Eldritch Reign

Thunderfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker

2011-06-07T21:58:00.000-04:00

Prince Thunderaan- Son of Al'Akir

In Scale

He throws his sword up in the air ala Ragnaros (same skeleton)

Standing in the sword! (Similar to the dungeon of infinite something or other from Goblins Comic)

Outside Blackrock Mountain

Inside Blackrock Mountain

With a Mongoose enchant in Crystal Song Forest.

Next project is Shadowmourne. 15 Primordial Saronites down....

Sulfuras, Hand of Ragnaros

2011-03-02T19:09:00.000-05:00

I got it. I am happy. Yay! The End.

I'm also working on Thunderyfury, Blessed Blade of the Windseeker. I just need the binding off of Garr and 7 Elementium Ingots!

My UIs

2011-02-17T16:20:00.000-05:00

I did a post a while back on my UI starrting Spartan UI as the core. Since then I've worked with KGPanels and Bartender myself to create a couple UIs. In End-game: Part III I have my previous UI. Thats a huge amount of screen space taken up by whatever I was using and if I was in a party, I would have the standard 4 player-unit-frames and they would be slightly larger than standard. Anyways, when I went and redid my UI, I cam up with something like this:

Addons, in order of appearance (and labeling)

Titan Panel- For seeing my gold, exp/hour etc...
Shadowed Unit Frames- my unit frames.
Satrinara Buff Frames- Buff Frames. I like having a bar so I can see how quickly they are wearing off- very important for debuffs while tanking
Sexy Map- lets me move my map (and make it bigger)
Bartender. I have all six bars condensed down there to make my life nice.
KGPanels allows me to have a cohesive background that pulls the whole bottom UI together
Recount- (It is recount)
Chatter- a bit more customization with the chat box
IceHUD- so I can easily see my hp and my targets hp without having to attend to the bottom of the screen where I can't see fire/my purty character
Omen (not shown)- knowing threat is good
Quartz (not shown)- cast bars are nice

Most of the addons are the same, but I changed things up alot here. I only use this on my Enhancement shaman (atm) but I like the way it looks and may expand it to my other toons.

Titan Panel- For seeing my gold, exp/hour etc...
Shadowed Unit Frames- I moved my party frames down to the bottom of the screen because thats where I spend most of my time attending to. I have the boss frames up top, but that only appears for council fights and similar.
IceHUD- so I can easily see my hp and my targets hp without having to attend to the bottom of the screen where I can't see fire/my purty character
Quartz- I also use it on my other UI but didn't show it. Recently it has been acting up, but I can live with it.
KGPanels allows me to have a cohesive background that pulls the whole bottom UI together. I have the same transparent background as I do in the other one, but I also have a solid black background which I'm not sure I want to keep. Having small gaps between my buttons/buffs etc... is weird, so I am keeping it like this for the time being.
Bartender- I have my primary dps abilities nice and big so that they are very obvious. I use modifier macros* to make my life nice- I can fit all of the shaman's abilities into 24 buttons.
Recount - need I explain again?
Satrinara Buff Frames- I'm using the square buffs here because it fits nicer and fits the theme better. Additionally, I don't need to worry about the duration of debuffs as much as a tank does.
Sexy Map- moves the map into the corner, also moves the objectives tracker to the side
Chatter- chat options

For those of you who are curious, a Modifier Macro is something like the following:

#showtooltip
/cast [mod:alt] Earth Shock; [mod:shift] Frost Shock; Flame Shock

The first line makes it show the tooltip of whatever ability it is that way I can see the damage etc.... The second line is the meat of the macro. If I'm not holding down any modifier button, it will cast Flame Shock. If I hold down Alt it will cast Earth Shock and if I hold down shift it will cast Frost Shock. You can also use ctrl as a modifier, but I use that as my last modifier because it is also my vent ptt button.

Ragnaros!

2011-01-07T02:10:00.000-05:00

I just solo'd Molten Core...

I mean, it was definitely doable back in Wrath with decent gear, but its fairly easy now.

This isn't the best writing here, but I just wanna say that its good fun. I mean, a couple hundred gold for a couple hours, some potentially pretty epics. AND a small chance at getting some legendary items.

Anyways, I would say to look out for Baron Geddon and Ragnaros because both of them have abilities that toss you way up and you can take significant damage from falling. In fact, over 30% of the damage I took throughout the whole instance was from falling.

Anyways. Fun place. Good times. T1, T2 pants, and a chance at Thunderfury.

I'm Back!

2011-01-01T21:22:00.000-05:00

Its been a while. Even longer than before. Several months in fact and I have a whole lot to talk about. I'm going to see what I can do, but I'm not going to hold myself to a post and a screenshot every single day. Not even one or the other every day- just whatever seems manageable. I somehow managed it for the better part of a year, but I don't want to try that again.

Been a away a while....

2010-09-04T16:28:00.000-04:00

As you may or may not have noticed, I haven't posted in nearly three weeks. In my own life I was busy working and had little time to play WoW, so I didn't have many fun/interesting experiences to share. We haven't progressed far in raiding, but some things have happened, so I'll have content for a while. I'll probably start posting again on a regular basis on Monday. However, I may not be posting a screenshot and a post everyday. I may alternate or something. Who knows?

Sindragosa!

2010-08-17T11:35:00.000-04:00

We killed her!

So- I'm going to put down lots of words that you can read. They're essentially our strategy to the fight. It took us a bit short of three hours allotted to her to kill her- however, due to the long encounter time and the assessing/rebuffing period we got in about 6-7 attempts total (I would guess- maybe more).
So, we've been having some issue with killing Sindragosa. Now, it isn't a surprise that it has been taking us this long because she is supposed to be a very difficult fight. However, we have not been changing our strategy much, so it seems kind of insane to think that our success will change. Additionally, looking at our raid history, we've had the hardest time with fights that require coordination and control- not sheer output. Fights that require a lot of DPS like Festergut and Blood Queen were very easy for us to do. Fights that required coordination and add control, like Deathwhisper, Blood Princes and Valithria, have been much much harder for us to progress beyond.

Now, Sindragosa (Especially the final phase) is significantly about control and debuff management. I've spent some time looking at various strategies to figure out what would be best for us. The strategies I looked at are as follows:
Bosskillers
TankSpot
WoWHead
WoWWiki
WoW.com

Just as a heads up, I'm counting this is a three phase fight, not a two phase with a diphase in there. Phase 1 is ground phase, phase 2 is air phase and phase three is the ground phase where she is permanently grounded and is casting Mystic Buffet.

After running some with Immortal, they asked how we were doing in ICC and I talked to them about our difficulties on Sindragosa. They suggest that the Main Tank get a (at least partial) set of Frost Bane gear. Alenena had some left over from her Naxxramas days, so she can now soak alot more of what Sindragosa can throw at her.

Phase One

Sindragosa's primary phase begins as soon as we kill the two dragon mini-bosses. Once we're comfortable with the fight, we can engage her right away, rather than running back to the gauntlet room. She will be pulsing a Frost Aura for about 3k/ 3 seconds. With Frost Resistance Aura (or similar effect) up, her frost damage will be reduced by about 20% on average for everyone in range. The Main Tank will take some damage from her Melee, Cleave and Frost Breath.

Players who attack her with Melee attack get hit by Permeating Chill which gives them a 20% chance to get a stack of Chilled to the bone which deals 1000 frost damage every two seconds. In phases one and two, its safe for players to have up to 8 or 9 stacks before they should stop attacking. Casters have a chance to be affected by Unchained Magic which makes all of their spells give them a stack of Instability. When Instability falls off, it deals 2000 frost damage per stack. Again, in phases one and two it is safe to have up to 8 or so stacks. It is important to note that healthstones and trinkets count as spells, giving you more stacks. However, wanding her does not give stacks, so if you want to get some little damage in, you can do that.

Her final ability in phase 1 is Icy Grip followed up by Blistering Cold. Icy Grip will grab everyone in a Death Grip like manner, bringing them to the middle of her hit box. Players already somewhat into it, will not get pulled in. As soon as she casts Icy Grip, she will begin a 5 second cast of Blistering Cold. This hits for about 30k frost on everyone with 25 yards. This makes it important that everyone (except possibly the MT) is out of range when it goes off. Warlocks (or rogues) can slow the cast time using either Curse of Tongues or Mind Numbing Poison. Hunters can put up Aspect of the Pack for increased raid movement speed as the Aura pulse does not cause the daze. It is important that everyone is used to running in the same direction so that in phase 3, people will not be too far away if they are targeted by Ice Tomb. If everyone also returns to the same side, it is easier for you to get back in position and continue attacking Sindragosa.

We have been tanking her North/South, facing towards the stairs with DPS and Healers on the east (her left). I may change this so that we are tanking her East/West and have the DPS and healers on the stairs (South/her left). This could make later phases easier to coordinate.

Phase Two

At 85% and everyone 1:50 after that, she will go into phase two. She will lift off into the air and beacon two people. Everyone needs to be at least 10 yards away from these targets. After a few seconds she will launch an Ice Tomb on them with approximately 450k health. She will then drop four Frost Bombs onto the floor, which need to be LoS'd. These hit for about 16-20k in regular, but any mana we can save for the healers will be appreciated. Between the time the fourth bomb and Sindragosa land, the Ice tombs need to be destroyed. If they are destroyed earlier, then part of the raid will not be able to protect themselves from the Ice bomb. However, approximately 12 seconds after she lands, anyone still in a Tomb will die. Additionally, anyone near the Ice tombs when they hit will take a significant amount of splash damage. If they manage to survive it, they will also be entombed.

Currently we have just had everyone spread out and do their best to avoid the Beaconed targets. However, if we are tanking her parallel to the stairs, those with the Beacons can go to the base of the stairs while everyone else runs up them. When the Tombs land, players can then descend the stairs and not have to significantly worry about moving because she only targets the flat area, not the stairs.

Phase Three

After alternating between phases one and two, at 35% she will be permanently grounded. She keeps all of her abilities from phase one, but adds a couple more to her repertoire.

She will cast a raid wide debuff, Mystic Buffet it stacks up to 99 and will be applied every 6 seconds and lasts for 8. It increases magic damage taken by 15% per stack. However,it can be cleared by breaking LoS with her. Again, she will be putting down Ice Tombs (one at a time) to help us. Everyone will need to stay away from the Beacon'd target. DPS and Healers should be able to clear their stacks every other Tomb and spend the rest of their time on the boss.

Currently, we pretty much have everyone shoot the boss > shoot the Tomb > shoot the boss. Again, I think our strategy could use some fine tuning. It would be beneficial to have a distinct set up and locations for two Tombs, in case we have two up at the same time. One should be placed near her front legs and the other near her back legs. However, it is important to keep the Tomb away from the tank and the melee DPS so that they do not get frozen. The Beacon should also try to avoid casters and healers, but those players have less movement restrictions. Once one tomb is up everyone who needs to clear their stacks should get behind it and bring it down. You don't need to be behind it the entire time, just long enough to miss the pulse. The second tomb should be near her back leg, not all the way at the end of her tail- it doesn't need to be that far away.

Of course practice makes perfect. Then we get to wipe on the Lich King himself.

Glory of Ulduar is Awesome!

2010-08-17T11:02:00.000-04:00

So, on Friday night, I was invited to go to a Ulduar hardmode/achievement run dealio. Now, I've done the Kologarn hard mode previously (one of our warlocks wasn't paying attention and blasted the wrong arm for the whole fight).

Anyways, I haven't really done much of Ulduar (well, ok, now I've done 12/14) so it was great to see the encounters- especially on hard mode.

For Flame Leviathan, with all four towers activated, that field which is normally so plain, and boring, and easy- well- its a mess. A very glorious mess. There are fires, frost beams, lightning storms, plants, vehicles running everywhere... I loved wiping on that fight for a while. We then decided that four were too many and just did three- but it was still fun.

We moved onto Razorscale, which just takes a lot of time and focus on not killing the adds, and then bringing them down to the appropriate health. We reset it at one point (I'm not sure why, I think it was to avoid the enrage timer) and on our next attempt we brought her down twice and the second time we got our achieve so we knocked her dead and got another achievement.

For Ignis, you tank him in the water so he doesn't have to get moved around- as long as you kill him within the achievement parameters, the extra 20% damage per add shouldn't be an issue for your tank. Its a simple enough fight.

For XT-002 Deconstructor, taking out his heart is easy. Now, while it says its only a 15% increase in damage, his tantrum damage is easily 100% more. Other than that and some void zones (from gravity bombs) and little adds (from light bombs) its a tank and spank.

We ended the night on Kologarn, but there was some timing error and one of his arms died too quickly, so we didn't get the achievement.

Mah Motahcycle

2010-08-17T10:45:00.000-04:00

Sure, its not the 20k one, but hey, does yours carry volatile blue liquids in the side-car? As a further note, if you have the motorcycle, you should be able to use it as a vehicle for the Flame Leviathan fight.

War Sorceror

2010-08-17T10:37:00.000-04:00

Or, as a friend likes to call it, the Warceror. I took the basic premise from the War Mage (Complete Arcane) but I felt that that class wasn't really strong/focused enough- all it did was give the caster more armor, but fewer spell options.

The Warceror also has fewer spell options (a lot fewer in fact (but more can be added at the DM's discretion)) but they are focused and the class abilties help him too. He does increased damage with his spells as he levels, and if he gets bad luck (25% damage or less) he gets a free spell- and it doesn't count against his daily limits. In theory, if you have a chain of "terrible luck" as in- you get 1/4 damage or worse for 10+ attacks in a row... well, then you might be able to get some nice damage out.

Plus, if you get lucky, you might get Empowered Spell Casting during your streak of bad luck and get crits. Just like Hot Streak crits! Woohoo!

Anyways, without further ado The Warceror.

Ghost Striker

2010-08-14T03:06:00.000-04:00

Another D&D class. This one was based slightly off many of the sneaky/assassiny classes. It has touches of Rogue, Assassin, Ninja and a few others. I originally was going to go with Ghost Crawler, but looking at his abilities, he had to many "stikes"

So, he sneaks around, and then either roflstomps them, or slays them. Again, I haven't had time to playtest these classes.

You can click on the link to see the detail. If you're interested in more, the next few days should have me posting the other one that I've completed so far. It is a caster and imho, it is really bad. This is why I'm not showing it to you.

Heroes, Frozen in Time

2010-08-14T03:02:00.000-04:00

Or a block of ice. Whatever. We decided to wipe on Sindragosa, so we stacked for her Ice Tomb. Apparently, from the inside, its one big thing and we all look fairly ghostly/transparent. I think its a fairly cool effect.

Swordmaster

2010-08-13T00:51:00.000-04:00

Another D&D class. This one came from the Holy Weapon ability that clerics get- but made awesomer. It also has that deep specialization feel. I made it so that the player could choose one of two distinct tracks and then switch if they wanted to- similar to WoW.

Anyways, the idea of the Swordmaster is to drag a bunch of swords around with you and use them to get in extra attacks, to attack enemies it would be dangerous to get near, and to increase your defenses.

So, without further ado- the Swordmaster.

You can click on the link to see the detail. If you're interested in more, the next few days should have me posting the other two that I've completed so far. One is a caster and the other is a melee DPS.

Loot Horse!

2010-08-13T00:46:00.000-04:00

Putricide is not a horse, but the silly tanking trinket dropped again. And I didn't get it again. Of course, Alenena is so far geared that its much more of an improvement for the raid for someone else to get it (so long as they tank regularly).

Juggernaut

2010-08-12T01:30:00.000-04:00

So, I'm really stretching things here. Anyways, the past few weeks, I've had some spare time and I've thrown together a few new classes for D&D. I can't quite figure out how to easily post them up here so I've taken screenshots and you can look at them yourself and evaluate.

The first class is the Juggernaut. The point of the class is to charge around, knocking enemies over or just shoving them back. It is extremely durable and because of the sheer amount of ability in Overrun, Bull Rush or Grapple, it can be effective at CC.

Fun and Games

2010-08-12T01:21:00.000-04:00

Fun and Games with doom elementals! yay!

Officer

2010-08-11T00:17:00.000-04:00

So, apparently I'm an Officer in my guild now.

My guild leader whispered me, asking if I had a moment to talk- not having anything better to do (other than wait for people in front of Rotface) I said sure.

And then he asked if I would be ok with being an officer.

I was kinda flabergasted. Of course, I love my guild, and it wouldn't be much more responsibility than I've had before, but it seems like a huge step.

So anyways...

/Squee.

Its a Demon

2010-08-11T00:12:00.002-04:00

And it looks sooo purty.

Death by Class

2010-08-10T00:32:00.000-04:00

A round up, including all 10 Death by articles!

Death by Death Knight
Death by Druid
Death by Hunter
Death by Mage
Death by Paladin
Death by Priest
Death by Rogue
Death by Shaman
Death by Warlock
Death by Warrior

This is my post. It is like my song. My song is amazing.

I'm not a fan of the captions

2010-08-10T00:26:00.000-04:00

The default formatting is boring. Anyways, demons are cool! Yay demons!

Death by Warrior

2010-08-08T23:47:00.000-04:00

And we have come to a close- finally.

Arms: Well, first you get hit by a blade in the face. Followed up by that same blade in your stomach- repeatedly. Then you are wounded and your medic can't help you get up. And then you get an axe in your torso and you are sad. And dead.

Fury: Walking along, without a care in the world, when all of a sudden this juggernaut of a juggernaut jumps out of some juniper bushes and bushwacks you with his wacking weapons called Shadow's Edge and Bryntoll! And then he spins like a drunk top, lopping off heads and legs and arms and heads until you collapse over dead.

Protection: Again, you're walking along without a care in the world when a shield appears in your face. Then a sword appears in your gut- rinse and repeat. If you run away, the shield magically charges after you, stabbing and rending and slicing and ripping.

Teh Park

2010-08-08T23:42:00.000-04:00

It will be missing in Catalcysm. Also, caption option on images? Sweet!

Oh look!

2010-08-08T00:28:00.001-04:00

So, some changes have happened in my guild. Rather than think when I can't, I decided to copy-paste my message I put on the guild forums.

On Thursday this week Amphitrite announced that she has gotten a job that partially conflicts with our current raid schedule and asked me to fill in as raid leader.

So- now that I'm in charge (to a degree), I'd like to say a few things.

1) If there is someone who has been a TOC raid leader and wants this position, let me know.
2) The goal of this is maximum fun- not loot, not progression. Fun.
3) Progression is more fun than wiping and loot is more fun than wiping- so I'll try to avoid wiping.
4) I take raiding somewhat seriously, so I would like to see some effort. However, it is supposed to be fun- so I'll be talking alot (like I normally do) and you can too.
5) I don't know the healing portions of fights all that well. I'll watch the videos and try to learn, but I may ask one of our experienced healers to be heal lead and coordinate the healers.
6) If you haven't lead before, but are interested in leading in the future- talk to me. I'll try and have you do Loot Master or explain fights to new people if necessary.
7) If you have any questions or issues with the way I'm doing things- let me know through a whisper or a mail and I'll do my best to fix it. If you would rather, I'm ok with you posting here to get other opinions- if everyone thinks I'm fail, I'll ask someone to step up to replace me or try even harder.

Now, onto how I'll invite people to a raid.

