DISCLAIMER:
This post is a personal update and in no way implies a return to DK blogging.... (sorry)
After taking over 7 months off and not touching the game, I found that I continued to miss the it. I stayed in touch with some of my in-game friends, read forums, and otherwise continued to maintain interest in Wow. I also didn't really have anything else hold my interest or fill my late-night time in a way that Wow did, so I decided to try playing again - on an even more limited schedule.
Several of the reasons I left in the first place have not changed, so playing 40 hours a week remains a Very Bad Idea.
I found a incredible guild that raids 6 hours a week yet still progresses (according to WowProgress, after our H Baleroc kill we were top-40 worldwide for guilds that raid 1-2 nights a week), has great people, and a good schedule.
When I came back, I didn't start blogging again for several reasons - which all still apply today.
1. I'm not sure I want or am able to devote the time and energy to Wow overall to also write a blog.
2. There's a lot of good resources out there. There are a couple of very good blogs on DKs, Elitist Jerks is a great place for theorycrafting (and #Acherus although I don't really go there), and sites like WOL and RaidBots provide a wealth of information for the performance-minded DK. Not sure what I'd contribute at this point.
3. I 'wasn't myself' when I returned - it had been over 7 months. My gear was way behind, Firelands was well in progress and I'd never seen any of it, and I had computer problems holding me back (turns out my MBP wasn't that great for raiding after all). Additionally, I found I 'had' to play frost which I've discovered/confirmed that I really don't like and am not good at (I didn't get ranked on any fight until this week when I went unholy on Baleroc N during our achievement run).
So, the bottom line is, Yes, Hine is back in Wow, playing DK. I'm loving it so far (although Skyrim is a very compelling diversion at the moment) and having fun. I've maintained a reasonable balance with time/energy invested, and feel like I can continue playing long enough to probably make an annual pass worthwhile.
I may or may not do any more blogging, and even if I do, it will likely be more sporadic, and probably more 'personal' rather than focused on optimizing DK play.
Thanks for the well-wishes in the interim, and hope you are all enjoying Wow, and DK-ing (and yay for 4.3 buffs!!!).
-Hine
Showing posts with label blogging general. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blogging general. Show all posts
Friday, November 18, 2011
Monday, January 3, 2011
Cataclysm Heroics III: DPS DKs
Time for another heroic!
Which one shall it be this time, Mmmm? :P
In the absence of requests, I'll go with Stonecore, which I've found to be quite melee unfriendly. There are a few fight mechanics to perfect, but once accomplished, this heroic should go as smoothly as the others.
Since I've commented on this in my other posts, yes, my guild has started 25-man raiding, so while we're not up there with Paragon just yet, we're working through raiding. Expect raid DK guides to start in a couple of weeks.
Stonecore (sometimes abbreviated as SC) is an unforgiving 5-man for melee in sub-359 gear. I think it's also a little easier than Grim Batol, but still more difficult than VP (Vortex Pinnacle). You get four different types of bosses (gyreworm, drake, elemental, witch), but as the name obviously implies, it's a rocky instance and has the obligatory mineable elementals in it.
The instance is linear and none of the bosses are skippable.
I don't normally talk about trash, but the trash in here just love to eat melee.
The first pull can be a challenge. I believe it's the earth elementals (correct me if I'm wrong) that do a spinning aoe that can wreck the group quickly. A stun will stop them, and as we DKs don't have a stun, we're useless, right? Actually, you can back away a bit, and death grip them, which stops the spin, although a warrior or non-DK tank, a rogue or anyone else with a stun should use it here.
Rock flayers can kill you quickly as well, if your tank isn't aware. The tank needs to face them all in one direction, and then you can get behind them and dps. but when they do their frenzy attack, if you can't get behind them all, run away! I've died a few times to these buggers.
Finally, the big rock elementals (can't remember their names at the moment); they do a big stomp that hurts and can be hard to see when you're on their butt. If you can, watch for the stomp that's bigger and slower than the others, and jump shortly after their foot starts down, and you'll avoid the damage.
Corborus:
The first boss is an elemental gyreworm who shouldn't cause you too many problems. As a dps DK, you obviously need to stay out of crystal barrage, which can kill you fairly quickly on heroic. Similarly, when Corborus submerges, you need to watch when he's about to come back up (indicated by a dust cloud on the ground); if not avoided it's likely to one-shot you. Finally, it will be much much easier if a ranged focuses on aoeing down the adds. You can kill them, but if they get close, they'll explode and more than one or two of these is likely to be deadly.
Otherwise, just dps the boss. Probably the best time to pop cds is right at pull - as usual, save your frenzy (if UH) if a member uses a heroism buff, otherwise pop it along with the rest. Focus on the boss. If you have a ranged killing adds, don't worry about them. If they need help, you can drop a D&D on them or turn and HB, but otherwise you really don't want to spend time on adds.
Slabhide:
This drake is honestly fairly forgettable. The mechanics are similar to normal mode, just a little more unforgiving. As with most drakes, stay out from in front as has a conal attack (Sand Blast). As far as I can tell, there's no tail swipe so off to the side or back will work. You'll need the room, because you obviously have to stay out of eruption (magma circles), avoid dropping stalagtites, and line of sight when Slabhide lands and starts Crystal Storm. Stay too long in any of these effects and you'll spend the fight on the floor. Pop cds at the beginning, even though some of them will be wasted to Slab's flight phase - there's really no good time to burn them otherwise.
