Paragon Q&A - We Answered

WHERE ARE THE VIDEOS??

rinku: "they are actually under progress and I believe some are already published."

What has happened to Paragon, especially after clearing DS?

rinku: "It's been quiet. We've been focusing on raiding as little as possible, but still raiding. Plenty of people took few weeks completely off from WoW after the progress. By now most are back and we starting to prepare for the pandas. And getting site up and running again, and some kill videos done and and and.."

During Tier 11 I remember you talking about how Blizzard changed the encounter during your progress on Sinestra. With that tier so far behind us, I figured it'd be safe to ask if you could elaborate as to what you were doing on the encounter? What were the mechanics that Blizzard had to implement or fix to force you to come up with completely new strategies?

Editors comment: no-one really remembered so ill just translate/cut the crap from the irc chat about the matter.

• 14:21 <@arx> The last change they did that they changed the whelps so they couldn't be slowed or rooted
• 14:21 <@arx> In the first incarnation the p2 dragonkin adds could be rooted by casting through the firewall. Then they changed it and then only spamming hibernate worked (they came through the wall but didn't have time to cast).
• 14:22 <@arx> Then they changed it so that they cast something uninterruptable everytime there was someone in melee range.
• 14:22 <@arx> So in the beginning we had melees on eggs and casters kept handling the adds. The firewalls near the eggs were going on/off between fixes.
• 14:41 <@DiamondTear> Sinestras aggro was changed to proximity aggro, which broke the flamewalls at the eggs
• 14:50 < xenophics>So at first we kited the adds (whelps) with FoK and moonkins were rooting adds through the firewall. Then mages started kiting with frost novas and moonkins hibernate spammed the dragonkin adds.
• 14:50 < xenophics>And then the proximity aggro change came and made the firewalls on eggs bug. And then hibernate stopped working, but gouge started working so we swapped melee and ranged. Then the whelp slows stopped working completely.

Is there lot of pressure on the players during progress?

fragi: "I suppose it depends on the individual, I don't feel that much pressure and based on my gut feeling that's also the case for most of our members."

And whats up with Arx stopped playing or? I heard Arx state before that many of the members of Paragon only continue playing the game because they are number 1, now that that has changed are more members going to pursue other interests outside of WoW or does this tier make everyone want to stay and put in more work for Mists of Pandaria?

Arx: "I haven't quit WoW. I haven't been on every raid either though -outside progress I have to let some real-life obligations have precedence, so that I can devote 100% of my time to WoW during it. The intent behind what I said back then is that many members play for the competition. If our level dropped so much that we couldn't compete for #1 anymore, I wouldn't be terribly interested in devoting as much time to the game as I do now. However, our current ranking and delay in kills has nothing do with a drop in ability, and everything to do with an 8-day suspension. It's clear that we would have been able to at least compete for #1, if not reach it, so I doubt the competitive players are too bruised by the results of this tier."

fragi, rakez, ilo and arx

What's the impact of Paragon in your social life?

Ilo: "as long as you clear your schedule during progress its negative effects are quite minimal. And on the positive side its fun to get together with the guild few times a year. "

How does it feel to be like celebrities, having your accomplishments and conquests being watched by thousands of players all around the world?

Ilo: "awesome."

Ussos: "couldn't care less."

How much time does raiding take during progress?

rinku: "all of it. For example: the Wednesday our 8d bans were lifted we woke up 5:20am to do half an hour raid before server maintenance and as soon as it ended we woke everyone up again to finish the raid, thus managing to finish one full normal 25man clear for the "ban reset" - shiny 10 minutes before raid lockouts reset. Sadly EU servers were unplayable for most of the day, but our raid day didn't end till 3 to 4 am. "

So, who has quit since t13? Anyone because of the "LFR ban"?

rinku: "gone are: Jubeto, Cevi, Lazeil, Yuzka.

However, none have quit because of "LFR ban" -- it was inconvenient to get banned, but we always knew there was a risk. "

 

What was the main reason "Nize" quit?

Nize: "got bored with the game after 6 years + studies :p"

If lazeil has stopped playing, who will take over his role as a tank?

rinku: "Our new tank Fraggoros (fragi)"

How long is military service in Finland? As I understand that is where Jubeto has gone for the time being.

rinku: "6 to 12 months depending on your luck. To be more precise Jubeto ain't in army yet, but will be when next progress begins. "

How did you get interested in hardcore raiding?

