Glory of Ulduar is Awesome!

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

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.

OBLIVION

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!

MOARMOAR MIMIRON! I HEART MIMIRON!

More Mimiron

MOAR MIMIRON!

More Mimiron

MOAR MIMIRON!

I Love Mimiron

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

Mecha Mech!

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

Mimiron is the best prize

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.

Oooh shiny!

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

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

By which I mean, someone killed Algalon.

Freya's in da house

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

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.

Short Post

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

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

Elder Gods

Tonight I tried to summon Cthulhu.

I'A I'A CTHULHU FHATGN!

We had runes, pentagrams, chants and various rituals. It was amazing. Tentacles were (are) everywhere.

Anyways, there are some old gods in WoW too.

Primarily there is Cthun. He was around in Classic WoW, awaiting you at the end of AQ40. He is this giant eye that shoots tentacles out of the ground. He then eats you and you have to fight your way out of his stomach.

There were other gods, especially the troll gods, prevalent in both Zul'Gurub and Zul'Aman. However, those aren't ancient gods. They're fairly new.

Then in Wrath we had Yogg'Saron. He's a big baddies with lots of eyes. I've never seen him myself, but he's evil and big.

Finally, with Cataclysm upcoming, we have Uldum and more old gods. It is in the desert (Similar to AQ) and as structure similarities with Ulduman and Ulduar.

Reality

Today, on the the Icecrown Gunship Battle, one of my guildies made an interesting observation.

"I am on a motorcycle, on a boat, in the air."

Another guildie responded with

"Sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology."

Now, the original statement is 'Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.' However, I feel that this statement works as well. But thats not my point here.

WoW has to have some barrier which it chooses not to cross to remain the game that it is. With original WoW, there were some elevators, guns, and a hovering tram-way. Since then we have also gained spaceships (in TBC) and in Wrath, we got steam-powered vehicles, airships, and other weird technologies.

Come Cataclysm, we have been promised submarines. It is very interesting to see the in-game technology progress, but have old technology be just a powerful, if not better. The best mechanical flying mount is only 280% but natural (as natural as celestial steeds, skeletan gryphons and dragons are) mounts can go faster.

If WoW advances too much more, we will be carrying around gattling guns and combat knives....

If we get to the point where we get lightsabers, I will be very confused. But very happy as well.

End-game: Part II

So I did some more raid-tanking this evening.

This is the fourth night of raiding The Oasis Contingent has done. For a long time we were struggling to get one night in a week.

This week alone we have completed the following raid achievements.

Flame Leviathan: First boss in Ulduar, very easy, and about the 20th time or so the guild has downed him.

Ignis the Flame Master: An optional boss in Ulduar. Fairly tricky- The hardest of the first four bosses in Ulduar. About fifth or sixth guild down, three of those during May of last year (before the raiders split off from us).

Northern Beasts: First boss in ToC. TOC has downed them about six or seven times.

Lord Jarraxus: Second boss in ToC. TOC has downed him another four or five times.

Faction Champions: Third boss in ToC. TOC has downed them twice.

Twin Val'kyr: Fourth boss in ToC. TOC has downed them twice.

Anub'arak: Final boss in ToC. This week was guild first.

Onyxia: First, Final boss in Onyxia's lair (go figure). We downed her a couple times at 60, and about four or so times since then.

Icecrown Citadel Trash: The ICC trash, we was actually very fun.

Archavon, Koralon, Toravon: the t7, t9 and t10 bosses in VoA. Lots of achievements going around for all of them. Toravon is the equivalent of a 'easy' ICC raid boss.

I'd like to say more, but I'm tired and lazy and it will make good fodder for another post.

SHWING! SHINY!

Since I'm in the mood of first downs, this was taken in Ulduar after Guild First (one-shot) Kologarn kill. It look purty. Auriaya (crazy cat lady) is off to the side. I'm not sure if we've actually downed her yet.

Gearing Up

I've recently been gearing up my two 80s, with a primary focus on my Paladin- Alenena. Before 3.3 I was gearing Vitos, my Warlock because it was just as easy to get into a group with him and he did much more dps. This makes sense considering he is a pure class, not a hybrid.

Anyways, with 3.3 Al can now offer to tank or dps and can consequently get a group in under a minute easily. Vitos has to wait fifteen+ minutes in general, and if he screws up, many people are very willing to boot a dps who does not perform to their exalted expectations.

In any case, 3.3 hit just as my winter break started so I could really sit down and gear up. Within a week I had 4 pieces of T9. In the month or so since then I've gotten another 3 pieces of tier (one more for tanking and two for dps). Additionally, I've gotten excellent loot from the new 5-mans, finally replacing a year old Demise.

I also got a Triumph ring and trinket as well as a Conqueror's Libram. My average iLv rocketed from 205 (tank gear) to 229 (tank gear). However, there were two pieces that evaded my grasp. Bracers and Back. I did buy one of the 30 emblem Valorous capes, but that left if at 213, which, compared to the rest of my gear, was pretty low. Even worse were my bracers. I had gotten them in my first H-CoS run. They were the blue iLv 200 bracers that dropped off Salramm. Now, they aren't bad, they did in fact serve me well through Naxx, Ulduar, some ToC, and Onyxia. Hell, they were with me when I went to ICC for the first time.

I spent a long time researching where to upgrade them. First there was a iLv 200 Epic drop in Heroic AN. A small upgrade, but one nonetheless- so far, it has not dropped for me. Then there are some other guys who drop much better bracers. Instructor Rasuvious- One of the first bosses in Naxx drops iLv 200 and 213 bracers- depending on 10 or 25 man. The Flame Leviathan, first boss in Ulduar 10, drops 219 bracers. Northern Beasts, first boss in ToC 10, drops 232 bracers. Lord Marrowgar, first boss in ICC 10, drops 251 bracers.

The problem with all those is that I rarely raid, and when I do, they don't drop for me. That makes me sad. In any case, there are two epic level BoE bracers. The 60 Emblem of Valor ones, which cost 900g minimum if you want to buy them because whoever it is could buy 6 epic gems instead, so that hardly makes sense for an iLv 213 at this point in the game. The other BoE bracer is Saronite Swordbreakers. They're a crafted piece and the recipe drops in ToC 10-H or 25 (I think). They require 8 titansteel bars, 4 crusader orbs and 20 saronite bars. There were two of them on the AH when I checked each going for about 3000g. I then chose to look at the actual prices of the materials and determined that, if I got them, I could get the bracers for about half price. I proceeded to do so spending- 1350 in total including a 50g tip for the crafter I found and got me my new bracers. Now I'm very much over def cap (by about 10 points) so I'm going to be regemming and reenchanting some of my gear.