1) I'll do my best not to show favoritism- that means I won't try to invite friends over other people.
2) People who accepted and are early have first priority. People who accepted and are on time have second priority.
3) People who are tentative and were early have third. People who have tentative and are on time have fourth.
4) Finally, other guild mates who did not respond but are geared and have run before, but not many times have fifth, then people who we can carry- so a DPS or two, maybe a healer- so that we can get new people in and so that they can use the loot, and then geared people who have run many times before. Then we go to pastry and if the group wants to- Trade Chat, otherwise we do something easier. If we're doing progression (usually Thursdays and some Mondays) we are less likely to be able to carry someone.
4) Getting a suitable group take priority over everything- therefore if we have two tanks, but they're geared for LS and not, say, Sindragosa, while they will get invites according to the above rankings, getting two geared tanks and two (or three) healers that can keep the raid alive will take priority- if we die, we're not going to get far.

So, I hope I'll live up to my standards, much less yours and I hope everyone has fun. Of course, these are all open to change, but I think they're fair and they make sense.

En Garde!

2010-08-08T00:27:00.002-04:00

Yeah, duel-wielding is awesome. Cuz awesome.

Death by Warlock

2010-08-08T00:25:00.000-04:00

Long time no death! Here it comes!

Affliction: First you feel a little ill. Then you get this burning sensation. Then some more illness- and then sheer agony. You feel as though spirits are ripping through you and you begin to feel weak. Suddenly you are confronted by your greatest fears, and you flee in horror. As you do so, you finally collapse and die.

Destruction: You get hit by fire. Then more fire. Then more fire. Then, rather than this normal looking fire, some green, missile shaped fire hits you and you fall over- somewhat dead.

Demonology: Walking along you are stunned as giant axe wielding demon charges you. You begin fighting with this enemy, but he doesn't seem to be taking damage- you look behind him to see a Warlock healing his minion, however, before you can attack the true threat, he transforms into a demon himself and charges you. He has an aura that burns you and his melee attacks are as bad as his minions. Before you can do anything, he makes you run in fear and begins burning away your soul with a fire spell. You collapse, your soul eternally captured- at least until he wants to summon a demon again.

Wide View

2010-08-08T00:14:00.002-04:00

Valithria is chaotic and since everyone is so spread out and fighting all sorts of things, its great for battle sequences.

The Edge of Shadow

2010-08-06T00:43:00.002-04:00

In other words, Shadow's Edge. A friend got it today- a big deal considering that we're a 10 man raiding group.

Two Month Roundup

2010-08-06T00:42:00.000-04:00

I forgot to do this at the end of June. Then I forgot at the end of July.

So I continued the Death by series (which I'll finish up this week, I promise) and then seriously leveled my rogue for a bit.

There was this streak where all I was doing was leveling him in fact. 40-60 in five days. It was crazy and it was all I talked about.

More recently I've been talking about Cataclysm and Ulduar and Raiding.

What on earth did I spend two months talking about?

You know what, you should go look. Go read all my posts. Jack my hit count way up there.

Raid Leading

2010-08-05T00:31:00.000-04:00

So, I have led a few raids before- mostly Naxx or Retro raids. Other than that, I haven't done much.

Anyways, tonight, I lead our guild on the Weekly and then into ICC.

It was interesting.

I know I have a couple faults. I mean, I don't quite realize when other people die. I mean, I notice it when they die, but I don't make the connection that I need to wait for them to be res'd before pulling.

Also, I'm very aggressive in my pulling strategies. I would rather pull the next group than waiting. Ever. I mean, as a tank, if I see a healer, and its not a boss, I WILL pull. If everyone is buffed and knows the fight and its a boss, I WILL pull.

But I have to temper myself while leading. I can't just make those decisions without seeing who is there and who isn't.

But I also have to make decisions. Normally, I have opinions on why we should go to each of the different wings. But I can't just make suggestions and make someone else take the load. I have decide and then carry out my decision.

I could have spent five minutes deliberating with myself and raid after clearing LS about which way to go. But instead, after not hearing any very strong opinions, I picked one and went with it. And now I realize that it didn't really matter what I picked. I mean, if we were gonna do well, we woulda, but I can't know.

So, it was interesting.

Tomorrow I get to pass responsibility back.

Tricks with your mind!

2010-08-05T00:13:00.002-04:00

If you look through me, water doesn't exist!

Sucky Wiping

2010-08-04T00:22:00.000-04:00

Sucky wiping is sucky.

Sucky wiping is when you're wiping on something repeatedly. And there is no excuse for it.

When I wipe on Valithria, I get mad. Generally this is because there is other stuff out there that I know I can kill. I know that I can kill Festergut and Rotface and Putricide and Blood Princes and Blood Queen.

This isn't a new challenge. Its just something we're not prepared for.

And I don't like it.

We've done the fight enough that everyone should know the kill order by heart.

Everyone should be able to pick out the silhouettes.

Everyone should not have a problem with the fight. But apparently there is a problem.

And it distresses me.

But I digress. I'll have happier news tomorrow.

And then on Friday I'll have time to look at stuff.

Tractor Beamed!

2010-08-04T00:15:00.000-04:00

Its the Death Star Hanger.

Looking at the Beta

2010-08-02T23:33:00.000-04:00

So, I haven't looked at the beta information (read: talent trees) in a long time.

WoW.com usually reports the news as it happens. But it didn't.

I was curious if there were some minor builds, and there were. And there were some major builds.

Whats interesting is how I feel about them.

I mean, I like them so much that I don't want to seriously level any toons until Cataclysm hits.

I like them so much- they're just amazing.

Now, to really exhibit my point, go ahead and put together a Blood Tanking spec here and now try it here.

Which one felt like a more natural process? Which one was easier? Which one made more sense to you? Which one had fewer extraneous talents?

For me, the answer to all of those questions is the Cata Beta Build.

The current trees are just so bloated with unnecessary talents. I will (as I've promised before) be looking into the trees but hey. I'll get to it.

The Problem with Leveling

2010-08-02T08:16:00.000-04:00

See, in Cataclysm leveling is going to be so much better. I mean, for Shamans, Warriors, Hunters and Rogues specialization, and some general reworking will make everything so much better. Enhancement will make sense, rage mechanics will work, Focus instead of mana and a way for rogues to heal themselves.

Now, lets look at the list of classes I want to level- Enh Shammy, Warrior, Hunter and Rogue. Now you can see my problem.

If I start leveling them now, I'll get used to a very different style of play and that will confuse me when we get to Cataclysm. I also want my warrior and hunter to be Worgen and if I start now, I have to wait a long time and pay money to switch em over.

Some people might say that there is the same thing with raiding for the loot- it will all be worthless in Cataclysm, so why bother- but my gear on my paladin at least should hopefully last a significant while.

So, yeah, sorry about another laaaaate post.

Another Wipe

2010-08-02T08:11:00.000-04:00

Oooooh! Magic Whirly of Whirly!

Gettin all srs!

2010-08-01T11:33:00.000-04:00

Strangely enough, I've been getting somewhat serious about WoW these days. With my 9-5, I usually don't have a chance to log on until around 7 (I have to eat sometime). I may do a daily heroic or something, and then my JC daily. And then I raid. Four days a week. Once the raid is over, I log and wait for the next day.

Its really weird being in this state. Normally I would be leveling alts, or playing on other toons.

But right now, I'm all about gearing them up, maxing them out. Its strange.

Especially since it will all be undone when Cataclysm hits.

Perhaps my subconscious recognizes this and wants to just get me ready for Cataclysm. I won't be able to do my dailies or raid on a regular basis for a month or two after Cata hits, we just won't have enough geared people that quickly. So I'll be left with leveling alts (which I desperately can't wait to do), but I if I don't level until then, leveling will be all the more exciting.

So- what is your subconscious making you do? Also, sorry for the late post.

Angry Furblog

2010-08-01T11:28:00.002-04:00

...is Angry

OBLIVION

2010-07-31T00:23:00.000-04:00

So, I started replaying Oblivion last night. And by replaying, I mean that I deleted all of my characters that had gotten to various stages in the game, but never with any decent progress along the story line.

So now I'm working on a character who will actually experience the events in the game.

I don't think I've even gotten half-way through the main story ever. And I've put in 200+ hours I would guess. For a $20 game.

Its a really fun game. I mean, sometimes NPC allies are the dumbest, but its still really fun.

I've found that mages are really overpowered, so I'm playing one of them this time through.

But I realized that Warriors get to wear the coolest armor, wield the coolest weapons (can you say Dai-Katana? yes you can!) and carry loads more loot.

I've played a subtlety character before, but that isn't really my style. I mean, the sneaking around, killing someone dead and grabbing their treasure is fun, but if I want to do any straight combat, I'm screwed because my stealth and lockpicking got me to a high level and the mobs can two shot me.

Anyways, OBLIVION!

And this is related to WoW cause Kologarn says that. Yeah WoW references!

Mimiron's Train!

2010-07-31T00:19:00.000-04:00

MOARMOAR MIMIRON! I HEART MIMIRON!

Shin-dragon-soda!

2010-07-30T00:45:00.000-04:00

We finally got some real time in on the dragon.

We quickly downed Blood Princes and Blood Queen.

Then we wiped the floor with us on Sindragosa. We died alot.

We had some issues.

There was lots of dieing.

But we got the first few phases down.

I'm sorry this is a bad post.

Sorry.

More Mimiron

2010-07-30T00:28:00.002-04:00

MOAR MIMIRON!

More Mimiron

2010-07-30T00:28:00.000-04:00

MOAR MIMIRON!

Super Awesome Times

2010-07-29T00:56:00.000-04:00

So. TOC is Super Awesome.

We did ICC today and we downed Marrowgar and Deathwhisper no problem. In fact, DW had only 2 add phases, which was great for us.

We did the Frost Giant Weekly (the last time we had it we had just started ICC so were WAAAY undergeared).

Then we did gunship.

We did it achievement style.

We did it heroic style.

We did it heroic achievement style.

We did it super awesome style.

Then we proceeded to one shot Saurfang. He got a total of about 102 runic energy. We almost killed him before he got off a SINGLE mark. We were awesome.

We did Rotface, easily one-shot.

