This is a whining post. If that bugs you, feel free to move on to read something else. I hear there’s lots of stuff on the web to read. Maybe you’ll find something you like better.
Our raid team went up against Warmaster Blackhorn Friday and Saturday night. We cleared the bosses before him in about two hours, so we were able to spend one hour on him on Friday and all of Saturday on him. We didn’t get him down. We never came particularly close, only twice getting to the point where Blackhorn himself was on the boat, and never dropping him below 60%.
Blackhorn is a frustrating fight because there is always something you could have done better. Maybe you could have blocked one more Twilight Barrage. Maybe you could have cast more living bombs on the Dreadblades and the Slayers. Maybe you could have gotten on the drakes faster. It’s a very hectic fight and it’s one that leaves me constantly thinking I’m getting only 75-80% of it right.
In any case, at the end of Saturday night’s raid, the GM left us with the thought that we just didn’t have the gear for the encounter, and had to do a better job gearing up. She instructed us to run LFR before our raid nights, instructed people to run LFR, get their valor tokens, get valor gear, and gear up.
This frustrates the hell out of me.
Here are the item levels of our dps (using Ani and not G because G doesn’t seem to want to raid any more):
- Rogue: 392
- Feral Druid: 394
- Frost Death Knight: 395
- Anivile: 388
- Me: 385
Yep, that’s me, bringing up the rear. Why am I bringing up the rear? Because I cannot get gear for the life of me.
Remember my post on White Whales, when I was thrilled to get the Variable Pulse Lightning Capacitor? That was over two months ago, and I actually started getting into the mindset of raiding regularly after that. How many pieces of gear have I won from raiding regular raids since then? Take a guess before you read on.
Ready?
Zero.
Nada.
Zilch.
Zed.
Nil.
I have busted my butt getting Saxsy geared up since that time, but it’s been all valor points and justice points and LFR and five mans. I have one piece of gear that one of our raiders graciously gave me, the tier headpiece from Ragnaros. But for that, I have not gotten any gear from the Firelands runs nor have I gotten any from our Dragon Soul raids. My amulet, cloak, boots, wand, and first ring are from valor points and are all of the best-in-slot-for-non-heroics valor gear there is. Any further valor gear would theoretically be replaced with a Dragon Soul drop, if I can ever get one. My bracers are the best in slot crafted ones. Saxsy has gotten five drops from LFR, two of which she can’t use yet because it doesn’t make sense to break my 2 piece T12 without replacing it with 4 piece T13. I have spent over sixty thousand gold gearing Saxsy up, and that does not include gemming it or enchanting it (and my gear is fully gemmed and enchanted).
That’s not to say that nothing has ever dropped from Dragon Soul. But those drops have been rare.
The shoulders off of Morchok (the only item off of him I would consider using) have dropped once. I lost the roll. They would be replaced by tier anyway.
The belt off Zon’ozz has never dropped. Nor has the proper tier glove token. The wand has dropped three times now, though. The first time, I lost the roll for it. The second and third times I had the valor wand (which is better) so I didn’t bother rolling.
The trinket off of Yor’sahj has never dropped, nor has the proper tier leg token.
Neither the ring nor the staff has ever dropped from Hagara. The bracers have dropped at least twice now, but they’re inferior to the cloth bracers I spent a total of 48 thousand gold to get. The shoulder token has dropped once, but I lost the roll.
The chest token has dropped once from Ultraxion. I lost the roll.
The shared loot trinket dropped once. I let Ani have it because it was a much bigger upgrade for her.
And that’s it. You will note from the list above that every single one of our dps is on the same Vanquisher token, which makes the lack of drops of it very frustrating; every drop is but a one in six chance to win and there have been two drops so far. Meanwhile, our backup warrior tank has (I think) three pieces of 397 tier because he gets a token all to himself.
I try to push out my dps as best as possible, but as our group concluded, we just don’t have the gear for Blackhorn. And for whatever reason, I just cannot get gear. It’s been three weeks in LFR since Saxsy has gotten gear (she got beat out for the second best trinket last night by a warlock scrub who was doing half her damage and was probably just spamming shadow bolt).
And now we’re getting nerfed.
Look, I can trounce LFR. I am regularly top dps on fights within the LFR. But in our ten mans, I am usually third or fourth. This nerf promises to drop my dps by about 5%, or around 1500 dps on Ultraxion (for instance). I am falling further behind, and I just cannot get gear.
I know I said a few weeks back that gear would come. I’m not so sure anymore.
Saxsy:
Jana:
Traxy: