LOL You almost made it. At least we finished the fight, right? :P - Hookuh Tinypants

I was getting kinda punchy by the time we got to Brann. Quite possibly if I had been more awake, we would have succeeded. - G Dub of the Carolinas

No, honestly, there's no way we could have. You guys need more upgraded gear on you before we can try that one again. Like I said last night, you need to focus on the preliminary heroics first to get your badge gear up before you move on to the more difficult ones. H HoS is too beefy of a heroic for this particular group. - Hookuh Tinypants

You really need to start out with UK, Nexus, VH, and CoS on heavy rotation. THEN move on to UP, DTK, and Gundrak. And THEN move up to AN, OK, HoS, HoL. I would not recommend Oc at all unless everyone has been doing their Wyrmrest dailies so they're familiar with drake mount fighting. - Hookuh Tinypants

Right now, Vic's health is too low, Sean's spell power is too low, and your DPS is too low to be able to work together in H HoS. If you each ran it with a more powerful group, you'd be fine. Vic did well when I brought in a bunch of OP people to finish off the Tribunal and the last boss. He just got horsekicked by the laser beam. - Hookuh Tinypants

On a related note, looking at all of your gear, there is a marked lack of enchantments that could be very beneficial to all of you. Just because something is a blue or green doesn't mean it shouldn't get an enchant. Especially when you have an end-game enchanter at your disposal (me). If you're not sure what should be enchanted or what to enchant with, check yourself on WoW-Heroes. It will give you recommendations for what enchant - Hookuh Tinypants

I also see several empty sockets. You should always gem up your sockets, even if you have to go with a less expensive one that you can afford. Don't pass up the opportunity for additions to stats. If you're a blacksmith, you can add sockets to some of your items. You should do so. If you're a jewelcrafter, you can craft JC-only gems. Do it. And share between your professions. If you can craft an item for someone that is wayyyyy beneficial to them, then do it. LW's, BS's, and Tailors, I'm looking at you. - Hookuh Tinypants

I thought I had started ok on gems and enchants I need better chest, hands and weapons. Since you seem to have time on your hands, why don't you compile a list of some gear I should try to acquire. :D - G Dub of the Carolinas

Or how about this? How about y'all just keep bashing your head against the Tribunal wall while I move on to other things? I could have spent several hours working on my research paper last night instead of acquiring a 60g total repair bill, using three Flasks of Endless Rage, and dropping 7 fish feasts. I don't expect gratitude. That's not why I do this. I like running with you guys. But I'm not about to give you a helpful assessment and be met with snark. I have better things to do with my time. kthxbai. - Hookuh Tinypants

Woah woah whoa. I was kidding. Not trying to be snarky at all. Sorry :( - G Dub of the Carolinas

Kiss and make up, guys? Group hug? Yeah, we're sadly undergeared for that fight and definitely need more purples. I've been scouring Google for recommended gear to be ready for heroics. Here are a couple for DPS DKs: http://dancing-rune.blogspot.com/2008... and http://zerozephr.livejournal.com/213922... - Victor Ganata

And thanks for the assessment, Amanda. It's good to know the specific reasons why we kept eating shit and dying. Gear is a lot easier to upgrade than skill :D Still, I think I've probably gotten as far as I can get with gear I can buy without dumping thousands of GPs into the AH for crafted purples. I really need to start picking up badge gear and/or leveling my BS skill. - Victor Ganata

One thing to keep in mind is that when you run with a group that's mostly overgeared (which is the case with most pugs), heroics should only take about a half-hour. You can run one or two heroics a night and get a really nice bump in your rep grinding, a few badges, experience, and possibly a few blues that should save you some time. I think waiting for DYSP-only runs, if you're interested in getting geared, is doing you guys a disservice. - Mark Trapp

And yeah, even when running with OP groups, HoS Tribunal is still a pain in the butt. The first successful one I did we only won by dumb luck: we wiped 3 seconds before the event ended, so we got credit. The second one was only because the healer, the tank, and a DPS were in full TotC 25 gear. When I pug heroics, I try to stick with the easy fast ones: Gundrak, Violet Hold, Culling of Stratholme, and Utgarde Keep. - Mark Trapp