On Festergut, Malkhelm was slightly undergeared for his 3 inhale's mode, so got squashed. It was not good. I switched over to Alenena and we rolled over that boss onto P Putricide. I got to be awesome and rolled over everything as an Abomination. Its really fun being an abom.

Then onto Valithria, we focused, we did well and we killed the killers and saved her.

Finally we got to say hello to Lady Dragon Sindragosa. The gauntlet was fun, the trash was fun and then she aggroed.

We ran back to the Gauntlet room, because thats supposed to reset her. It didn't. I managed to get to the elevator and ride it up. I was one of three survivors. The others were FD'd hunters.

We tried again, and, after an explanation, did only a little better. Though we did last through the first air phase. And by we I mean me. Because the other person died when they were hit by the frost tomb. I soaked the first blast, Ardent Defender saved me on the second and then I bubbled through the third and fourth, leaving me at about 3% when she landed, alone and trying to run away. Then the dragon ate me.

But in any case, we plan on doing Blood Prince Council and Blood Queen Lana'Thel tomorrow (which we have on almost farm) and then fight Sindragosa til she dies. If she dies, then we go onto the Lich King and possibly extend the lockout until that bugger falls to the ground and gives me my Troggbane!

I Love Mimiron

2010-07-29T00:47:00.002-04:00

I have I mentioned that I love Mimiron? Here's more Screenshots!

Raid Pacing

2010-07-28T01:15:00.000-04:00

I bring this up because there was slow pacing.

I was in a sister guild's ICC 25. I've been in their 10s and 25s before.

In the 10 man, we cleared the first 10 bosses in about four hours total- and Putricide, Council, BQL and Val were first kills for about 1/2 of our players there.

In the 25's the first one we cleared the first six bosses in one go- at least 10 of us in our first 25.

In the second 25, we did ToC and (first two bosses for the weekly) and then we moved over to ICC. We only had 20 people when we started ToC and we scrounged some up while moving towards Marrowgar. In the three hours, we got down the four bosses and the free badge.

Tonight it took us two hours to get the first four- from the start. We didn't move at all for long periods of time. We would wait for everyone to be fully buffed, flasked and present. On trash.

When we got to Valithria we spent an immense amount of time on the explanation. Only one person was new to the fight. Everyone else had at least done it on 10, so they knew the basics. We spent 10-15 minutes on the explanation. It was very, very irritating.

This is just me venting a bit, but if you run a raid, keep on moving.

Mecha Mech!

2010-07-28T01:06:00.000-04:00

I got a mecha-spider. Mimiron is the best prize!

Mimiron is the best prize

2010-07-27T01:06:00.000-04:00

We continued with Ulduar progression today (if this seems a little out of place timewise, you must have time traveled. Congratulations.)

Anyways, we killed Mimiron. I have to say that Blizzard did a FANTASTIC job with the entire thing. The trash, the frogger, the boss, the phases, the mechanics, the characterization. Absolutely, utterly amazing.

I mean, when you start off kill the trash you get arachno-bots you can control. They are soooooooooo cool.

Then, you get on the awesome train from steampunk land of crazy cool and its awesome. Then you travel along the train tracks of trippy-cool and its awesome.

Once you get past that, before you can get into the encounter area for Mimiron himself, you have a bunch of bomb-bots running laps, and you have to run in-between em, frogger style.

Phase 1 I got to tank a mini Leviathan. SOOO COOL! Its a freaking Flame Leviathan. And I got to tank it!

Phase 2 I got to burn a turret. Seriously, its just a turret that spews fire and rockets and stuff.

Phase 3 I tank adds. Boring, but still cool. There was a flying head. It was cool.

Phase 4 I got to tank all of them combined. A mini leviathan with a machine gun, rocket launcher turret body and a head with laser beams. IN ONE GIANT BOSS MACHINE. SO FREAKING COOL.

One of my guildies wants to kill Freya on a weekly basis for the Alchemy stuff.

I wanna kill Mimiron on a weekly basis cause the boss is the coolest boss I have ever seen.

So awesome.

Awesome.

Awe.

Sum.

Awe.

Sunset

2010-07-27T00:52:00.000-04:00

...Sunrise...

Lockouts

2010-07-26T01:34:00.000-04:00

I recently decided that I wanted to get the BC dungeon reps up to exalted. Of course, the fastest way to gain rep with them is to do their heroic dungeons.

So, I decdied to start with Keepers of Time- the Bronze Dragonflight dudes in The Caverns of Time.

"Guild [Alenena]: Hey, does anyone wanna chain run H-OH for KoT rep?"
A few seconds pass, I enter H-OH and realize that I've already done it that day.
"Guild [Alenena]: nvm, I was dumb, its heroic."

So now, I wish to consider lockouts. I definitely see the need for them in raids. A good raiding guild could probably clear ICC-10 in four or five hours. If they really want loot, they could run it every day- thus raids should have weekly lock-outs. Especially end game raids.

However, there isn't really any gear at all in Naxxramas that is very good for anyone- well, its good, but you can get equal and better by running regular 5-mans. Seriously, if you chain-run the ICC-5s, you'll get better gear than you ever could out of Naxx. In fact the gear is even better than Ulduar 10.

The best gear you can get in Ulduar is 232. You can get the same in heroics. So if you want gear, it doesn't make sense at all to run Ulduar. It requires more people, takes more time, and if you don't get the item you're looking for, well, you have to wait another week to get a chance at the loot.

Burning Crusades heroics are 100% obsolete. You can get much better gear by running Wrath regular dungeons and doing quests.

It doesn't really make sense that an 80 should be locked out of a BC heroic. I can understand keeping lockouts on raids, otherwise they would be to easily farmed for gold. But there are faster ways to make money than BC heroics. I think that, if you are at the level cap, heroics from ALL previous expansions should not have a lockout. So in Cataclysm, if I wanted to, I could go back and chain PoS and try to get the battered hilt and get myself a Quel'Delar.

Power Overwhelming!

2010-07-26T01:05:00.000-04:00

Starcraft II comes out on Tuesday. This image is unrelated.

The Birth of a Meme

2010-07-25T00:42:00.000-04:00

There are now several TOC created memes floating around the guild. See, in running ICC, we come across certain encounters that require us to speak up in vent- or wipe (we usually choose option A).

These things have come to be somewhat of a group of memes in our guild. They include, but are not necessarily limited too:

I found a trap!
Midnight Sun dropped
Beast in melee
Big Ooze in raid
Kinetic Bomb

Lessee here. In the first hall of ICC and the two halls that lead to Festergut and Putricide are traps. We've come up with more efficient systems of trap finding since we started, but often, at the beginning a warlock or a priest would find the trap.

Midnight Sun. Yeah, that thing drops about half the time we do the Gunship Battle. All of our healers have it and several of our not-healers have it.

The blood beasts on Saurfang can be a very big problem if not handled correctly. Whenever someone in melee accidentaly grabs one three or four people call it out in vent. Now, whenever many of us see the model, we call out "Beast in Melee" because we like too.

When we started doing Rotface neither I nor the other tank really could control the Big Oozes, so it was fairly common to see it waddle into the middle of the raid and kill everyone. This combined nicely with the "Beast in Melee" meme.

Finally we come to kinetic bombs. They appear on the Blood Prince Council. Anyways, similar to above, several people call it out. Its just this weird thing that affects all of us.

I don't even understand. What is this post about? How should I know, I only wrote it. Ok, I've gone mad.

More Evil!

2010-07-25T00:33:00.002-04:00

You should never burn books. Books are awesome.

WoW has ruined my language perception

2010-07-24T02:40:00.000-04:00

So, I was at a meeting today and one of the people used the word "preserve" in a sentence. Nothing was special about the way he said it at all.

Anyways, I instantly heard Keristraza (Nexus) say "Preserve, why? There is no truth in it!" The context of the word didn't make sense for that. It was weird.

And recently I've heard people talking about stuff "for later" I instantly recall "Forgemaster Garfrost yells: Garfrost hope giant underpants clean. Save boss great shame. For later."

That and other quotes from other bosses have just been throwing me off. Short post is short. Deal with it.

Bjorrrn!

2010-07-24T02:32:00.002-04:00

What does a Swedish Lightsaber sound like? Bjorrn!

I just said that cuz its a Norse light beam.

Awesomeness and Bad Planning

2010-07-23T00:27:00.000-04:00

Last night we only got down the first four bosses in ICC. Tonight we cleared Plaguewerks and Crimson Halls. Now we're really awesome because last week (first Wing Boss kills of those two) took us three days. Admittedly we also got Valithria, but thats one boss. In two days, we downed nine of the ten that we have won before.

On to the bad planning part. Some of us (myself included) after having cleared up to Sindragosa really wanted to see if we could get to her. Plus, we had downed the Valkyr, so there was no trash. That was the bad idea. It was a good idea in concept. We had the same healers as we did on Monday, and equal or better dps for the most part- these were some of our best raiders.

Then we spent an hour wiping on the encounter. This wasn't the fun kind of wiping because either we were wiping from stuff that we couldn't prevent (Curse you RNG gods!) or from stuff we couldn't determine (Curse you unkown stuff!).

After an hour of raiding, we hadn't killed a thing. I mean sure, we had killed lots of adds on Valithria, but we hadn't gotten credit for it. Which made me (amongst others) upset at the encounter.

From there we smartened up and one shot each of our farm bosses and two shot the wing bosses.

So it was ok.

Boss Crotch Syndrome

2010-07-23T00:16:00.000-04:00

Often, when tanking a boss (or general trash) with a knockback, you end up against a wall and all you can see is the boss's crotch. Which we do not like. But here, it looks pretty awesome. I love AoE!

Geared

2010-07-22T01:26:00.000-04:00

Right now I have three toons geared for ICC.

Vitos (Warlock) is geared to DPS ICC 10 and 25.

Malkhelm (Death Knight) is geared to tank ICC 10.