Ozruk is the most unpleasant fellow in the instance. He's also the author of the last time I actually abandoned a pug after repeated failure after failure. He's not terribly difficult, but for some reason I've found pugs - especially tanks and melee - have a hard time with it. Basically, you'll be taking bleed damage from spike shield throughout the fight, and strangely, this is your friend. Why? Because he casts paralyze which will incapacitate you while he winds up for his Shatter. Fortunately, because you have the bleed on you, this will break the paralyze and you can run out. You'll need to watch for the emote, because sometimes you won't notice the paralyze - you'll take a tick of damage so close to paralyze you won't notice it. Obviously, you need to run away from the boss or Shatter WILL kill you on heroic. And - fun ain't it? -you'll need to be very careful while running back in, because he'll start his conal ground siege shortly after shatter and the tank may not have a chance to face him away. So you'll need to be ready to run to the side that isn't getting the ground siege before running back in. This cycle repeats itself several times. As I said, not difficult, but you don't have a ton of time to run out so you'll need to do it quickly. Frost DK will have more trouble with this due to being in frost presence, so be ready to hit unholy presence, or even use darkflight or rocket boots as necessary.
As for dps, just pop the cds at the start and on cooldown as needed.
High Priestess Azil: the end boss of the instance. Not too different from normal mode besides the typical increased mob health and damage, with one exception. This time, instead of a mechanic that can kill you, the mechanic we're concerned about can kill the tank. Force Grip - nicely stolen from Star Wars - lifts the tank in the air and does massive damage to the tank. If not interrupted, it will probably kill the tank, so make sure to save some rp for interrupts. I also love to try to sucker a mess of adds to chase me, then run under one of her rock targets, killing the adds for you. Of course you can kite them through Dark Portals as well.
In this case, I actually save my cds for the first add phase, the better to burn them down, and then army during the second add phase. Remember that your army will taunt the boss, so use it only in emergencies. However, if you summon it when all the adds are coming, it actually will keep them off your healer and help kill the adds faster. Not too bad of a fight, though.
And, that's another heroic down! Let me know if there's another heroic you want some DK notes on before I move on to raids, and enjoy. :)
Which one shall it be this time, Mmmm? :P
In the absence of requests, I'll go with Stonecore, which I've found to be quite melee unfriendly. There are a few fight mechanics to perfect, but once accomplished, this heroic should go as smoothly as the others.
Since I've commented on this in my other posts, yes, my guild has started 25-man raiding, so while we're not up there with Paragon just yet, we're working through raiding. Expect raid DK guides to start in a couple of weeks.
Stonecore (sometimes abbreviated as SC) is an unforgiving 5-man for melee in sub-359 gear. I think it's also a little easier than Grim Batol, but still more difficult than VP (Vortex Pinnacle). You get four different types of bosses (gyreworm, drake, elemental, witch), but as the name obviously implies, it's a rocky instance and has the obligatory mineable elementals in it.
The instance is linear and none of the bosses are skippable.
I don't normally talk about trash, but the trash in here just love to eat melee.
The first pull can be a challenge. I believe it's the earth elementals (correct me if I'm wrong) that do a spinning aoe that can wreck the group quickly. A stun will stop them, and as we DKs don't have a stun, we're useless, right? Actually, you can back away a bit, and death grip them, which stops the spin, although a warrior or non-DK tank, a rogue or anyone else with a stun should use it here.
Rock flayers can kill you quickly as well, if your tank isn't aware. The tank needs to face them all in one direction, and then you can get behind them and dps. but when they do their frenzy attack, if you can't get behind them all, run away! I've died a few times to these buggers.
Finally, the big rock elementals (can't remember their names at the moment); they do a big stomp that hurts and can be hard to see when you're on their butt. If you can, watch for the stomp that's bigger and slower than the others, and jump shortly after their foot starts down, and you'll avoid the damage.
Corborus:
The first boss is an elemental gyreworm who shouldn't cause you too many problems. As a dps DK, you obviously need to stay out of crystal barrage, which can kill you fairly quickly on heroic. Similarly, when Corborus submerges, you need to watch when he's about to come back up (indicated by a dust cloud on the ground); if not avoided it's likely to one-shot you. Finally, it will be much much easier if a ranged focuses on aoeing down the adds. You can kill them, but if they get close, they'll explode and more than one or two of these is likely to be deadly.
Otherwise, just dps the boss. Probably the best time to pop cds is right at pull - as usual, save your frenzy (if UH) if a member uses a heroism buff, otherwise pop it along with the rest. Focus on the boss. If you have a ranged killing adds, don't worry about them. If they need help, you can drop a D&D on them or turn and HB, but otherwise you really don't want to spend time on adds.
Slabhide:
This drake is honestly fairly forgettable. The mechanics are similar to normal mode, just a little more unforgiving. As with most drakes, stay out from in front as has a conal attack (Sand Blast). As far as I can tell, there's no tail swipe so off to the side or back will work. You'll need the room, because you obviously have to stay out of eruption (magma circles), avoid dropping stalagtites, and line of sight when Slabhide lands and starts Crystal Storm. Stay too long in any of these effects and you'll spend the fight on the floor. Pop cds at the beginning, even though some of them will be wasted to Slab's flight phase - there's really no good time to burn them otherwise.
Ozruk is the most unpleasant fellow in the instance. He's also the author of the last time I actually abandoned a pug after repeated failure after failure. He's not terribly difficult, but for some reason I've found pugs - especially tanks and melee - have a hard time with it. Basically, you'll be taking bleed damage from spike shield throughout the fight, and strangely, this is your friend. Why? Because he casts paralyze which will incapacitate you while he winds up for his Shatter. Fortunately, because you have the bleed on you, this will break the paralyze and you can run out. You'll need to watch for the emote, because sometimes you won't notice the paralyze - you'll take a tick of damage so close to paralyze you won't notice it. Obviously, you need to run away from the boss or Shatter WILL kill you on heroic. And - fun ain't it? -you'll need to be very careful while running back in, because he'll start his conal ground siege shortly after shatter and the tank may not have a chance to face him away. So you'll need to be ready to run to the side that isn't getting the ground siege before running back in. This cycle repeats itself several times. As I said, not difficult, but you don't have a ton of time to run out so you'll need to do it quickly. Frost DK will have more trouble with this due to being in frost presence, so be ready to hit unholy presence, or even use darkflight or rocket boots as necessary.
