Cataclysm to date: a recap

With 4.2 on the horizon, many people are looking forward to new content, items, etc.  Raiders are reading up on strategies and planning which loot to go after first while casuals are calculating how long it will take to earn enough marks to progress through the new Daily zone.  Both are incredibly important for success in 4.2 and beyond, however as history would indicate, we cannot move on to the future without taking a look at our past or how we actually got to this point.

Flashback to December ’10 /January ’11…

I was the first to hit level 85 in my guild.  This was not necessarily important to me, it was just something that sort of happened… but it gave me my first look into the new world of cataclysm dungeons, justice/valor points, and reputations.  The one thing that stood out for me as a Resto Shaman was that healing was hard.  Hard may even be unfair of me to say… I should really say that it was challenging.  I can recall countless wipes in Halls of Orginiation, Stonecore, and the like.  While these were not pleasant times, they brought the game back to a new level.  It was a level where gear was not just handed out, but earned.  Not a single heroic, at the time, dropped any loot over iLvl 346.

Heroic Beginnings...

As I rounded out my heroic set, the hardcore raiders out there were clearing raid content like it was nothing.  My guild finally decided to step up to the plate and take on Magmaw 25 on January 4th, 2011, decidedly later than most guilds.  The main reason for this was that we decided to lay a couple ground rules for our raiders:

• Must have appropriate reputation with all applicable factions for Shoulder/Head enchants
• Must utilize all perks from two crafting professions
• Must have an average iLvl of 345
• Must bring food/flasks

While some of this may seem excessive for early content, the fact remained that we only at exactly 6 hours per week to get anywhere.  When you factor in time spent developing our strategy after each wipe, a break here and there, and the occasional DC, this really ends up being more like 5 hours a week.  My guild is full of mature, dedicated raiders who enjoy the game but have real life obligations as well.  I can tell you that it as a challenge in itself to meet our high standards at the beginning for most, but we pulled through and in our first month, reeked some havoc.

Magmaw & Omnotron DS

Keeping the ball rolling…

Raiding, healing, and everything in general gets easier as we progress, however it is difficult to rely on the RNG for loot when you are pressed for time as it is.  As we all ensured to do our daily heroics everyday for valor points, we also scraped up gold and materials as a guild to ensure our weaker raiders were getting crafted epics and everyone in general had the best enchants and gems for their gear.  This was the only way to keep our competitive edge (and my competitive I mean with our own expectations).  Eventually, we managed to clear all Normal content by early May.  Speed is never our aim nor our goal.  It is about efficiency and getting the job done.  There were weeks that we would need to extend raid ID’s just to get a few extra cracks in on Nefarion and while some lost out on loot that week, it became worth it for all of us to see all that the current content had to offer.

Defender of a Shattered World... finally

The present and beyond…

As the current patch winds down and talk of 4.2 escalates, we continue to farm what is left of BWD and BOT in hopes of getting people their 4piece sets before engaging the Firelands.  While this patch is ending, new beginnings await us and the same expectations set in the beginning of the expansion still apply.  Everyone will be expected to utilize the new daily system to obtain better gear and simply bring their best game to the table during our 6 hours of raiding each week.

One of the issues with the current content and that I am seeing with 4.2 is that once again there are so many items you can purchase with Valor, yet not enough valor to go around, and stringent caps to boot.  Early on, I would start with the cheapest items for the sake of raising iLvl, however I plan on taking up a new strategy this patch.  5 weeks of capped valor points will give me enough to purchase all three valor tier set pieces.  From there it will be based on what I need or didn’t have drop in a raid.

Overall, I am looking forward to once again balancing a hectic progression raid with my real life, all while grinding valor, reputation, and having a good time.  Please leave your thoughts or comments and be sure to follow me on twitter for the latest updates!  Stay tuned!