Alenena (Paladin) is geared to tank and dps ICC 10 and 25 and heal ICC 10.

Malkhelm should gear up fairly quickly and should be able to Tank and DPS both 10 and 25 within a few months. Alenena should be able to heal 25 in a few months as well.

Now, when we bring someone along to raid, I expect them to pull their weight. I don't expect them to have put in nearly as much time as I have gearing, learning my class, raiding etc.... I don't expect them to have gear as good as mine.

But I do expect them to try.

Seriously. I want you to put in some effort. There was a player in tonights raid who had been to ICC with us before. The last time he was there he had gotten some loot. He was a DPS and pulled under 2k with the 25% buff. He returned to ICC with us and had 1 gem and about 10 empty sockets. He did not have any enchants. On the Gunship Battle I admittedly did less. But thats because I was doing the achievement, so I had to jump over and jimmy my position so that the boss wouldn't hit me and we wouldn't wipe.

But he shot the cannon three or four times. And when he was frozen out he stood there. Doing nothing.

In any case this rant reminded me that I need to respec my pally, I think I can get a little bit more survivability out of her. (Meaning, I enjoyed (and still enjoyed) all the effort I put in, I just don't like it when I carry a dead weight).

Oooh shiny!

2010-07-22T01:00:00.000-04:00

Ulduar is a very pretty place. So I say oooh shiny!

Paladins in Cataclysm (This is all wrong)

2010-07-21T01:37:00.000-04:00

This is going to be wrong, but I'm going to just talk generalities (which will also be wrong).

Ok, so currently, the three specs are staying mostly the same, getting some cool buffs along the way.

What I really wanted to talk about was judgements. Blizzard has decided to consolidate Justice and Light into one, plain, Judgement.

Protection only has 1 talent that effects Judgements: Seals of the Pure- Increases Seal/Judge dmg by 5/10/15%. Thats in the first tier, so any spec can snag it.

In Retribution, we have a little bit more. In Tier one we have Imp Judge and Heart of the Crusader. The first one reduces the cooldown and the second makes it so that targets affected by a judgement are 3% more likely to be critted upon.

In Tier two we get Eye for an Eye, which responds to all damaging attacks with a free Judgement. Righteous Vengeance makes it so that your judgement criticals cause an extra 30% damage as a dot.

Judgements of the wise grant you 25% of your base mana and replenishment.

In tier four, Fanaticism increases the crit chance of your judgements by 18%.

Now, onto Holy. In the first tier of holy, in Sanctified light, we have Fanaticism again, but for 15%. In tier two, judgements of the pure increases your melee and casting speed by 9% when you cast a judgment.

Inspired Judgement in tier 3 heals your beacon target for 100% of the damage your judgement did.

In tier four, Enlightened judgements increases your judgement range by 30 yards and increaes your hit in accordance with spirit.

Finally, in tier six, Purifying power causes a judgement to be cast upon the caster of any effect you cleanse.

Putting this all together, when you get hit or cleanse someone, you get a ridiculous attack. Of course many of the abilities are locked higher up in the ret or holy tree and many of the abilites are likely to be heavily modified or removed.

On fights like Deathwhisper, in phase two when she shoots out her Frostbolt Volley, a holy paladin could spam Cleanse, each on removing a debuff, damaging the boss, increasing cast speed, increasing crit chance on the boss and healing the tank. JUST for casting cleanse. And you can do that over and over again. On Blood Queen Lana'Thel, when she goes into her air phase, during the fear, you could do the same- hurt the boss, make the boss more vulnerable, increase your healing ability and heal the tank.

If these talents remain intact, judgements are going to be flying all over the place. It will be VERY cool.

Do not click

2010-07-21T01:20:00.002-04:00

Clearly these are some spammers, but I've never seen sleep spammers fly.

Lol I forgot a title last night.

2010-07-20T00:53:00.001-04:00

A Dead Professor, a Dead Vampire, and well, I guess a Live Dragon, but she disappeared as soon as we saved her so wall we got was this lousy box filled with healing plate and tanking plate. And I couldn't use the belt and the Holy Paladin had dibs on the shoulders.

On the topic of Awesome

2010-07-20T00:48:00.000-04:00

Lets talk about The Oasis Contingent. Because we are on the topic of awesome. At nine eastern, I believe Vitos, my warlock was the farthest progressed toon in the guild at 10/12 N10. At nine eastern, TOC was at 7/12 N10. We reliably one-shot (one-shoot) Marrowgar, Deathwhisper and Gunship. We generally don't have any issues with Festergut, and now that I really know the fight, few issues with Rotface. Sometimes we have some bad luck on Deathbringer, so he isn't a guarantee, but its getting close.

Today, the raiders voted that they would prefer trying to bash our heads against bosses in ICC rather than RS. On Professor Putricide, we had never gotten past 50%. Tonight, we got past that mark three times, going to phase 3 twice and killing him in the face once. It was an amazing moment, downing a new boss- one that we had never really seen much of before and thought of as very difficult.

We had decided to alot one hour to each of the three progression bosses, Putricide, Blood Queen and Valithria. After clearing the trash up to Bacon Quiche Linguine, we had to explain the fight to the few people who had never seen it before (as we did with PP).

We one shot that boss like TOC has never one-shot (one-shotted) that boss before. For many of us, that was the SECOND new wing of the night completed. Plus, the second new boss. You can imagine our elation.

We carried on, as brave soldiers and roflstomped Sister Svalna. As a rather strange sidenote, roflstomp is a strange word. If you have ever been rolling on the floor laughing, or even just rolling on the floor, it is difficult to stomp with any degree of force or accuracy. Nonetheless, we forcefully and accurately killed that mini boss.

On Valithria our previous attempts had gotten her up to at best 62%. Now, thats 12% over 50% meaning about 24% of the way. Of course, the fight gets harder as it goes on, so realistically, closer to about 10-15%.

Our first attempt tonight got her up to 97%. That means we got her 94% of the way from 50%. Several more attempts ranged between 63% and 92%. Our final attempt, right before raid time, ended at 100% with the dragon killing all the silly undead.

Yeah, we killed three Progression/New bosses. A most excellent evening.

Then I tried to solo the Sindragosa gauntlet event. Technically I didn't intend to, but my off tank (who I had cleansed out of his abom in PP, while I thought my DI was off CD, but wasn't) triggered the fight in revenge. I had used my bubble to get down the elevator quickly, so Forbearance was up (a huge hamper while trying to solo as a paladin.

I managed to last a minute or two. I think though, if I had switched to Judgement of Light and Seal of Light I could have lasted much longer. The heals would have done wonders to keep me up and Forebearance may have fallen off and therefore I might have been able to bubblehearth away.

Warlocks in Cataclysm

2010-07-19T00:27:00.000-04:00

I realized that I don't know druids all that well and since paladins are gonna get hit by the "lol-revamp-bat" I should best avoid writing about them in any detail.

So, on with the Warlockness!

Leveling is going to be a whole lot easier. Affliction locks are starting by getting Unstable Affliction, great for PvP and another dot for PvE- nothing too special there.

Demonology locks start off with a Fel Guard. This is hilarious, because Fel-Guards are great. Its also going to be really weird seeing Fel-Guards all over Elwynn forest. They don't belong there!

Destruction gets Conflagrate. While it is ok without the glyph (which is available at 15) it is alot better with it. In anycase, leveling destro locks have yet another nuke in their arsenal.

Right now Affliction locks higher tiers are not that great. Nothing much has changed and there are a lot of PvP talents that are required to get to the next tier. That sucks. So- not much to see here- move along folks.

Destro locks get some cool stuff. In the first two tiers they have Bane, and Emberstorm. The first two reduce the cast time of Soul Fire by 2 second each, bringing it down to a 2 second cast (from 6). Now, as of now, my warlock (not gemmed/enchanted for haste at all) has about 15% haste. For your knowledge, 15% of 6 seconds (original cast time) is .9 seconds. Thus, the approximate cast time of soulfire for a decently geared warlock will be about 1.1 seconds. Now, if the target is below 35% health, (and you went Demo) the cast time is decreased a further 20% or 1.2 seconds. This is silly. You'll just be slamming out Soul Fires quickly and efficiently.

Elsewhere in destro is Bane of Havoc. This ability makes the target take 15% of all the damage you do. Now, image, on Onyxia, when the whelps spawn and you can pull upwards of 20-30k on the whelps, if Ony was also taking about 3-5k dps. This could be really overpowered if you could put it on multiple targets so that in the case of Twins or Councils, you could spread your damage around.

Now onto demo. Demo is really plain for the first few tiers and there is nothing special until tier 4. In tier four you can cast Hand of Guldan, a targets aoe burst, followed by an aoe dot (as in Flamestrike). You also get ancient Grimoire, which increases the time your Doomguard and Infernal stay around, which indicates that you will be getting those as trained spells, not as quest rewards. Improved Hellfire looks really cool, I mean, right now it has a decent radius, but expand it by that much, and allow you to cast while running- thats just the peak of awesome. As mentioned above in the Destro section, it looks like Decimate is going to be completely broken- insta-cast soulfires during the execute phase? Yes please!

And then you get improved hand of Guldan which has the dot refresh your immolates, so if you spread those around first and cast Hand four seconds before they fade, you get a good deal more out of them.

Now, it is important to note that Decimate will probably be fixed, because instant Soul Fires is just too good to be true. Also, the talent mentions Soul Shards, and according to Blizzard's plan (not an official statement, but just what I think they mean) they don't want spells to have to consume Soul Shards when cast normally. Also, Nemesis mentions Fel Domination, which is no longer a talent. It may be a trained skill, but I believe (again, nothing official) that it was intended to be an affect from using one of your Soul Shards.

Lots of words. And tomorrow Blizz will probably announce that Warlocks are going to have another resource- Fel Power.

The Wicked Overseer Put in Place by the Titans to Destroy Us if All Went Wrong is Dead!

