My ISP Won't Let Me Raid

Well 25 man content at least. It has now been 3 weeks without a decent enough Internet connection to be able to raid 25 man content, my search for a new ISP has ended, but the pain and suffering caused to me so far has been immense and I hope to have it all sorted, in another week as finally TalkTalk have  accepted that it is not my PC or router at fault and are sending BT Openreach to investigate a possible line fault.

So during this time I have not gained any fresh kills, although Immersion have now killed the Blood Princes HC, good job guys only 5 more to go then Arthas HC! Its been really painful for me as for the best part of  4 years I have had almost 99% attendance for raid nights, infact I have probably missed as many this past 3 weeks as I have (holidays excepted) ever. Hmm maybe I need to get out more. But my raiding needs have been fed from doing the 10 man content with All about Beer and we have made some progress there as we are now 11/12 with only the Lich King left to kill before we embark on 10 man HC.

WoW on a Poor Connection.

I have been suffering a really dodgy connection from my ISP lately, my download is all of 130Kb, which is about 15% of my normal speed. But it has made me appreciate how bad your connection can be ansd how tolerant WoW actually is of this.

Sure it has meant that I am unable to raid ICC on 25 man because even with all the settings to minimum the data flow coming from the servers creates about 1000ms of lag which is just plain bad for attempting complicated fights requiring quick get out of the fire type reactions or the hard mode fights. Dalaran too is a complete nightmare, but you guys already knew that I'm sure.

The State of Raiding

In vanilla/classic WoW raiders were hard core players and the game was like a ladder you had to climb step-by-step to get to the top. Getting to 60 was a really epic journey and that took time and people learned their class and how to play the game generally. Once at 60 you farmed the 60 dungeons including Upper Blackrock Spire a 15 (and later 10) man raid zone that had no reset (ie it was like a normal 5 man dungeon) for blue gear that was capable of getting you into Molten Core and not getting your ass handed to you on a plate. There were armor sets for each class too. Once you started raiding there was a clearly defined progress path that really could not be fast tracked. 

The loot was relatively closely itemised so while upgrades for all were available in the latest and greatest there was also upgrades for people in the next tier down. This meant that there was variety in what you were doing each raid and if you had a new recruit who needed gear you were running content that would get them their raid gear.

Right Here Right Now

I have decided that the time to get actually posting regularly is now, well to be honest, I was poked and prodded and I really was slacking. Trying to get motivated to write about stuff that happened in the past and making it accurate, coherent and relevant was a lot harder than I expected.

Anyways, as things stand now, I am raiding at the top end of the chasing pack, my 25 man guild, Immersion are currently doing hardmodes in ICC 25 mode bosses  which is an OK place to be. I'm with a few friends that I have raided with since MC, Malicus (the pally formerly known as Regaal), Rixxor and Piteq its strange how some folks just can't get rid of me!