I dunno, I see it as free advice you don't have to take. You always have the option to leave the group if someone's being a real prick or never grouping with that person again. What do you care what a stranger thinks of how you play? You're there to get loot from them, so joke's on them. For DYSP runs though, I think we just need to run things that aren't HoS tribunal for a while: we were mostly fine on the first two bosses, the only negative was that we were taking a relatively long time between pulls, but that's probably one of the best problems to have if you're going to have a problem. - Mark Trapp

Actually it's better for them to run it as a guild because if they continue to rely on OP people carrying them through runs, they will never improve as players. It's not just about how much shit you can pile up on your character, it's about actually LEARNING SOMETHING. Last night was the first time I've EVER failed Tribunal, and I've actually run it with gear-appropriate groups before. So it's not THAT difficult. It just requires that everyone work together as a team. That was another failure last night, but I'm not going to open that can of worms because it's not going to be nice. - Hookuh Tinypants

We had problems on EVERY boss. And we lagged between pulls because Sean was having to mana up a lot. Just because we survived a fight doesn't mean we did it well. It means we were fucking LUCKY. - Hookuh Tinypants

If the purpose of the game, and the guild, is to have fun, I don't know what the value of doing things like this are if everyone's going to get upset with each other about how a run went. Let's do stuff that doesn't result in a nasty thread like this being created. - Mark Trapp

Sean - I was speaking of one person specifically, not the entire group as a whole. We'll discuss offline if you need more information. I was already done with this thread hours ago but came back because I think advising you to just run with OP groups so you can gear up is a poor attitude to have; I don't want to see you guys getting in that rut. It makes for shitty team players and you're better than that. - Hookuh Tinypants

Well, let's get it out in the open. There were 5 people in the group, and obviously you or Sean aren't the person you're referring to. If it was Victor, I doubt you'd have finished the run later with him. So either it's me or Gunny, and I really don't think you have a problem with Gunny. So what's your problem? What did I do that has you railing about how awful last night was? - Mark Trapp

My problem? Well really, it seems that I *am* the problem. So what I'm going to do now is unsub from this group and when I get home, I will pull my toons from the guild. My presence has created a disharmony and it's better for y'all if I stepped completely away. I apologize if I've ruined anyone's gameplay. It was not my intention. I just wanted to help and apparently every time I do that, I just piss you all off even more. So. I'm outtie. - Hookuh Tinypants

Come on, don't do that (if you haven't done it already). I've lurked in this group and it seemed to me you all got along more than you fought. Wouldn't it be better if you folks got together in vent or ingame and just talk things over? - Arlan K.

Re-reading the top... badge gear farming is nice, but really right now, that's trying to jump a step. Prior to the whole easy conquest badge farming, you only could farm heroism badges in heroics. That's pretty much gear before doing Naxx hardcore (just about Naxx 10-man). The gear progression should be instance/quest > rep/crafted purples > heroics/badge gear > fracking raiding mutha-@#$. In the same vein, the instance progression should be similar. Better gear doesn't just mean badge runs. If you don't have current gear to help keep heroic farming smooth then there's a disconnect. Also, part of the gear progression was helping folks to really learn the instances' boss fights because got-dayam they get harder in heroics (I'm looking at you Loken!). Don't try to rush to purples, guys. Take the time to learn to be a team, know each others playstyles and know what abilities you have that can help the group. Counter point to not rushing to purples, you folks can get good stuff from the Argent Tournament. DK/Ret you got Claymore of the Prophet. Tanks have that axe. Healers have either dagger or sword. The best part is you just invest in time to earn Champion rank and you'll get 25 seals for that first time, which is enough to get your specific weapon (gg fury warriors lol :/). Pally healers have access to a decent crafted shield. Sword+Board tanks also have a decent crafted shield. I don't know about priests, or cloth in general but I'll assume they get some nice stuff. - Arlan K.

