they /spit on eachother. There are players offering gold to camp or kill some players.
Helping out a warrior get his BWL attunement. Before his friend killed me.
Overall it's mixed. I have seen both Alliance and Horde raids stopping players from entering UBRS, BWL and MC (admittedly in a disorganized fashion, and I guess it was mostly for fun). But I've also seen Alliance players /bow in front of us, and giving us greetings as we entered raids. Now, players do know eachother quite well (Samsara, Myntone, Quasar, Nedstark & Lazeh are known ranked PvP players on both sides) to the point that some battlegrounds are avoided because they are in them. Guilds have far ranged reputation (just like on retail, think Paragon & Method = Synced, Arcanum & Agony). And legendary carriers get recognised easily, especially when sitting/showing off in Orgrimmar (I know of only one, Nerfmeh, who's got Thunderfury).
Alliance wiping a Horde Azuregos raid at 12% hp
Conclusion
Horde & Alliance players know eachother well. They interact frequently, sometimes in a friendly manner, sometimes not. Best ranked PvP players are well known, just as the best guilds and players that have legendaries. Reputation matters and is server-wide.

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Addons on vanilla wow

As a frame of reference, I'd like to pick some points made on the mmo-champion forums about vanilla wow to explain what my personal experience is on Kronos (focusing on raids and raiding) and how it differs from the original vanilla experience. I've currently done all dungeons including UBRS, done Onyxia, MC and 7/8 BWL.
Add-ons..wtf is that? you played with skill and not some add-on carrying you
Link
I've been playing with over 15 addons and I know most other players on the server (or at least in my guild) do just as much. Some are for comodity purposes, like Titan panel to know how many bagslots I have, what the coordinates are and if my armor's broken, TNE_Nightfall to have a more visual effect on Nightfall procs, SellValue so I know what the items on by bags are worth and if I should keep them, QuestLevel to know whether it's a good idea or not to give a quest a try, Lern2spell to add the highest rank of a spell on my action bar and so on. There are addons that I would consider as required, such as TitanClock since back in 1.12.1 you can't get to see what hour it is without alt-tab and EzDismount to instantly dismount when you're trying to cast something while on your mount (or you'd get stuck and nothing happens). Any serious warlock that wants to raid will have a threat meter like KLHThreatMeter (otherwise nothing tells you if you'll get aggro or not, you can hope all you want that your tanks are golden but you'll still aggro), a bossmod with timers like Bigwigs and a damage meter like SW_Stats (arguably I could raid without). 
That small box to the lower-left? Likely the one thing I pay the most attention to.
The truth is that skill doesn't matter much to my job on a raidboss. All I have to do is to cast a curse and then cast shadowbolts until oom at which point I'll go with Life Tap. Maybe sometimes I have to run in/out (Chromaggus, Razorgore, Firemaw), follow a boss (Onyxia flying), run away from other players (Vaelastrasz, Baron Geddon), switch to an add (Garr, Gehennas, Ragnaros) or switch spells (Chromagus vulnerability to fire) but rarely are there two of those things to do at once. The hardest taks is probably to do some damage and not overaggro. But then I have to agree, addons do make some bosses much easier like Chrommagus (tells you when Frenzy is incoming, when he'll breathe), Firemaw (Wing buffets timers, Flame Buffet timer) and Vaelastrasz (Burning player marked). If you don't have a threatmeter you have no chance at raiding. Still, they won't do the job for you.

To conclude I would say that most players have addons. Some are pretty much needed but most aren't. They do make a difference and make encounters easier. They can't kill a boss for you or do your rotation, you still have to play and look a bit. Skill does matter but the amount required is quite low. 
Chromaggus in a nutshell : Summon felhunter on passive + Dispell, hide before the breaths, cast a scorch and attack with the wand once after a vulnerability, if it's fire go with Immolate > Searing Pain, if its shadow then CoA > Shadowbolt > Death coil before breath. If it's another vulnerability then attack with wands or /dance.

A story that begins at the end

The journey started in August 2015 with a young warlock named Tekai.

I chose an undead warlock for a couple of reasons :
  • a) I have never played warlocks beyond level 20, this way everything will be new to me
  • b) I didn't want too much responsibility being tank/healer when I don't know much about the vanilla gameplay, especially the end-game
  • c) Warlocks can summon other players and thus reduce the amount of time waiting before dungeons or raids
  • d) There aren't many warlocks on the server and they have a good chance of being invited in raids (healthstones, imp, soulstone, summons) and
  • e) I have good memories of the undead starting area (even if running back and forth wasn't incredible)
In all honesty I cannot remember the date I created Tekai anymore (my first screenshot being of the 28th August at level 14 in Ragefire Chasm) , I didn't think I would go far at all back then.
My very first screenshot of Tekai and very first dungeon. It's quite practical that any warrior can tank at such level, makes for easier groups.
In all honesty I thought I would end up leaving before level 50. But I didn't. Sadly I didn't think about writing about the leveling. Let's say that there were good times (level 40, hunting the Alliance on Stranglethorn Vale, farming elite trolls in the Hinterlands while joking) and bad times (lack of quests on some levels, constant running back and forth between continents, lack of abilities before level 30, low-level dungeons taking hours, huge strenght gaps between monsters).
Finally level 60! Serious stuff incoming.
Overall I think I had a lot of fun and a lot of very repetitive, boring times, with the fun times being more memorable. It took me 7 days, 6 hours and 17 minutes without using Joana's guide to level to 60 and I dinged on the 13th of September 2015.

Yarr! Serious content ahead!

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