2010-07-19T00:02:00.002-04:00

By which I mean, someone killed Algalon.

On the gearing process

2010-07-18T01:44:00.000-04:00

I was going to talk about the druid talent trees, but decided to hold off on that. Its not really all that interesting to me, and, if it is interesting to you, you can probably find a better source of information than me. If you can't, I wonder why your internet connection will only allow you access to this one site.

Anyways, I've been gearing up my Death Knight. I want him to be able to tank in ICC, because, well, Alenena is bored of the place and doesn't need anything off the first three bosses (including frost) so it is kind of pointless to bring her if someone else who could use the gear could come along.

Now, Malkhelm is about where Alenena was when she went into ICC. She did, admittedly have all 232 or better whereas he doesn't, but my healers are far more impressive these days than when Alenena started, so it should be ok.

Anyways, I've been doubting myself because my gear isn't as good as Al's. I mean, Al can pull a lot more than Malk can. I would not be surprised if she could handle three waves in H-HoR at once while Malk has trouble with just one.

Anyways, can't wait til Cataclysm and I can have a bajillion HP.

Glowy

2010-07-18T01:25:00.002-04:00

I'm glowy, oh so glowy! Apparently the internet thinks glowy isn't a word. Well, I'll show you internet!

Glowy glowy glowy!

Glowy!

RAWR

2010-07-17T00:45:00.002-04:00

I'm a Furbolg! Yay!

Death Knights in Cataclysm (Fo real)

2010-07-16T20:08:00.001-04:00

A week ago or so I painstainkingly filled out talent trees for all three possible DK specs, looking at all the talents.

Then Blizzard went and fixed everything. Go here to look at the NEW DK talent trees.

Now, before you select one you have to remember that you get locked into a tree until you have spent 31 points (level 70).

So let us examine each spec more briefly than before.

All three specs get their spec specific strike as soon as they pick a spec. No big surprise. They also all get their death rune conversion talent, which is something that I would generally not take, but it is useful.

Unholy DKs get Master of Ghouls, which is one of the things that identifies an unholy DK, his perma-ghoul. He also gets a somewhat significant boost to his spell damage. Which, although unholy has some spells, its not as good as it would be in frost.

Frost DKs get Icy Talon which both increases their runic power pool and increases their haste. Who can complain?

Finally, Blood DKs get Veteran of the Third War for a little bit of stamina and some expertise. They also get Vengeance, which is a very interesting ability. "Each time you take damage, you gain 5% of the damage taken as attack power, up to a maximum of 10% of your health." Now, I thought about this for a few seconds. Right now, my paladin has 60k HP, fully buffed in ICC. Healthpools are only going up in Cataclysm. So, this could be very overpowered. Right now I would get about 6,000 more AP which is just a ridiculous amount. Of course, I would have had to take 120k damage, but that isn't really all that much, just a few swings from Marrowgar.

I'm probably interpreting that wrong, but part of me wishes otherwise.

Off to play SCII. Got the beta a day or two before they close it. Whoo!

Exhaustion

2010-07-16T00:30:00.000-04:00

Its an interesting mechanic. When Heroism is cast, everyone who is affected by it also gets exhaustion, keeping them from benefiting from it again. Normally, when it is used, it ends with a wipe or a win (kinda has to doesn't it) so it doesn't matter if you have the debuff. If you died, its gone and if you killed it, you don't need it anymore. It would be interesting if they got rid of exhaustion, but made it less effective, that way even if you have multiple shaman's it doesn't matter as much.

Also, when you work lots and raid lots you get the same debuff. I promise you, tomorrow (and this weekend) I will post more. I might even post two significant posts in a day. I will cover those talent changes.

Sorry for the short shrift.

JEEVES!

2010-07-16T00:23:00.000-04:00

He's a very nice buddy, especially for raids. But he doesn't offer reputation discounts.

Twins!

2010-07-15T00:27:00.000-04:00

Although, technically, they are triplets.

And I did at one point during the encounter tank all three of them.

See, the other tank (who was one keleseth) died, so I picked up his friend. But it was a bit chaotic at that point to alt-z and PrntScr.

Also, henceforth, I do not pull. I will pill.

OMGCATATALENTS

2010-07-15T00:25:00.000-04:00

Ok, so you can go to wowtal.com to look at the cataclysm talent trees, all 31 points deep.

They're really weird and I will do a semi-thorough analysis of them as Blizz goes along and says that they're where they want em.

In other news, the job and the raiding schedule (which is now even more ridiculous) is straining me to post at a reasonable time.

So you'll likely be seeing double days, or technically four part days.

Best of luck.

Raiding elsewhere!

2010-07-15T00:23:00.000-04:00

So just as I logged in to check my mail.

And I got a whisper "wanna go to ICC 25?"

Normally I thoroughly vet whoever it is, look at their progress and stuff like that, but I knew this person and their guild. So I went along. It was my first time past the first trash pull in ICC 25 so it was an interesting experience.

In anycase, we got down lowerspire (1 shot), did the weekly (Rotface/Festergut) 1 shot rotface and 2 (technically 3) shot festergut.

In anyanycase, I got tanking pants (264s) so I had to replace my chest with t10 to keep my 4p bonus.

So I ended up with five sockets and two items needing enchants.

Thats expensive. I stuck 5x Solid Majestic (150 stam) and a Frostwyrm legpatch (55 stam) and the 275 hp enchant for about 2300 hp.

And then today, finally, finally, finally, my shield dropped. Neverending Winter (with a 20% drop chance) has not dropped once in my 16 Gunship Battle victories. Well, ok, it dropped once, and I won it. But other than that...

Good loots! Happy times!

Freya's in da house

2010-07-15T00:14:00.000-04:00

I know a Freya IRL*, so whenever anyone mentions this bosses name, I laugh a little inside.

*Freya is a die hard hordie and actually (kinda) resembles the Freya boss model.

Ulduar

2010-07-13T00:54:00.000-04:00

I love that place!

It is soooooo cool.

So much better than ToC. Also, way better than Ruby Sanctum.

See, ToC doesn't really have awesome mechanics. The first few fights in Ulduar aren't that amazing, so I didn't have awesome to compare to ToC.

But in ToC the fights are pretty standards. Ulduar. Now thats a beauty. It requires raid coordination and they use the environment.

They have multiple stages, they flow, they're distinct.

These fights are pure and new to me.

The Iron Council mechanic isn't precisely new (some mobs used it in AQ 40).

Hodir has iceblocks (ala PoS) but it was the first with that. Then, that fight is the pinnacle of "Stand in the fire". I mean, you have friendly NPCs, you have buffs, you have movement. Beauty!

Thorim is really cool, especially going through the tunnels- that was awesome. Next time I want to stay out in the arena and watch that.

Then on Freya, the trees are interesting (the trash mildly annoying, but no biggie). The timed waves and different types of adds make for a very cool, chaotic p1. And p2 is a good burn phase. It still makes the tanks pay some attention and same with the dps.

All in all, what I did was good for me. And I got a boatload of achievements. Win/win.

Mal'Ganis

2010-07-13T00:45:00.000-04:00

He looks pretty awesome. Can't wait til he's a playable character.

Healing (part deux)

2010-07-13T00:43:00.000-04:00

So I did more healing. I actually, honest to god, healed a real instance.

I healed Halls of Reflection. Sure it was regular, and sure the tank was my normal ICC 10 offtank, but I healed it without anyone dying.

I mean, for me, right now, its "stare at grid". I just look at that little box and when some gets hurt, I hit 1 (Flash of Light). If someone needs heals right now I hit 3 (Holy Shock). Sure, I used Sacred Shield and Beacon of Light in HoR.

But I didn't use any of my cooldowns.

I want to be able to use my CDs. I know they do special things, but I haven't felt the need. Maybe I should run H-HoR.

That would be a good idea.

Wheeeee!

2010-07-13T00:37:00.002-04:00

Glide bombing ftw!

Healing

2010-07-11T01:16:00.000-04:00

I'm doing it again.

Today I finished my third or fourth instance ever where I was the designated healer.

The first few were on my 19-22 shaman. Yeah, those don't count.

No, today, I really healed an instance. I healed The Nexus on Alenena. My dear Al- never before holy, never before a healer. I've been ret and prot my entire life.

So sure, I didn't heal anything spectacular like ICC or even a heroic- just a dinky regular 5 man, 10 levels below me. But I did indeed do it.

Of course, the tank was a 80 Boomkin running a friend through, but I still learned a little bit about healing.

Seeing what I learned from that one instance, I might have get some addons to help me on my way. I know some people are good enough that they don't need addons, but they'll be helpful. I'll probably just run my regular set up minus a bunch plus decursive. I might consider clique, but that seems like it would make it way to easy.

Now I just have to enchant the good gear I have, get better gear, and gem and enchant that. Course, gemming is easy. Brilliant whatever. Then more Brilliant.

Right then.

Tiny Tim

2010-07-11T01:00:00.000-04:00

When I first go to Outlands on Al (my first toon there) I always got confused by the boars. See, they were about 3 times larger in each dimension than the last boars I had fought and there was nothing other than me or them to put distance in perspective.

The Real ID situation

2010-07-10T03:27:00.000-04:00

So I'm a bit late to the party here folks.

Two days ago, Blizzard announced that they would be attaching Real ID to their forums for Star Craft II (when they were next updated) and the WoW forum a bit after the release of Cataclysm (and of course, the Diablo forums after DIII).

They said it was to reduce trolling, so that people have something attached to their posting so that they cannot not post nearly anonymously.

In the few hours since then, the thread on the WoW forums reached nearly 50,000 responses. Most of these responses came from the same accounts, as there were only 13,000 responders. However, given the huge and immediate response from the population, it is evident that people are not a fan of the plan.

