I didn’t really mention it before, but I figured I’d go ahead and outline some guild-related changes that my characters have undergone in the past few months.

Mage, Hunter, Priest Make A Move

I’ve been raiding with a decent group since the beginning of January, and finally decided to make the official guild change-over on my raiding toon, the 70 Frost Mage, on February 21.

As for the rest, I moved my 70 Hunter over shortly afterwards and a few days later, brought the 51 Priest/Jewelcrafter over, but have left my “parked” 61 Warrior in my social/levelling guild along with my 58 Rogue, 30 Druid and a bank toon.

Why The Switch?

There’s many reasons why I made the switch with my best-geared toon… the new guild is larger, more active, and since they are raiding regularly at the 25-man level (currently working on Al’ar), there are more players who are geared for heroics. The first day I was guilded, we went through 4 Heroics!

So, my badge count has gone through the roof, and my need to turn to the LFG line has toned way down. Most of the time I don’t even have to look around for a party, because the limited times I’m available to run something, there’s a guild group forming, and they love my Magely skills! It’s awesome.

And as a bonus, because I had been raiding with these guys for nearly 2 months already, I only stayed as an “initiate” in the guild a couple of days - until I could get to the next 25-man raid at which point, at the end of another great raiding night, I was promoted to Member by the GM/RL and received many nice comments and welcomes from everyone present.

Oh, and I moved the Hunter across because our guild is actually LOW on quality Hunters - recruits with attitudes as big as their DPS (and we all know some Hunters can dish out the major DPS) have come and gone, and a lot of our members are on casual raiding schedules, only making 1 or 2 on a week that they can actually make it to any. So, I brought my keyed-but-not-really-geared-for-Karazhan Hunter across and have been on 4 or so Karazhan runs so far, after the Mage is already locked out with a different group.

And the Priest, I moved mainly because she’s now a 375 Jewelcrafter with a mess of rare gem cuts, and I felt the raiding guild environment could make better use of that Professional skill than a social/levelling guild with less than a handful of people who pay enough attention to their characters to even gem up.

What About The Old Guild?

One of my old guildmates applied to the same raiding guild I’m in, and was accepted, and he occasionally attends raids when his schedule permits, but I haven’t had a real chance to talk to him lately since my gaming schedule has been strained for time.

As for the rest of the folks, I still have some of my characters in that guild, and since I log into my bank toon every day, I tend to still chat with the folks and see how they’re doing. I’ve also continued to trade favors with friends from the old guild, running through their lowbies in exchange for BRD run-throughs for my 50s Priest and the occasional rest-bonus-burnoff run for my 30 Druid.

And of course, some of us hung out on Ventrilo while we played, and I still do that regularly.

Was The Move A Good One?

In short, yes it was definitely a good one. I was getting frustrated with having to turn to strangers in the LFG line all the time, and doing a /who [guildname] to find folks from that guild I had been raiding with for two months. My levelling guild was indeed just a social/levelling guild and had no aspirations towards organized recruitment or coordinated efforts except on rare occasions (ie: 1-3 guildie dungeon runs a week, most below Outland level), and I really did want to do more, experience more, challenge myself more.

Of course, I wouldn’t have made the switch if this new guild didn’t also show some very good qualities in terms of behavior during raids, dealing with mouthy players, having equipment requirements, encouraging each individual to do their best to help the team, scheduling raids on a website with sign-ups… all sorts of great things. Sure, there’s some crap that goes on too, and it’s clear the GM/RL is a key part to holding the guild together cohesively, but all in all, I’ve really enjoyed the environment and lucky been able to remain distant from any potential drama.

I am quite surprised I was able to find a cool raiding guild like this so soon… Before Christmas I went on a couple of Karazhan raids with an ex-guildie’s raiding guild only to find that the ranged DPS tended to attack from up-close (and subsequently die a lot), that the Raid Leader swore in all-caps on the Raid line (I don’t recall him freaking on Vent tho) when yet another wipe occurred, and that I was the top damage of all three mages despite only being at +450 frost damage and them being better-geared. When I wasn’t re-invited to their raid groups, I wasn’t disappointed. I kind of expected to run into more of those before I hit the guild I’m now raiding with!

Tags: casual raiding guild, good raid leaders, heroics dungeons, heroics pugs, how to find a raid guild, jewelcrafting, joining a raiding guild, karazhan, level 70 hunter gear, level 70 mage gear, LFG tool, LFM Tool, pick up group, pugging, pugging strategy, raiding as a mage, raiding frost mage, raiding hunter, should i leave my guild, warcraft raiding, world of warcraft, wowgrrl

Both my Priest (disc/holy) and Rogue (combat/swords spec) are now in their 50s and advancing through Azeroth dungeons.

I mainly PUG with them both, using the LFG tool or LFG line as my resource, and on occasion I’ll get into a party that needs another person, and I’ll be able to ask a guildmate to come along. Most times, however, my guildmates aren’t of the correct level range or are working on something else, so I just LFG it and end up in a party with near-complete strangers.