As for dps, just pop the cds at the start and on cooldown as needed.
High Priestess Azil: the end boss of the instance. Not too different from normal mode besides the typical increased mob health and damage, with one exception. This time, instead of a mechanic that can kill you, the mechanic we're concerned about can kill the tank. Force Grip - nicely stolen from Star Wars - lifts the tank in the air and does massive damage to the tank. If not interrupted, it will probably kill the tank, so make sure to save some rp for interrupts. I also love to try to sucker a mess of adds to chase me, then run under one of her rock targets, killing the adds for you. Of course you can kite them through Dark Portals as well.
In this case, I actually save my cds for the first add phase, the better to burn them down, and then army during the second add phase. Remember that your army will taunt the boss, so use it only in emergencies. However, if you summon it when all the adds are coming, it actually will keep them off your healer and help kill the adds faster. Not too bad of a fight, though.
And, that's another heroic down! Let me know if there's another heroic you want some DK notes on before I move on to raids, and enjoy. :)
Monday, December 27, 2010
Heroic Halls of Origination: a DPS DK Perspective
Time for another heroic!
Like I said on the last one, I probably won't get through all of the heroics, but I'll review a few of the ones that seem to give people trouble and make some suggestions on optimizing your DK play in heroics while gearing up. If you have a particular instance you want me to review or suggestions, let me know!
With many guilds starting 'regular' raids soon (my guild has downed 5 bosses so far in 10 man, starts 25 man raids this week), I may start reviewing raid bosses as well once I have a feel for them.
Halls of Origination (HOO) is a long and fairly challenging 5-man in sub-359 gear. I think it's a little easier than Grim Batol, but still more difficult than VP (Vortex Pinnacle). It's an Egyptian-themed instance carrying on the desert motif of Uldum. Nice artwork, fun layout. In general, a fun instance, but again, fairly long.
Instead of a separate article for each boss, I'll just put in a few comments for each boss from a DPS DK perspective. In this instance, you can pick the order of most of the bosses, and one boss is optional. I'll also not review the four gatekeepers since they're better referred to as minibosses and essentially have only one elemental attack. I've died on most/all of them at some point, but for the most part just stay out of bad and kill them. I'll focus here on the 'actual' bosses of HOO.
Temple Guardian Anhuur:
This boss unlocks the instance and lets you find Brann. He's a Tol'vir who stands on a platform in the middle of his room. A review of his abilities made me scratch my head (oh, so that's what he does? hmm). Even on heroic, as a dps you just need to stay out of obvious 'bad stuff' when dpsing him and you'll be fine. No mechanics that will wipe you, really. The key to this fight is that after a while he'll put up a Shield of Light which makes him invulnerable. I've usually done this on heroic by having the whole group jump down to the left switch first. As a plate-wearer, I usually Death & Decay and blood boil to keep the switch person from being hit and then start running for the right side switch. Those snakes' damage can add up, so try to stay in line of sight for your healer. Hungering Cold is win here. Other than that, though, no real tricks to it. I burn my cd's right after we interrupt Anhuur's cast, but each phase is fairly short so there's no way to avoid 'wasting' some of your cooldowns.
Earthrager Ptah:
Ptah is the optional boss that's 'outside' in a courtyard. He's a Bone Wraith (looks a lot like Marrowgar) that summons adds. Things that will kill you: inattentiveness. The Earth Spike hits pretty hard on heroic. It won't one-shot you, but if your health is down a bit, it will kill you. As usual with this sort of thing, the spike has a crumbly, dusty spot on the ground shortly before erupting. If you get hit with it, not only will your nether regious hurt like the dickens, you'll be launched in the air and take fall damage upon return to earth. As usual, stay out of bad. To maximize dps, fight from behind the boss but be ready to adjust to either side for spikes. When the adds come, give the tank a moment to collect them, then spread diseases and full aoe rotation. I like to pop my cds here, but you certainly can burn them at the beginning of the fight as well.
After dancing with the roving packs of troggs and killing the elemental mini-bosses, Anraphet comes out and finishes off the troggs. The Big Meanie (aka Titanic Watcher) does two things which can kill you quickly as dps. First, the Alpha Beams. They target a random player, and channel nasty circle of death. Move fast, naturally. The second occurs during his Omega Stance. This aoe can hurt, but I usually use either AMS or IBF to help. A guildie said that moving or jumping helps reduce damage. I can't find anything written about this and can't prove it (comments, anyone?), but I've found myself jumping like a bean during this phase anyway. :) Generally, pop cd's at pull and use them when they're back up. Nothing special, although he hits hard and the aoe can hurt, so try to kill him quickly, save some defensive abilities for Omega Stance, and then try to have some for the last 30 sec when his Alpha Beams start to cover the floor.
Seats of the Keepers:
The next four bosses can be killed in any order.
Isiset is the construct of magic; like all four keepers she is a Titanic Watcher. As with most heroic bosses, there's a lot of aoe that can drop your health so you'll want to keep an eye out, but no big fight mechanics that can one- or two-shot you. Pop cd's at pull. Since you can do this for all four keepers, my current sequence looks like this:
Hit on use str trinket (JC boar figurine for example) while running in. Before you reach her, outbreak your diseases on her. Unholy Frenzy. Even with no preserved runic power, once you Scourge Strike, Festering Strike, SS, FS, you'll have the rp to summon your gargoyle. Use any Sudden Doom procs in between. Blood Tap. SS and FS and now use any remaining rp to try to get Dark Transformation up quickly. I can usually get my transformed ghoul up before UF wears off. Frost can be similar - although wait to use POF at least until the first melee hit so you don't waste it. Then normal priorities from there.