It would not have affected me, as I have never posted on the forums. However, while Real ID works as is, I am not a huge fan. I would very much like to be able to associate a toon-name to my account and share that. Many of my guildies I would probably be comfortable sharing my name with, but it would be very nice if I could ask a random dungeon finder pugee to add Alenena as a cross-realm friend, so that I can talk to other awesome people I meet in pugs, without having to give them my name.

According to How Many of Me there is only one person in the US that shares my full name, which Real ID gives. So, I'd rather not let people I don't know at all have that information.

Anyways, Blizzard recanted that part of the revamping- so its all cool.

Yeah, words.

Oh, look, a Goblin

2010-07-10T03:11:00.000-04:00

What with all the Cataclysm excitement and all, why not have a goblin!

Raiding!

2010-07-09T00:55:00.000-04:00

Very creative title eh?

Anyways, I get to talk about some moderate success!

Yesterday, in our three hour allotment we did the weekly (Patchwerk), 1 shot the Lower Spire and Rotface and two shot Festergut before raid time.

Then we went back in today to try and kill Putricide. We put in three or four attempts (9-manning it, not enough people on). We had incredible amounts of trouble getting the oozes down, which was interesting, we hadn't had that sort of problem before.

Failing there we moved on to kill Svalna without any problems and then marched over to the Blood Wing. There we shanghai'd a guildie who logged on and tried have a shadow priest tank Keleseth, Faer (Bear) tank Valanar and myself (Pally) tank Taldaram. Things we go well until they didn't. A few times someone would grab aggro and Empowered Shadow Lance would kill em. Then there were other similar problems with dying. We tried that three or four times and then moved on to having me tank both Valanar and Taldaram while Faerlina tanked Keleseth. Our first try he got one-shotted even though he had four Dark Nuclei on himself. Our second attempt got them down.

We then moved onto Blood Queen where we had a /much/ better time than on Putricide. Putricide we got to about 85-90% (yeah, thats awful). On Bacon Quiche Lettuce we got down to around 50% on our first attempt because the first bite victem lagged with feet of purple fire and died before he could bass it around. Our second attempt we were slightly disorganized but managed to get her to 26% before her hard enrage. Finally on our third attempt, I called out who would bite who (all I need to do was my 969 rotation). It gets complicated to hold in your head when you have 4 people with the debuff.

Anyways, she took to flight right before people were about to get MC'd and our warlock succumbed. In the next 30-40 seconds we ignored him and burned her down to 11%. If he hadn't been MC'd, the damage we would have gained from one of our top DPS not being MC'd and from not killing our other DPS might have pushed us over the edge to getting a wing boss down.

But we can do that next week. Yay ICC!

Ooops (pt 2)

2010-07-09T00:44:00.002-04:00

Thanks god its not actually Bun-bun. Or is it?

You should go read Sluggy Freelance!

Its all wrong!

2010-07-08T00:30:00.000-04:00

The last few posts about DKs... well, its gonna be pretty much 100% wrong.

Blizzard has announced that they are redoing the way talent trees work in Cataclysm. Completely.

Talent trees are being reduced to 31 points in depth. I'm really aprehensive about this- they say they're going to keep core talents, but I feel that losing all that will feel like a bad thing.
Players will only get 41 talent points at 85. This is very interesting, because if you get the 31 point talent you only have 10 points to spend in other trees- which seems weird. But with higher density of good/cool talents, it may be worth more than the twenty we have today.
At level ten, a player will pick a specialization instead of just dropping points. They player will be locked into this spec until they put 31 points into it (or respec/dual-spec). This seems like a helpful thing for lowbies. It almost definitely is the death of hybrid specs, like frostfire.
When a player picks a spec, they will instantly get the passive bonuses for that spec. DPS specs will get a % DPS increase, tank specs will get their 'vengeance' effect, etc.... Originally Blizzard had intended for players to get more out of these the more points they put into their tree. Now, with a straight buff and being locked in you get the same effect you would get (at the end) at the beginning of your leveling. Yeah, this is nifty, nothing wrong here.
When a player picks a spec they will instantly get an active bonus for that spec. These abilities are usually considered to be signature abilties. They include Mutilate for assassination rogues, Divine Storm of retribution paladins, mortal strike, shield slam, earth shield, thunderstorm, pennance and more. Now this. This. This is full of epic and win. perhaps even some epic win. Seriously- you'll get a KEY ability that you would previously have to wait for 60 for at level ten. This is AWESOME.
Players will be able to spec into secondary trees at level 70. This is the time when you will get your 31 point talent.
Players will alternate levels between getting a talent point and getting an ability.

So, this looks awesome. It is indeed the total reboot they promised us. The trees will be 100% fresh, as they will have all lost about 10+ talents. But I'm very apprehensive. I don't know how this will turn out. But I trust Blizzard to make this amazing.

Wide-angle lens

2010-07-08T00:16:00.002-04:00

Also known as Fish-Eye camera and drunkeness.

Last bit of DKs in Cataclysm

2010-07-07T00:48:00.000-04:00

So this is the third post on DKs in Cataclysm. I'm likely to revisit these fellas as we get closer to launch, and probably afterwards.

It felt to me that Unholy was well suited to PvP, and so I put together a PvP build. Now, I'm not a PvPer but anyways- PvP Unholy: Here it is!

In Blood we have Exsanguinate, which gives a little bit of healing when you kill something. Healing is nice- these points could probably be shifted to Unholy if it will increase mastery/be more effective damage wise.

In frost we go in deep enough to grab three really nice PvP abilties. Lichborne- their trinket on a talent, Endless Winter- makes their primary interrupt free and Pillar of Frost, because of the lovely immunity to external movement affects.

If you don't like those options, you can go with this spec. It focuses a bit more on blood, not grabbing Endless Winter or Pillar of Frost, but snagging Bone Shield (don't think it is very effective in PvP).

Anyways, then we get to our Unholy Talents. I chose to not take Epidemic because you will be reapply diseases as part of your rotation and while they are difficult to dispel (and once dispelled you can reapply them because you got your rune back vie Resilient Infection) this is PvP and they may be dispelled- no need to spend five points on something that will be dispelled.

Unholy Blight, while not as good as it used to be is still helpful, by making it harder for your diseases to be dispelled.

Improved Unholy Presence is really nice, because you will still be a better than average flag-capper and you can get away from someone you don't want to be near, plus, you can pop in Blood Presence, keep the movement speed bonus, but get a huge chunk of survivability.

I didn't put points into Wandering Plague, because PvP isn't the best place for AoE.

Of course, the spec does a lot for Death Coil, creating resource regeneration from Runic Empowerment in the frost tree, Morbidity for increased damage, Unholy Blight for the disease sticking and extra damage. If you want to, you can put some points into Sudden Doom to give your auto attacks a chance to make them free.

Anyways, I plan on moving to another class- likely Paladins or Warlocks if they seem to be significantly changed.

Sunrise

2010-07-07T00:32:00.002-04:00

Sunset, in Westfall. It is likely that this view will be terribly changed in Cataclysm because of spoilers.

Short Post

2010-07-06T00:20:00.000-04:00

A short post because I are tired.

Tonight we did Ulduar- we got the Siege of Ulduar without any wipes and only a few deaths.

We wiped on the Iron Council, but I think a few more tries with a few more mages and we'll have it down. Mages are the best prize on that fight. They can interrupt the little guy and Spellsteal the medium guy's shield.

Then we killed Kologarn- lol easyface. And we got by Auriaya without really knowing the mechanics all that well.

So next week when we forge ahead into unknown territories, things are about to get interesting (I think Brann says that at somepoint).

Yay! Tired!

The Furnace Master

2010-07-06T00:17:00.002-04:00

Ignis is big. And he's good with fire. Thus, Master. And being in fire is such as a furnace. Hitherotoo- Furnace.

More Cataclysmic Death Knights

2010-07-05T01:57:00.000-04:00

So, lets get to this quick- here's a DW frost build using the current calculator. These are for PvE purposes, so my talents are chosen accordingly.

http://www.wowtal.com/#k=BTqmjF6rxbVItY.9gq.deathknight
or
http://www.wowtal.com/#k=CT3hwX_dL08Pz.9gq.deathknight

The only new abilities frost has are Brittle Bones, Pillar of Frost and Might of the Frozen Wastes. Improved Frost Presence is different, but not new.

Explanations after the break:

Bones is a straight dps increase- no reason to not take it.

Pillar of Frost is an exceptional ability in PvP- Death Grip, Blastwave, Thundershock, Typhoon- they won't work. Plus, it gives a 20% increase in strength for 20 seconds, which is actually a fairly good as a CD, especialy considering the high up-time, 33%.

Might of the Frozen Wastes is not an option here because we're looking at a DW build, not a 2H.

Improved Frost Presence is just more Runic Power to be getting.

I went into blood with the purpose of getting Bladed Armor and Blood-Caked Blades, the first because of the large amounts of armor DK's have and BCB because of the large number of Melee attacks DW DKs make. Besides, a little Butchery never hurt anyone.

I was slightly considering Bone Shield- however, even if it isn't affected by AoE/dot pulses/ticks, its only 2%, compared to the average 6.66% that PoF provides.

The second spec has the same choices as the first with regards to frost, but I went unholy instead of blood as my second tree. I haven't done the math, but Necrosis is a straight extra 20% auto-attack damage. BCB is 25-50% damage with a chance of occuring at 30%, so it does between 7-15% auto-attack damage, its the other talents that are taken that may make the difference- Ravenous Dead (3% strength) against Bladed Armor (5 pts AP per 180 armor).

For the Two Handed spec I went with:
http://www.wowtal.com/#k=BTiqi1xYkq-sv7.9gq.deathknight

Here you definitely want to go Blood for the Two-Handed Specialization, plus Necrosis is a useless talent to go for, so stay with Virulence for the Hit, but blood otherwise.

I did put points into Unholy, because there are five spare points, and nothing in frost increases your damage and same with blood. The first few in Unholy also don't increase your damage, they just free up your rotation by taking out the time constraints via disease.