Ussos: "It just happened. I was in Sauna before Paragon and when Sauna disbanded baltha came to ask if I was willing to come play with Knockout's core. Here we are."

What advice would you give to a player that wants to start with hardcore raiding?

Jhazrun: "Don't do it. -_-"

How do you become a "good player"?

Xenophics: "There is no magical way to become good at anything. It's all about spending time working hard and learning from your mistakes. I guess this question could be rephrased as "how to become good as fast as possible?".

If you have just started playing World of Warcraft the most important thing is to get yourself a good foundation to start learning things efficiently: have the right addons, key bindings, and UI so you can focus on the most important - playing your class. Learn the basics of your role and your class. There are several websites with "quick guides" to gearing, gemming, spec, and rotations. Join a guild as good as possible and do your best in it. If you want to get to the pinnacle of raiding, don't be afraid to change guilds when you feel like the old one has nothing to offer you. Just remember to let your old guild know about your thoughts and give them enough time to replace you before leaving.

Compare yourself to others as much as possible. Is there someone or WOL with the same gear as you and better dps? Find out what he is doing differently. Watch videos from other guilds and check out their tactics, and most important figure out why they have chosen them. Don't take anything for grated, but try to come out with better ways to do things.

What makes one a great player is that he knows what's going on in the whole fight. For instance, it's important to melee to know what kind of healing is required so that they can assist healers as much as possible. A guild is really playing well together when someone makes a mistake and others can compensate for it. Always strive to be the player who compensates for other's mistakes, but doesn't make any themselves."

Who is Jhazrun's favourite pony?

Jhazrun: "Pinkamena"

What is the worst boss you've ever done?

Ilo: "Atramedes."

Ussos: "Ragna phase 4 because of its rng."

Will we ever see any PVP footage from you guys?

lappe: "sure, if you give me a better pc and internet."

Hows SW:TOR and how many of you play it?

Rakez: "leveling was fun, but we didn't have enough people to start raiding. Around 10 people bought the game."

Ilo: "I played for 2 weeks, crap game."

lappe: "deleted already. it was really bad, just a copy of vanilla wow with extra cut scenes during leveling."

 

   The sex of your new players?

   rinku: "One (1) of them is a gurl."

Any plans to find another Healing Priest?

Baltha: "When MoP beta comes out, we will have a better view what our healing roster should look like in tier14. So no plans atm."

Why you need to have to be the best raider in your guild to join?

Baltha: "We don't require you to be 'the best' raider of your guild, just one of the best raiders. Plain and simple, why would we recruit someone who hasn't been among the best even in his previous guild?"

Will Kahva ever get a playmate or is he to remain a lonely Shaman.

Baltha: "Kahva is forever alone"

Whats going on in the guild really? I saw a few days ago Sejta had left Paragon and figured out that he changed server to Ravencrest aswell as Lappé and maybe some more of you, why that? And now atleast Sejta is back in Paragon? Im getting confused.

Baltha: "We're bad boys like Exodus, just wanted to cause some forum drama...just kidding, we're all back now, so you can prolly figure it out yourself."

I understand that paragon am a full Finnish guild and that the Recruitment is open atm but surely there people out there i play wow to a high level and would love the opportunity to join the ranks of paragon will is ever change ur will paragon allways but a full finnish guild?

Baltha: "Very, very unlikely we would ever become international...if I got your question right."

You know that countless of people watch you and check your characters in the armory so they can optimize their gear accordingly. Why do you keep "trolling" everyone by: a. making 2guilds (Paragon and DREAM), b. having wrong specs/gear/reforges

Diivil: "We don't constantly "troll" the armory. The only times some of the members mess around are after first kills to not give any information. Knowing that something works VS suspecting that it might work makes all the difference in progress raiding. If you know for a certain what setups, special gear or talents another guild used then getting your own kill will be easier. We sometimes simply take the opportunity to throw people off. Strictly copying from someone's armory is really not a good idea because you don't know the what they have been doing anyway. I might be affliction spec with mastery reforges because I just did a raid as demonology but went to dailies with affliction spec (I don't do dailies but you get the idea). Most of us use elitistjerks.com as their primary source of theorycrafting. If you simply want to copy a Paragon member then at least post on the forums and ask why they have a particular spec or reforge if it's not standard. 2 guilds were made simply because we had no idea when guild name change would become available."

xenophics: When we got DREAM as a sponsor we agreed to change our guild name to DREAM Paragon. Back then there was no guild rename service so we had to level a new guild from scratch while waiting and hoping that the service would hit before Dragon Soul. That was when we had 2 guilds.

top tank class

Do you feel that all classes are good enough to do 8/8HM or is class stacking still helping?