At any rate, when Isiset does her supernova, you can spin around or just step through her - both work fine. When her little starry adds pop out, I usually just pestilence to them, but if your group wants you to, pestilence, then switch to them and kill them, and then back to boss. Sometimes I also put my pet on the adds and stay on the boss myself. For Frost, your HB should do the trick nicely to aoe the adds. We kill the Astral Familiar first, but I don't think it matters much. Overall, a fairly simple fight for DKs.
Ammunae: the construct of life. Pop cds at pull as above. The big key to this fight besides not getting yourself killed, is killing the seedling pods quickly. Just kill them asap. You can pestilence to them, but they tend to die pretty fast, so you can just OB/SS them quickly down, and return in time to keep diseases up on Ammunae. As the pods proliferate, send a pet to kill stray ones as well. As with Isiset, no insta-kill mechanics, just a lot of attrition for your healer to keep up.
Rajh: the construct of radiance. Rajh does a lot of targetting a player or area and attacking. Just like in martial arts, the key is not being there when the attack arrives. Interrupt Summon Sun Orb. With how many interrupts are needed in heroics, endless winter is a nice talent in here. In any case, try to prevent an orb from being summoned, run away otherwise. Save AMS for Blessing of the Sun, while he's aoeing. Even in blues/greens, this barely tickles with AMS up. Obviously, pop cds at pull, avoid bad, win.
Setesh can be a bit of a challenge. Probably the most difficult boss. He's the construct of chaos and he tries to overwhelm you with void Wurms, Void Seekers, and Void Sentinels. As I'm sure you know, Setesh can't be tanked so the tank's job is to tank the Sentinels. Most tanks I've run with can kill the wurms pretty well and need only a little help on Seekers (we usually assign a ranged to this). Your job is to #1: kill Portals! (Yes, Jaraxxus-style) Portals need to die fast. In between, dps the boss. This is a race against time in current gear, with the soft enrage being some time around the 6th portal (tank/healer will be overwhelmed and die).
Ask your team if they have a heroism/bloodlust; if they do, they'll probably use it at pull. If so, use your str or on-use trinkets and summon gargoyle, but don't use unholy frenzy yet. This is becuase you'll waste a lot of the UF effect due to being overcapped for haste. Save the UF until heroism is down and you have a ghoul ready to DT. Obviously, frost can use POF and all cds with heroism.
So there you go! Oveall, less raid-like mechanics in here than in Grim Batol, but still a visually pleasing instance, and some fun fights.
Like I said on the last one, I probably won't get through all of the heroics, but I'll review a few of the ones that seem to give people trouble and make some suggestions on optimizing your DK play in heroics while gearing up. If you have a particular instance you want me to review or suggestions, let me know!
With many guilds starting 'regular' raids soon (my guild has downed 5 bosses so far in 10 man, starts 25 man raids this week), I may start reviewing raid bosses as well once I have a feel for them.
Halls of Origination (HOO) is a long and fairly challenging 5-man in sub-359 gear. I think it's a little easier than Grim Batol, but still more difficult than VP (Vortex Pinnacle). It's an Egyptian-themed instance carrying on the desert motif of Uldum. Nice artwork, fun layout. In general, a fun instance, but again, fairly long.
Instead of a separate article for each boss, I'll just put in a few comments for each boss from a DPS DK perspective. In this instance, you can pick the order of most of the bosses, and one boss is optional. I'll also not review the four gatekeepers since they're better referred to as minibosses and essentially have only one elemental attack. I've died on most/all of them at some point, but for the most part just stay out of bad and kill them. I'll focus here on the 'actual' bosses of HOO.
Temple Guardian Anhuur:
This boss unlocks the instance and lets you find Brann. He's a Tol'vir who stands on a platform in the middle of his room. A review of his abilities made me scratch my head (oh, so that's what he does? hmm). Even on heroic, as a dps you just need to stay out of obvious 'bad stuff' when dpsing him and you'll be fine. No mechanics that will wipe you, really. The key to this fight is that after a while he'll put up a Shield of Light which makes him invulnerable. I've usually done this on heroic by having the whole group jump down to the left switch first. As a plate-wearer, I usually Death & Decay and blood boil to keep the switch person from being hit and then start running for the right side switch. Those snakes' damage can add up, so try to stay in line of sight for your healer. Hungering Cold is win here. Other than that, though, no real tricks to it. I burn my cd's right after we interrupt Anhuur's cast, but each phase is fairly short so there's no way to avoid 'wasting' some of your cooldowns.
Earthrager Ptah:
Ptah is the optional boss that's 'outside' in a courtyard. He's a Bone Wraith (looks a lot like Marrowgar) that summons adds. Things that will kill you: inattentiveness. The Earth Spike hits pretty hard on heroic. It won't one-shot you, but if your health is down a bit, it will kill you. As usual with this sort of thing, the spike has a crumbly, dusty spot on the ground shortly before erupting. If you get hit with it, not only will your nether regious hurt like the dickens, you'll be launched in the air and take fall damage upon return to earth. As usual, stay out of bad. To maximize dps, fight from behind the boss but be ready to adjust to either side for spikes. When the adds come, give the tank a moment to collect them, then spread diseases and full aoe rotation. I like to pop my cds here, but you certainly can burn them at the beginning of the fight as well.
After dancing with the roving packs of troggs and killing the elemental mini-bosses, Anraphet comes out and finishes off the troggs. The Big Meanie (aka Titanic Watcher) does two things which can kill you quickly as dps. First, the Alpha Beams. They target a random player, and channel nasty circle of death. Move fast, naturally. The second occurs during his Omega Stance. This aoe can hurt, but I usually use either AMS or IBF to help. A guildie said that moving or jumping helps reduce damage. I can't find anything written about this and can't prove it (comments, anyone?), but I've found myself jumping like a bean during this phase anyway. :) Generally, pop cd's at pull and use them when they're back up. Nothing special, although he hits hard and the aoe can hurt, so try to kill him quickly, save some defensive abilities for Omega Stance, and then try to have some for the last 30 sec when his Alpha Beams start to cover the floor.