Anyways, lots of words.

Purple

2010-07-05T01:39:00.000-04:00

Its advertised as a Black War Kitty, but its purple.

Death Knights in Cataclysm.

2010-07-04T01:20:00.000-04:00

Well, in Cataclysm Blood DKs are going to be the tanks, Frost can DW or 2H- up to them, and Unholy is something I don't know much about.

So, without further ado, a Blood Tanking spec:

http://www.wowtal.com/#k=xSaCqIB_0-1M.9gq.deathknight

So- some interesting talents:

The Combination of Hemorrhagic Fever, Crimson Scourge and Blood Swarm all improve it. I like it because it is a cheap snap AoE. Anyways, it can now decrease physical damage dealt, does more damage and you can get it for free when you clip your Blood Plague.

Bood Presence and Imp Blood Presence are the replacement for frost presence- so now presences work with the specs. The improvement gives you your crit immunity.

Blood Parasite is the blood worms redone, so it heals your party- not just you.

Will of the Necropolis currently just does the standard reduced damage under 35%. In Cataclysm, it will give you a Rune-Tap free essentially. Plus 25 damage reduction for 8 seconds- pretty nifty.

Sanguine Fortitude is pretty awesome too- unbuffed it reduces damage taken by 30% and makes the player immune to stuns. If you add in the talent, it now reduces damage taken by 60% and is FREE. So its the Shield Wall/Divine Protection of DKs.

And Dancing Rune Weapon is actually useful for tanks now! In addition to the normal extra damage it provides 20% parry- a huge amount, making it a worthwhile tanking cooldown.

So this is plenty long for a post- I'll do frost some other day. Don't worry boys'n'girls, I'll get to it.

Dancin on the Water

2010-07-04T00:05:00.002-04:00

Except the water is invisible, and I'm not dancing, I'm on a horse.

The GearScore debate

2010-07-03T02:02:00.000-04:00

1) I'll be getting to the Cataclysm information soon. I'll probably start with classes that I know well- pallys, DKs and Warlocks and then touch upon the other classes I know decently- Feral Druids and Combat Rogues.

2) I can't remember or be bothered to look up whether it is GearScore or Gear Score.

Anyways, I know huge numbers of people who are supporters of GS and those who are not.

If you've been living under a rock, GS evaluates your character and gives you number. It only looks at the Item levels of your gear tosses in some multipliers and poof, you have a score.

More recent versions have been able to look more carefully at the gear and determine if it is right for the spec.

In my opinion, GS is both good and evil.

For the argument of evil, which is the more commonly voiced, is that it simplifies too many things. It doesn't take into account experience, achievements, maturity and skill. Many players forming pugs require a certain GS. You will often see in chat "LFM ICC 10, GS 5500 or better".

The con argument says that you don't need a GS that high to do well in there. When TOC started ICC, I had a GS of under 5k, and I was one of the best geared players at the time.

Now people in RDF pugs look at your gearscore and judge you. If you have a GS under 3k (according to some) you are not fit to run heroics. Of course, people started heroics back in early wrath with what would have been a GS of about 2-2.5k.

So essentially, GS is now another way to discriminate, and it can get you kicked out of pugs or not invited to raids. If you're kicked out, consider your ability- if you aren't def-capped and can't hold threat, you need more gear, if you're pulling under 1-1.5k, you should probably get more gear. If you can't keep the DPS up while healing the tank, you need more gear. And if you can't get into a raid and you feel you have the gear for it, make your own pug.

Now, for the other argument, the argument of good. Yes, GS doesn't take into account experience, achievements, maturity and skill. But looking at someone's armory page can only give you their achievements.

You could look them up on WoW-Heroes or be.imba.hu and see what content they are geared for (and with the latter, what their experience is like). GS however, used properly, is a very valuable time saving tool. If you're lfm ICC-10 and someone with a 2-3.5k (maybe 4k) GS says they want in, they are severely undergeared, and you don't have to go through the process of armorying them.

If they have a 6k Gearscore, but you need them for their offspec, well, no data easily collected will tell you how often they use that. If you need a tree to tank for you, they may have all the achievements, they may have downed LK 10/25 hm and not have any tanking skill at all.

In a pug, if I'm dpsing on an ICC geared toon, I can see that the tank has a considerably lower GS than me, and so I pay particular attention to my threat. A healer can see if anyone will need special focusing and the tank can figure out how fast he can pull. If I'm dropped into H-UK and everyone has a 5k+ GS, I'll chain pull as much as I can at a time, because I can estimate that they can handle it.

Plus, looking at it go up bit by bit is fun, it gives me something to shoot for. And, even when it doesn't go up from loot drops, it encourages me to go out and get more gear when someone else closes in on my score.

So- if you use duct tape well, you can patch a boat a save lives. If you use duct tape to kidnap someone, bind them and cover their mouth and nose, you can destroy lives.

Just like gearscore- except not as extreme. Used well, its a useful tool, not used well, its, ummm welll, its a not useful tool. Go figure.

Hello dere

2010-07-03T01:42:00.002-04:00

I am a bush. I live in a swamp. It smells in the swamp. Hello.

Halion!

2010-07-02T00:14:00.000-04:00

We didn't kill him.

But, we did enter his instance.

This is essentially the first time TOC has been doing current content. In Classic they really only did Onyxia and MC for the most part. In the Burning Crusades, after some drama, it was Kara and H-MGT.

I Wrath, we did do Naxx while it was 'current' as it wast the only raid available. But we didn't do Maly and Sarth (technically available) and those were much more complicated fights (or at least harder).

Then Ulduar came out, and we did a little bit, but it was too much, there was a very, very small amount of drama and several of our hardercore raiders broke off to start their own raiding guild. We went back from Uld 25 to Naxx 10 and did that for several months until ToC was released. Then we started doing Uld 10. Finally, when ICC was released we did ToC. Then, because of the dungeon finder, properly motivated people managed to get geared for ICC and we started that. Sure we're 7/12 reg 10, but we went ahead and got 3/4 reg 10 Halion.

As a tank, I really didn't like the fights. The first fight was a tank'n'spank- I just had to make sure I didn't get combusted or faced the dragon towards the raid. Really boring. Except when I got combusted and then I was incapacitated for a few seconds while she landed.

The next boss was just a bother, we didn't really know the best tactics (as this has yet to be thoroughly done. No one has killed him more than once on live realms in 10 man). There was wiping involved because of bad luck and learning the fight.

The third mini-boss bothered me because it was another tank'n'spank, with a little bit of add control. But the adds are two caster adds who spawn miles away from eachother making it difficult for me (pally) and my co-tank (bear) to grab the adds. Bothersome and boring.

Halion, however, is a really fun fight. For p1, I don't do much, just keep the dragon from roflstomping the raid, and if the other tank tanks him in shadow, then I just dps, but there are multiple mechanics that just aren't a drain on my focus. I don't have to worry about silly gimmicks, I don't have to worry about weird adds. I don't have to worry about almost getting one-shot. I don't have to worry about being incapacitated while the boss does as it pleases.

Halion was fun, and after TOC gears up significantly more, I'll be going back with the guild to get the achievement. But that is it.

Let the roflstomping commence

2010-07-02T00:05:00.000-04:00

Lotsa dargons. You can't see em all in this image, but I think there were about 6-9 flying around absolutely wrecking the city. And then the battle of lights hope- good lord, there were about 20 DKs.

Good News Everyone

2010-07-01T01:08:00.000-04:00

We did awesome in ICC today.

The Cataclysm Closed Beta has been announced to be starting shortly.

Anyways, because TOC is planning on running Ulduar on Monday for achievements and boss killing (never got very far in there) we skipped this weeks weekly, Razorscale, and just plunged into ICC. Because I was tanking, if a healer was in range, I pulled, so things went fairly smoothly.

We one-shot Lord Marrowgar, Lady Deathwhisper, and The Icecrown Gunship Battle.

We had a little trouble on Deathbringer Saurfang-the first time I could not focus for some reason and bad things happened.

The next attempt nobody is quite clear on our particular failings, but we got to the enrage and bad things happened.

The third attempt we downed him at 7:45. Fifteen seconds to go before the enrage.

We had some fun with the traps in the next section. Our bear kitty-dashed/rocket-booted his way through (I had forbearance on my self because of Divine Protection) and opened up the teleport. One of our priests, who was the Master Looter and therefore stayed behind walked into the flames and died. So, after killing the near valkyr, we sent another priest after her to res. He died, then another priest resed both of them and the first priest died in a fire a second time. Good laughs.

At this point in the raid (and the afk break before Saurfang) I looked at wow.com's information on cataclysm. cool stuff- I should review that someday.

We then two-shot Rotface. The first time I managed to die three times, once while I was rearanging the big ooze to get to a couple people with little oozes, then I got BR'd into an ooze explosion, and then I got BR'd, lasted for a few seconds and then got eaten by a big ooze.

The next attempt, we made it smoothly all the way through, without losing a soul- or either tank. While, this is our third 'guild kill' of this boss, the previous two times we had two heavy-hitting, experienced mages, who I feel contributed a huge amount to our success there.

We went off to one-shot Festergut, and walked up to say hello to the professor.

I was the only person in the group to have seen him die (on my warlock) and was one of about three or four who had been there previously when we had attempted him. In our one try we got him to 67%.

And, I don't believe a single piece of loot was slotted for DE. Some may have gone to off-off specs, but everything was taken for use- a rare enough event.

Now, for our fun fact of the day.

On Rotface, if you have the Mutated Infection on you and you remove it (or die) so that the little ooze spawns, if you kite it over to where the big ooze is, if the the big ooze has already begun its explosion cast, it will consume the little ooze (as the big ooze does) but will destroy itself, thus saving you the trouble of a single little ooze.

You have my Axe

2010-07-01T00:54:00.002-04:00

... And my Hammer.... And my screenshot and bad sense of humor.