You're right Arlan, but I'd argue that running heroics is the fastest way to gain rep (when compared to daily quests). When you can get ~1500-2000 rep from one heroic run vs. 750/day of rep for Wyrmrest, I don't think it's a bad idea to run a heroic with overpowered pugs to get what you need to run what you want. I thought last night was purely a gear issue, and to me, getting gear is a relatively straightforward problem to solve; pugging can be a fast way to solve that, but I do get the dislike of running pugs. So, if pugs aren't an option, heroics might be a far off goal while everyone gets rep gear the long way (through dailies), or we could try easier heroics that I think are well within our reach. I really don't think we did that bad last night. - Mark Trapp

Looking at the almighty Gear Score as a benchmark, I have one of 3217 which is BARELY acceptable for 10 man Naxx. I picked up a couple of pieces from the article Vic linked. Thanks Vic. - G Dub of the Carolinas

Hmm. What are you using to calculate Gear Score? - Victor Ganata

I've found most people refer to the wow-heroes.com instead of the AddOn, which uses a different formula. It looks like yours is 1367 (url: http://wow-heroes.com/index...). Just adding enchants should bump that up a hundred points or so. - Mark Trapp

*sigh* I thought The add on made me sound pretty dang good :( - G Dub of the Carolinas

Well, you have a lot of room on your enchants :) - Victor Ganata

Mark: I agree too. Rep grinding can be fast in heroics. But yes, "lower level" heroics would probably be better to tackle right now. When you start doing stuff like HoS, HoL, UK, things can get hairy if you don't have the basic gear for the difficulty. Unfortunately, I can't remember if doing HoS on regular will give you rep (I'm thinking only level 80 instances gives rep without it being heroic). - Arlan K.

finding enchanters who will do stuff for me NAO without Mats is the challenge :D - G Dub of the Carolinas

Regular HoS won't (although regular HoL will.) To be sure, when we tried running H UK without anyone who was overgeared, it was kind of a struggle, although it was gratifying to make improvements and slowly get through it after each wipe. I don't think we'll be running H HoS any time soon without any overpowered assistance. - Victor Ganata

I've been buying scrolls from the AH mostly. And then there are the enchants you can get from different factions after you grind enough rep. This is probably a lot easier than trying to get mats when you can't DE things. - Victor Ganata

These tips will probably be old news, but if not, cool beans. Ret Pally: 1) Repentance when you can and HoJ mobs. In a learning group, every bit of cc is helpful, 2) Use instant FoL on the tank or healer if the pally's own hp is ok, 3) BoP people if they're in trouble, 4) Save LoH for tank in really hard boss fights. DK: 1) Strangulate and Mind Freeze caster mobs to help mitigate damage, even DG can help a bit, 2) Use Army of the Dead to mitigate damage and boost dps, 3) If things get a little hairy for the tank, pop Frost Aura and off tank a little to help out. If you get a Hunter or Mage in the group, chain trapping and chain polymorph can help a lot. CC may be dead in WotLK but that doesn't mean you can't use it to help even things out when you don't have the gear. - Arlan K.

wait I can BUY enchants on teh AH? - G Dub of the Carolinas

You folks use raid icons to set primary and secondary targets? Can also use other icons to designate CC. For tanks, an alternative to enchants are armor patches. heavy borean kits give +18 stamina. Provided the tank already has head, shoulder and leg enchants, you can still get a 54 sta boost. - Arlan K.

As you solo, you should be getting a few green items. Besides selling them, give 'em to an enchanter friend to DE. And yeah, you can usually find scrolls with enchants in the AH. - Arlan K.

wow-loot.com shows you some gear you can get before raiding. I thought I saw this posted earlier but wow-gem.com is great for picking gems. - Arlan K.

I've added some enchants. I feel a little better about myself now - G Dub of the Carolinas

on a related note, did a 7 minute H UK today... crazy - mjc

http://rawr.codeplex.com/ should help you figure out what gear/spec/enchants/gems to shoot for - mjc

Up to 1411 :) - G Dub of the Carolinas

Yeah, I'd like to check Rawr out, but Mono doesn't work on Snow Leopard yet. - Victor Ganata

Hmm I DID just install VMWare fusion and windows 7 today I'll have to give rawr a look. - G Dub of the Carolinas

@Gunny it's not the most intuitive app, but it works. basically you want to make sure to put at least a gem and item enhancement in any place you can do so (don't tell rawr you want to enchant your rings if you're not an enchanter, for example), set filters to only instances/crafting/tokens you can get without much effort (perhaps don't include triumph gear if you don't do raids regularly) and run the optimizer. select "build gear list" for feasible gear upgrades, or select "optimize" to get ideas about the best enchants/gems/etc. in the main window it will also suggest how you should play (for me, it says I should keep 3 lifeblooms up on the tank very slowly, and I can heal for 224 sec before going OOM) - mjc

Can't get it to run in VM Ware - G Dub of the Carolinas