Seats of the Keepers:
The next four bosses can be killed in any order.
Isiset is the construct of magic; like all four keepers she is a Titanic Watcher. As with most heroic bosses, there's a lot of aoe that can drop your health so you'll want to keep an eye out, but no big fight mechanics that can one- or two-shot you. Pop cd's at pull. Since you can do this for all four keepers, my current sequence looks like this:
Hit on use str trinket (JC boar figurine for example) while running in. Before you reach her, outbreak your diseases on her. Unholy Frenzy. Even with no preserved runic power, once you Scourge Strike, Festering Strike, SS, FS, you'll have the rp to summon your gargoyle. Use any Sudden Doom procs in between. Blood Tap. SS and FS and now use any remaining rp to try to get Dark Transformation up quickly. I can usually get my transformed ghoul up before UF wears off. Frost can be similar - although wait to use POF at least until the first melee hit so you don't waste it. Then normal priorities from there.
At any rate, when Isiset does her supernova, you can spin around or just step through her - both work fine. When her little starry adds pop out, I usually just pestilence to them, but if your group wants you to, pestilence, then switch to them and kill them, and then back to boss. Sometimes I also put my pet on the adds and stay on the boss myself. For Frost, your HB should do the trick nicely to aoe the adds. We kill the Astral Familiar first, but I don't think it matters much. Overall, a fairly simple fight for DKs.
Ammunae: the construct of life. Pop cds at pull as above. The big key to this fight besides not getting yourself killed, is killing the seedling pods quickly. Just kill them asap. You can pestilence to them, but they tend to die pretty fast, so you can just OB/SS them quickly down, and return in time to keep diseases up on Ammunae. As the pods proliferate, send a pet to kill stray ones as well. As with Isiset, no insta-kill mechanics, just a lot of attrition for your healer to keep up.
Rajh: the construct of radiance. Rajh does a lot of targetting a player or area and attacking. Just like in martial arts, the key is not being there when the attack arrives. Interrupt Summon Sun Orb. With how many interrupts are needed in heroics, endless winter is a nice talent in here. In any case, try to prevent an orb from being summoned, run away otherwise. Save AMS for Blessing of the Sun, while he's aoeing. Even in blues/greens, this barely tickles with AMS up. Obviously, pop cds at pull, avoid bad, win.
Setesh can be a bit of a challenge. Probably the most difficult boss. He's the construct of chaos and he tries to overwhelm you with void Wurms, Void Seekers, and Void Sentinels. As I'm sure you know, Setesh can't be tanked so the tank's job is to tank the Sentinels. Most tanks I've run with can kill the wurms pretty well and need only a little help on Seekers (we usually assign a ranged to this). Your job is to #1: kill Portals! (Yes, Jaraxxus-style) Portals need to die fast. In between, dps the boss. This is a race against time in current gear, with the soft enrage being some time around the 6th portal (tank/healer will be overwhelmed and die).
Ask your team if they have a heroism/bloodlust; if they do, they'll probably use it at pull. If so, use your str or on-use trinkets and summon gargoyle, but don't use unholy frenzy yet. This is becuase you'll waste a lot of the UF effect due to being overcapped for haste. Save the UF until heroism is down and you have a ghoul ready to DT. Obviously, frost can use POF and all cds with heroism.
So there you go! Oveall, less raid-like mechanics in here than in Grim Batol, but still a visually pleasing instance, and some fun fights.
Friday, December 17, 2010
Random thoughts on levelling a DK in Cataclysm
One word: OOOOhhhhhh YEAHHHH!!!
It was a ton of fun racing to 80 - as I mentioned Monday, once I stopped trying to get there first.
So here are some thoughts I had during levelling and reflecting on the process of getting to 85 and the first things to do when you get there.
1. Frost spec works like a charm. As I mentioned prior to expac release, I was going with a 2H Frost spec for levelling. It worked fine for every situation I found myself in. Generally speaking, mobs died before I'd expended all my runes and runic power, even in Twilight Highlands.
Start off with maxing Frost, then add bladed armor, and from there take your pick of talents. You get burst, mount speed, and don't have to worry about diseases. It still works very well in 5-man levelling dungeons. In fact, howling blast on trash packs is a wonderful thing, and overall the rotation was pleasing and easy to maintain! For questing with normal mobs, all you do is drop off your mount, preferably next to one mob while you death grip another to you. make sure they're both in front of you, howling blast, obliterate, frost strike if full of rp, and obliterate/FS until they're dead. There's a good chance you won't even need to use your blood runes, but if you do you can toss a few blood strikes in there.
2. Stick with an area till it's done. Technically, you can go to Deepholm when you hit 82, but if you're not done with Hyjal/Vashjir, I recommend staying until you have the loremaster achievement. Do the same thing in each zone. Several reasons for this: quests are linear, and quest rewards get better later in chains. Also, you want to get as much 'free' (non-grinding) rep for each faction as you can.
3. Find each of the 5-man instances as early as possible, and run each of them at least once. First, they're fun! Also, as you enter each of them, there are a number of quests just inside. These have nice xp and often item rewards. Finally, you'll get familiar with each of them before you come back on heroic difficulty, and it will help you a great deal to know what to expect. Many people have written that it's not efficient to level by farming 5-mans and they're right. If you really love instances, feel free, but running them over and over is a slow way to level, especially if you're not using rest.
4. Keep every meat drop you get. Eventually you'll use the meat for cooking (or if you refuse to cook, sell/donate it, but do not vendor it). Especially crocolisk tails. This meat is used for the best individual buff food for dps DKs. Side note: the best place I've found to farm this is next to the Tol Barad keep in the swamp. Any other suggestions? There are lisks up and down the banks of the river in Uldum, but they're farther apart.