I do find that I run into the same people more and more now that I’ve progressed past level 45 or so - there’s a lot of us “alts” being levelled up at a slower, more relaxed pace, especially through the 40s and 50s.

Which Toon Gets Parties More Often?

I thought for sure that my Priest would outlevel my Rogue just because of the constant demand for healers and less constant demand for DPS in groups. So far, this hasn’t been the case, however - if I just relax and go with the parties that are forming when I have time to commit to them, I’m finding that I’m burning off both my Priest and Rogue’s rest bonus pretty much equally, and they’re staying about the same distance away in terms of levels.

I wonder if this will change once I hit Outland?

Hard To Find Sunken Temple and Blackrock Depths Groups?

I find watching the LFG channel to be very interesting, whether or not I’m able to commit to joining a party destined for some particular instance or not.

Some nights it’s like all the Tanks have gone on strike, but the next night, or in an hour, it will seem like the Healers thought this was a good idea. Then sometimes everyone’s looking for CC/DPS. And of course, whether people are looking for members for Outland instances or Azeroth instances is another factor that waxes and wanes, too.

Since I’m really just advancing my lowbie toons in a “let’s spend your rest bonus” way, going without a dungeon on them for week or more generally isn’t a big deal. On the weekend (if Real Life doesn’t interfere) I can be assured to find at least one party for each of them, and with the recent gear changes and dungeon nerfings in Patch 2.3, most parties that wouldn’t have had a snowball’s chance in hell a year ago are quite able to handle themselves without constant deaths.

That being said, I haven’t joined a level-appropriate PUG for Stratholme or Scholomance with either of these toons - the one time I DID go into Strat, we had a level 66 healer and only two of us were under 60 and still wearing Azeroth gear. I think those instances might still provide a decent challenge for those who wish to go in with an at-level team.

Gear Collection From PUGs

One of the great things about how I’m advancing these toons is that now, at this level, I’m able to go into dungeons that drop gear I’ll be able to wear in a level or two, instead of only dropping gear that is 3+ levels below me already. I was able to gather things for my healer from Maraudon and Sunken Temple a level or three before I could use them, and I’ve just begun running Blackrock Depths which promises to have gear to hold me through until I can put on a set of Outland Greens I buy from the Auction House in preparation for my 57th or 58th level.

Gah, I remember the days when Blackrock Depths was a sizable enough transition from Sunken Temple’s level of difficulty that I started to require proper diversity in the guild groups I was leading, since going in with four hunters and a healer wasn’t near as viable anymore (none of us hunters were particularly skilled, including myself). Now, it’s just another dungeon to progress through, except it’s huge and has a billion bosses to drop loot, and doesn’t make sense to players who forget there used to be 40-man raid instances that BRD and the likes served as training grounds for.

I’m looking forward to hitting Outland with these two toons, but haven’t figured out how exactly I’m going to level them - dungeons only, still, like they’ve been doing since mid-30’s? Or will I actually QUEST with them??!

Investing In Professions

Level 50 is always a great level for my lowbies - it means they can finally do something with their professions again and actually get some kind of levelling credit for it.

My Rogue is an Engineer with a minor in Mining, and was stuck at 300 Engineering since before he hit level 40, so I spent a bit of time advancing up skills based on the Thorium I had gathered while levelling my Mining to Outland-ready levels. I got high enough to use the Field Repair Bot 110G (325) and lucked into buying a couple stacks of 5 repair bots for a total of 10g. Then, I continued to advance Engineering so I could make some Crashin' Thrashin' Robots for those nights that my guildmates field a partial PUG and want to have some fun.

My Priest is a Tailor/Jewelcrafter and was locked at 300 for those for quite a while, also. I’ve actually had a ball advancing her Jewelcrafting from 300 to 340 or so because I was able to use a bit of cash and a lot of prospecting to fund the journey without it costing an arm and a leg! I’ll write about that one in a different entry, however.

So, now my toons are around 350 in their professions, and I will continue to create things out of materials I happen to have laying around, but largely I’ll go back to not worrying about their professions until they start getting to a level where they can get some of the Bind on Pickup recipes that drop during dungeon runs.

Good thing, too, because I have two toons coming up to the point of needing Epic Land riding training (150) right away!

Tags: Auction House, azeroth, blackrock depths, Dungeons, epic land training, field repair bot, field repair bot 110g, healing in dungeons, holy priest, how to find a pug, instances, jewelcrafter, jewelcrafting, LFG, LFG tool, LFM, LFM Tool, maraudon, pick up group, priest, PUG, pugging, repair bot, rogue, scholomance, spirit healer, stratholme, sunken temple, tailor, tailoring, temple of atal'hakkar, thrallmar reputation guide, tips and tricks, warcraft screenshots, wow pics