How to Date women (WoW-style)

In this vein I would like to thank my best friend Uum for providing the technical details on how to successfully approach the dating instance. Be forewarned, this guide is meant for a casual dating style prevalent in the collegiate environment, please refer to other guides for the more formal requirements found in the Heroic post-grad level.(btw, any and all sweeping generalizations we make concerning the female sex are made out of chauvinistic ignorance and latent misogynistic tendencies. We apologize in advance for any offense we give.)

Gearing up for the Instance

Before you start your attempt at this encounter, you need to be properly equipped so you don't wipe in the first five minutes. Here is a brief list of gear that you will need to collect before starting your run.

Gear
Chest - Simple Tee Shirt/Polo Shirt (depending upon the mob you are trying to solo)
obtainable from a specialty goods vendor

Legs - Jeans/Khakis (either can fit this slot well)
obtainable from a specialty goods vendor

Feet - Nice shoes (preferably Chucks!! Feel free to coordinate shirt with shoes)
obtainable from a specialty goods vendor

Trinket – Barman’s Trophy (or equivalent)
drops during the pick up instance

Buffs
Clean Cut (received from a nice haircut/facial hair trim)

Just cleaned (is received after taking a shower)

Old Spice/Axe Effect (purchased at a general goods vendor)

Just Paid (This is probably the most important buff you will need, and is received after having the job instance on farm status)

How to Solo Dating (regular level)

The first dating instance we will describe is the first stage dating or "regular level." These are the early dates before the Heroic level "Steady" dating. This type of dating is very gear dependent, unlike the Heroic level which is based more upon the player's skill level. In the regular level dating, it is imperative that all your gear is repaired and at maximum durability, anything less than your best will result in a massive decrease in rep with the mob's faction. Furthermore, for this level of dating, a mount is a must, (preferably an epic) make sure it is fairly nice looking and clean. Additionally some players may feel the need to pimp out their epic mount; we feel that this is allowable, as long as the player shows some restraint in the pimping process.

The Pull

Once the player has the appropriate gear and buffs applied, he needs to mount up and head to the entrance of the instance. There he will experience one of two different scenarios once zoning in, either the primary target mob will be in aggro range immediately, or some trash mobs will be between her and the player. If there are trash mobs involved, the player needs to use his linguistic skills to dps them down quickly (at this point amateur rogues may have to resist the urge to blind/vanish). This is where the first three buffs start to come into play; they will help in gaining/holding the aggro without causing the mob(s) to try and crit you with dps. Once the trash mobs are out of the way, you can now focus your attacks on the primary target. This is accomplished via porting her to a pre-determined eating establishment. Note that this eating establishment must be at least dine-in quality to successfully keep aggro on the mob. (btw, McDonald's or a similar establishment will quickly cause your rep with her faction to drop quickly, sometimes to unfriendly if not hated.) Once in the restaurant, the player must continue to hold aggro via his linguistic capabilites, with the occasional aggro generation of alcohol thrown in. Of course this is the first stage where the Just Paid buff comes into play since the player should be paying for the consumables used throughout this instance.

Pulling Continued

After a certain amount of time the mob will lose the "interest" buff with the restaurant instance, and will build up a resistance to the player's linguistic capabilities. Around this time it is essential to pull the mob to the next area of instance, the park, the pool-hall, or in our case, the theater. For our strategy we chose the theater because it is a good place for players unfamiliar with the run to learn some other aggro generation techniques other than taunt. Techniques which include non-verbal methods such as direct-contact, facial expressions, and emotes. In the theater environment you will have about 1.5 to 2.5 hours where the mob's aggro is no longer entirely the player's responsibility. However this does no mean that the player should stop tanking, instead they should focus on other means of holding aggro, such as strategically placing consumables such as popcorn/soda in such a way that physical contact is made whenever she attempts to use the items.(her hand brushing yours, etc.) Depending upon the success of the run to that time, you may be able to initiate further physical contact such as putting your arm around her shoulder. Depending upon the class that is soloing this instance, this maneuver can either be very difficult or extremely easy. For a rogue/hunter/druid, this should be a simple matter. However for the rest of the classes, it will require a very good run up to this point to be able to pull this off. If this move can be pulled off, the player's rep will drastically increase. During this part of the run once again it is critical that the player still has the Just Paid buff on since he needs it to purchase not only the keys to this section of the instance, but the consumables used there as well.

As an aside, concerning the choice of movie, deciding what to see is a critical decision that must be made before pulling the mob into the theater part of the instance. Of course we are all aware that certain movies are definitely off limits for the dating encounter, (I.E. Casino Royale, 300, things of that nature.) however even limiting ourselves to movies that do not fall into this category leaves us with several options that could potentially wipe the attempt. The general attitude of the mob plays an important role in determining which movie is right for your run, but most women enjoy two types of movies, the emote (lots of emotion and dialogue, heavy on plot less so on action) and the funny animated movie (Shrek, Finding Nemo, etc.). Therefore before you attempt the theater part of the pull, plan which movie is appropriate, not only to decrease the amount of dps you need to put out to hold aggro, but also one that you can survive the "bored" debuff through. I have seen some men crit with this debuff, and never fully recover. Trust me when I say, it is not pretty!

Last 20%

The last 20% is a critical time in all our lives, it is the time that we feel we must throw in as much dps as possible to close the deal, yet at the same time, there is enough space for the run to wipe if handled improperly. This is the part of the run where the player needs to pull the mob back to the entrance of the instance. It is very critical that all the buffs are still up, (with the possible exception of Just Paid) in some runs this means dropping aggro long enough for a bio break to reapply the Old Spice/Axe Effect and the Clean Cut buff. Once you have positioned the mob just outside the entrance to the instance, she should be down to 5% at the maximum. At this time, you need to pop your trinket, “Barman’s Trophy”, and go in for the finishing kiss. If you have been successful during the run this will go off without a hitch and you will receive a massive rep bonus that will allow you to run the instance again. If you mess this part up however, you wipe and your rep drastically decreases. At this point you will need to run several rep grinds to bring your rep level up enough to run the instance again.

Conclusion

Thank you for taking the time to read what I know is an epic wall of text. We hope that you will be able to draw ideas from this strategy to successfully attempt the regular level dating instance. Thanks for all the previous posters who left such great input and prompted us to write additional strategies, and watch out for more strategies later. May your loots be phat both IG and IRL.