5. Buy the highest speed mount you can afford. Travelling fast has always been and always will be the biggest boon to levelling. And if it feels expensive, it's really not too bad. From 80-85, if you have nice big bags to allow you to vendor greys, keep boe greens for disenchanting, and so on, you can easily make 5-10k gold! I had 7 thousand more gold at 80 than 85, and that doesn't include enchant mats or my mining. I leveled fast, and sold the first 20-30 stacks of each or I got in part to make even more gold, which I did. Even now, where there are plenty of gatherers out there, you'll make plenty of cash if you level a gathering skill (side note again: I'm dropping mining to level LW this weekend). Random thought #5 could easily turn into its own post about making gold, but suffice it to say that you'll make plenty of money while levelling, so don't be shy spending it!
6. Get ready to raid! You can do this even as you level. By doing the daily level-appropriate 5-man, you'll be getting justice points. If you're maxed out, buy gear and stockpile it for when you're 85.
6a. Level professions. If you're on Elitist Jerks, you know that JC/LW are the 'ideal' way to go, but most professions have something to offer. Level them as quickly as you can so that by the time you're raiding, you can have one or two nice epics to go with your justice and heroic gear to help you succeed in that first 10-man. JC gives a nice trinket that's worth using, and of course LW allows you to do leg and bracer enchants.
6b. Grind reputations. If you're questing, finish off each zone. You'll get really nice reputation for questing for each faction. While most factions have something worthwhile, in particular you'll need:
-Therazane. They're your Hodir as many have said; your shoulder enchant unless you're an inscriptionist. They're easy to max. Unlock their dailies via questing in Deepholm, then do the dailies. DON'T wear their tabard; I was exalted with them three days into the expac following the above. The shoulder enchant is pretty cheap - buy several and put it on every upgrade once you hit 85.
-Wildhammer. They're your dps head enchant. It will take a little longer, but I recommend doing their dailies (in northern Twilight Highlands) and not wearing their tabard either. Why? Because...
-Ramkahen is probably your other most important rep. The epic neck you get from them at exalted will last you until heroics in Tier 11. Right now there is only one daily, so as soon as you get enough rep from questing in Uldum, get their tabard and wear it.
The other reputations aren't as important, as they can offer some decent stuff, but none of it will last that long, so feel free to level them at your leisure.
Once you're 85, do both the normal and heroic daily. If you're having trouble with heroics, do normal 5-mans until you have enough justice points for a few items - it won't take long. Heroics can - as has already been written about many times - be very challenging, with raid-like mechanics, but with familiarity, gear, and practice, they're all very doable.
It may take a little time, but you're goal should be the achievement Cataclysmically Superior (blue superior item in every slot). I got mine just yesterday, and am now officially ready for raiding!
Good luck to all in leveling and preparing for raids!
It was a ton of fun racing to 80 - as I mentioned Monday, once I stopped trying to get there first.
So here are some thoughts I had during levelling and reflecting on the process of getting to 85 and the first things to do when you get there.
1. Frost spec works like a charm. As I mentioned prior to expac release, I was going with a 2H Frost spec for levelling. It worked fine for every situation I found myself in. Generally speaking, mobs died before I'd expended all my runes and runic power, even in Twilight Highlands.
Start off with maxing Frost, then add bladed armor, and from there take your pick of talents. You get burst, mount speed, and don't have to worry about diseases. It still works very well in 5-man levelling dungeons. In fact, howling blast on trash packs is a wonderful thing, and overall the rotation was pleasing and easy to maintain! For questing with normal mobs, all you do is drop off your mount, preferably next to one mob while you death grip another to you. make sure they're both in front of you, howling blast, obliterate, frost strike if full of rp, and obliterate/FS until they're dead. There's a good chance you won't even need to use your blood runes, but if you do you can toss a few blood strikes in there.
2. Stick with an area till it's done. Technically, you can go to Deepholm when you hit 82, but if you're not done with Hyjal/Vashjir, I recommend staying until you have the loremaster achievement. Do the same thing in each zone. Several reasons for this: quests are linear, and quest rewards get better later in chains. Also, you want to get as much 'free' (non-grinding) rep for each faction as you can.
3. Find each of the 5-man instances as early as possible, and run each of them at least once. First, they're fun! Also, as you enter each of them, there are a number of quests just inside. These have nice xp and often item rewards. Finally, you'll get familiar with each of them before you come back on heroic difficulty, and it will help you a great deal to know what to expect. Many people have written that it's not efficient to level by farming 5-mans and they're right. If you really love instances, feel free, but running them over and over is a slow way to level, especially if you're not using rest.
4. Keep every meat drop you get. Eventually you'll use the meat for cooking (or if you refuse to cook, sell/donate it, but do not vendor it). Especially crocolisk tails. This meat is used for the best individual buff food for dps DKs. Side note: the best place I've found to farm this is next to the Tol Barad keep in the swamp. Any other suggestions? There are lisks up and down the banks of the river in Uldum, but they're farther apart.
5. Buy the highest speed mount you can afford. Travelling fast has always been and always will be the biggest boon to levelling. And if it feels expensive, it's really not too bad. From 80-85, if you have nice big bags to allow you to vendor greys, keep boe greens for disenchanting, and so on, you can easily make 5-10k gold! I had 7 thousand more gold at 80 than 85, and that doesn't include enchant mats or my mining. I leveled fast, and sold the first 20-30 stacks of each or I got in part to make even more gold, which I did. Even now, where there are plenty of gatherers out there, you'll make plenty of cash if you level a gathering skill (side note again: I'm dropping mining to level LW this weekend). Random thought #5 could easily turn into its own post about making gold, but suffice it to say that you'll make plenty of money while levelling, so don't be shy spending it!
6. Get ready to raid! You can do this even as you level. By doing the daily level-appropriate 5-man, you'll be getting justice points. If you're maxed out, buy gear and stockpile it for when you're 85.