Diivil: "Certain classes are always better in special situations than others but after the recent nerfs all classes are good enough. Class stacking is obviously always helpful but that doesn't mean it's required and it has most effect during progress raids anyway when you have to get the absolutely best performance out of the raid."

Did you ever feel that DK tanks were stronger on some encounters in Dragon Soul? I've heard a lot of people saying that on certain fights (Yor'sahj 10m heroic for example) that a DK tank just makes things so much easier that it's silly not to take one.

Seita: "First 6 bosses are so easy it really doesn't make a difference which class tanks them. I would consider DKs to be good for 2 encounters: they have the best cooldowns for Yorsahj and on Madness they can stack shield for impale + AMS works for bloods and terrors. On Spine DK is okay if you are only tanking one Amalgation at a time, otherwise they are probably the worst tanks for Spine."

What's your view on the best tank class for HM, especially with 4T13 bonuses?

Seita: "Overall, druids are the best tanks for all 8 encounters and they also have the best 4 piece tier bonus."

How do you expect Death Knight to perform in DPS in the upcoming expansion?

tuutti: "no expectations, no disappointments."

Only 2 DKs vs 4 warriors in the roster: is something wrong with DKs for DS HM?

tuutti: "DKs were one of the worst classes in DS."

TotalBiscuit & Verdisha @ Assembly Summer 2011

What does Deva think of Spine of Deathwing from hunter POV, was it really necessary to leave hunter out of the first kill, or could hunter have been used there as no 25man guild has done this fight with the using hunters.

deva: "I was there on spine couple of tries trying to carry my own weight, sadly it never happened, because hunters aren't that burst heavy damage and pet kept despawning all the time so basically thats just -4k~ dps on tendon. Burning Tendon damage was all that mattered, there is no way hunter can compete against aracane mages and sublety rogues in 23 second burst (or overall damage). On other fights i got spot with BM spec so i could bring 3% damage, but in this fight there was plenty of arcane mages to go around so i didn't really bring anything to the table so it was nessecary that i passed my spot to better class. Remember folks bring the player not the class. In first kill there is no reason to bring hunter in raid, because it is just making things harder and it was DAMN tight DPS race and you could not afford to bring weak class in there."

To Kruf and Devai, how has the hunter class changed this tier in terms of relevance to progression and now, farms?

deva: "I think that hunters should have been buffed from the start, everybody knows that hunters doesn't scale that good with gear and all the melees got 10% AP buff including rogues and warriors who was already doing insane damage. And all the casters in our raidcomp got legendaries. Blizzard overlooked hunters cause they were strong on t11 and they weregood in t12(but not strong), and they actually tought that hunters could magically do fine in this instance too while buffing other classes, well they were wrong. If you have checked worldoflogs you know hunter wasn't that strong in the end of firelands and i dont see any reason why they didn't buff hunters too... This tier was only time i felt that i didn't want to play my hunter at all, because i felt like i wasn't carrying my weight and that gives me feeling that i just wanna vomit. The beginning of the "farm" of Dragonsoul i actually tought just quiting cause my class was absolutely shit and it wasn't fun to play at all, but then 1 month late my prayers were answered and we got buffed. Was actually fun to play on first farm raid after buffs cause i could actually compete on dps!!"

For which fights do your hunts use BM (if any)?

rinku: "All fights Iiris is slacking from (except spine) will have one BM hunter. Our mages prefer to stay fire."

How would Wakoz sum up this patch for warriors?

Wakoz: "Nothing much changed except the spec you need to play, which is arms. Warriors are very competitive once you get some gear."

How much cola did Verdisha stack before progress and does he still have the cans/bottles at home?

Verdisha: "10 bottles, obviously didnt last till the end of progress, and no, dont have them at home anymore:P"