6a. Level professions. If you're on Elitist Jerks, you know that JC/LW are the 'ideal' way to go, but most professions have something to offer. Level them as quickly as you can so that by the time you're raiding, you can have one or two nice epics to go with your justice and heroic gear to help you succeed in that first 10-man. JC gives a nice trinket that's worth using, and of course LW allows you to do leg and bracer enchants.
6b. Grind reputations. If you're questing, finish off each zone. You'll get really nice reputation for questing for each faction. While most factions have something worthwhile, in particular you'll need:
-Therazane. They're your Hodir as many have said; your shoulder enchant unless you're an inscriptionist. They're easy to max. Unlock their dailies via questing in Deepholm, then do the dailies. DON'T wear their tabard; I was exalted with them three days into the expac following the above. The shoulder enchant is pretty cheap - buy several and put it on every upgrade once you hit 85.
-Wildhammer. They're your dps head enchant. It will take a little longer, but I recommend doing their dailies (in northern Twilight Highlands) and not wearing their tabard either. Why? Because...
-Ramkahen is probably your other most important rep. The epic neck you get from them at exalted will last you until heroics in Tier 11. Right now there is only one daily, so as soon as you get enough rep from questing in Uldum, get their tabard and wear it.
The other reputations aren't as important, as they can offer some decent stuff, but none of it will last that long, so feel free to level them at your leisure.
Once you're 85, do both the normal and heroic daily. If you're having trouble with heroics, do normal 5-mans until you have enough justice points for a few items - it won't take long. Heroics can - as has already been written about many times - be very challenging, with raid-like mechanics, but with familiarity, gear, and practice, they're all very doable.
It may take a little time, but you're goal should be the achievement Cataclysmically Superior (blue superior item in every slot). I got mine just yesterday, and am now officially ready for raiding!
Good luck to all in leveling and preparing for raids!
Monday, December 13, 2010
Cataclysmic Week
No, the week was not a catastrophe for Hine.
Ironic, that Azeroth's loss has been our gain.
Regardless, the past week has been one of entering new territory, seeing it, and conquering it (and being conquered, over and over).
No, I didn't blog this week, the first week of Cataclysm, I played the game.
A lot.
I will plan to write a bit about leveling a DK in the near future. Suffice it to say for now that
1) leveling as Frost works like a charm. I'm sure it would generally be just fine as Unholy, less so as Blood but still feasible.
2) While predictions were as low as 9 hours for leveling to 85, without the benefit of being in the beta, a more reasonable estimate for most folks is probably in the ballpark of 20-24 hours. With rest and less bottlenecking it may be shorter.
I did, however, post in various forums about my experiences. So, I decided to paste a few of them here to give you a few reflections on the Cataclysm experience so far.
WARNING: There are some very minor spoilers in here. I'll try to keep them to somewhat of a minimum, or at least cryptic, but if you don't want to know anything about what's ahead, don't read. :)
On the question of How goes the leveling? (late Tuesday):
"I did NOT get any server firsts, as my lack of beta access clearly bit me in the butt from the start. The bottleneck quests in Hyjal quickly became a nightmare as dozens camped specific spawns, and then in Deepholme, when I simply couldn't figure out a few quests. In any case, once I relaxed I had a good time, hit 85 4th for DKs on the server and messed around with professions. Made about 18k from mining so far, hope to finish up about 30-40k more before I start my own JC leveling.
The zones are beautiful, and I thought the questing in Uldum was superb. TwiHi wasn't as bad as many said (in terms of mobs hitting hard) and almost all of my gear was replaced by 85 (only things left are helm and Shadowmourne). Awesome trinkets from quests. I though Hyjal was too bottlenecked for release, and Vashj is pretty but slow and too distracted (side quests all over). As good as it is, Uldum could be renamed 'cut scene zone.'
I've done almost all the 5-mans and they're a blast.
Hope you're all having fun. Good night!"
And:
"Cindermaul was an example of a quest that should never, never, never be repeated.
I was stuck for 45 min on that one despite the fact that I was in a 5-man the whole time.
We got fed up of being ganked by hordies after the first 5 min and enjoyed killing the 'top' guild over and over and over after that.
By the way, on that and several like it, aoe does not tag the mob. After we finally figured it out, I macroed the mob name and howling blasted like a mother and got that one and the next pretty fast."
On the guild leveling issues:
"Fun in't it?
We had our guild xp reset several times, so we've made level 2 at least three times, only to get it put back to 1. ;("
On the difficulty of Cataclysm heroics:
"Pugging can be pretty rough. I don't think I've fully completed a heroic in a full pug. It can certainly be frustrating to spend 2-4 hours wiping over and over on a 5 man boss!
This is where we say be careful what we ask for!
We asked for more difficult content. We asked for cc to count. We asked for non-faceroll challenges, and here we go.
Even the lowest level of multiplayer content is now challenging. In current gear. It will be faceroll easy very soon for raiders.
OTOH, I personally have found them quite refreshing and enjoyable. I've heard and even said a few times that many of the 5-man bosses actually have raid-like mechanics and require players to actually utilize raid-like strategies and awareness. It's been great learning these. I've completed almost all of them on heroic now - as I said, always with at least one guildie with me - and it's been a blast.
If you do have trouble with a specific fight and don't want to read forums or wikis, feel free to post and I'll help when I can."
On the 'New Healing' (in which the OP expressed frustration in general but also that dps that don't self-heal may not get heals from him/her):
"Early early early.
I've already notice regular 5-mans getting easier. I think it will be a pretty fast progression to heroics being easymode too.
Just like dps, where so far I'm barely cracking 10k in 5-mans (and no dps I've been with has). Our crit is horrid, we aren't hit capped, etc. These things will ramp up really really quickly and at least in 5-mans, mana will be less of an issue fast. In raids? It will/should (I hope) take a little more time.
As a dps, I have to take issue with your assessment though. You obviously have to triage, but forcing dps to self heal - except in emergencies - is a waste of our resources. My self heal is a rather weak death strike. Even 'per mana' your heals are far far more efficient. My assessment would be: don't try to keep dps topped off (try to keep them alive) If they pull aggro or don't avoid damage they should be avoiding - then let them die. Of course, if you're oom, then of course you have to self heal and tank heal first, but don't simply refuse to heal dps if they 'aren't' self-healing...."
and
"I know Xxxx wasn't saying he wouldn't heal dps.
And I'm not advocating healing stupid.
Just tonight, while healing Throne (on my shammy), the same hunter stood in green three times.
I didn't heal him the third time.
Yes, healers are having to smite/shock/whatever to have the best mana management right now. And it's hard.
So dps need to not make it more difficult.
I should leave it at that, but I won't.
Saying dps self-healing is the cutting edge? Not really. You know that I do what I can to mitigate damage. Like knowing when to ams and running out, etc. But a Death Strike, just one, fucks me for the rest of the fight by throwing off rune pairs. It's a really really crappy heal, and it's going to make the whole fight last longer (oooh, and require more healing/mana from the healers) because my dps will drop significantly. That's the opposite of the current game mechanics that require a healer to dps to be effective. If I self heal, I'm drastically decreasing my effectiveness over the fight.
Does that mean you won't see DS on my logs? By no means. I'm well aware of the correct order of things. If the whole group is low and about to die, healer self-heal, then tank, then dps. SO I'll bandage, DS, or whatever I can. Don't worry. And of course I'm well aware of dead dps don't. So I prefer to dps by staying alive, just that self-healing is really truly only an emergency thing to do for dps, while dps is part of the current plan for healers."
On our log of Blackrock raid (we did kill the Tol Barad boss earlier):
"I looked over the logs last night and quickly noted a few things:
1) dps is decent. Could be a little better but already on target.
2) Players in general lasted reasonably long into the encounter, particular in the latter half of our 23 recorded attempts, but at that point healers often tended to be the first to die. Not sure what to think of that.
3) Interrupts of the arcane dude are crucial and we did much better on that. However, every dps that can interrupt, should. I saw zero interrupts from one of our shammies.
4) I personally took a lot of damage (behind the tanks), but I lasted long enough, often to tank a boss for a few seconds and had only one bad death in the last 10 attempts. But I will still look at taking less damage.
5) I think we can still do better with that aoe fire attack from magnotron - trying to keep him still and all players finding the safe 'lanes' to sit in.
side note: I love the trinket (I got the boe epic Fury of Angerforge), but until it's fixed it's probably not better than the blue trink I had before. Even going back to dual-wielding didn't seem to help much. I commented on wowhead about this under 'Hirohubris.'"
All in all, a fantastic week!
More to follow. ;)
Ironic, that Azeroth's loss has been our gain.
Regardless, the past week has been one of entering new territory, seeing it, and conquering it (and being conquered, over and over).
No, I didn't blog this week, the first week of Cataclysm, I played the game.
A lot.
I will plan to write a bit about leveling a DK in the near future. Suffice it to say for now that
1) leveling as Frost works like a charm. I'm sure it would generally be just fine as Unholy, less so as Blood but still feasible.
2) While predictions were as low as 9 hours for leveling to 85, without the benefit of being in the beta, a more reasonable estimate for most folks is probably in the ballpark of 20-24 hours. With rest and less bottlenecking it may be shorter.
I did, however, post in various forums about my experiences. So, I decided to paste a few of them here to give you a few reflections on the Cataclysm experience so far.
WARNING: There are some very minor spoilers in here. I'll try to keep them to somewhat of a minimum, or at least cryptic, but if you don't want to know anything about what's ahead, don't read. :)
On the question of How goes the leveling? (late Tuesday):
"I did NOT get any server firsts, as my lack of beta access clearly bit me in the butt from the start. The bottleneck quests in Hyjal quickly became a nightmare as dozens camped specific spawns, and then in Deepholme, when I simply couldn't figure out a few quests. In any case, once I relaxed I had a good time, hit 85 4th for DKs on the server and messed around with professions. Made about 18k from mining so far, hope to finish up about 30-40k more before I start my own JC leveling.
The zones are beautiful, and I thought the questing in Uldum was superb. TwiHi wasn't as bad as many said (in terms of mobs hitting hard) and almost all of my gear was replaced by 85 (only things left are helm and Shadowmourne). Awesome trinkets from quests. I though Hyjal was too bottlenecked for release, and Vashj is pretty but slow and too distracted (side quests all over). As good as it is, Uldum could be renamed 'cut scene zone.'
I've done almost all the 5-mans and they're a blast.
Hope you're all having fun. Good night!"
And:
"Cindermaul was an example of a quest that should never, never, never be repeated.
I was stuck for 45 min on that one despite the fact that I was in a 5-man the whole time.
We got fed up of being ganked by hordies after the first 5 min and enjoyed killing the 'top' guild over and over and over after that.
By the way, on that and several like it, aoe does not tag the mob. After we finally figured it out, I macroed the mob name and howling blasted like a mother and got that one and the next pretty fast."
On the guild leveling issues:
"Fun in't it?
We had our guild xp reset several times, so we've made level 2 at least three times, only to get it put back to 1. ;("
On the difficulty of Cataclysm heroics:
"Pugging can be pretty rough. I don't think I've fully completed a heroic in a full pug. It can certainly be frustrating to spend 2-4 hours wiping over and over on a 5 man boss!
This is where we say be careful what we ask for!
We asked for more difficult content. We asked for cc to count. We asked for non-faceroll challenges, and here we go.
Even the lowest level of multiplayer content is now challenging. In current gear. It will be faceroll easy very soon for raiders.
OTOH, I personally have found them quite refreshing and enjoyable. I've heard and even said a few times that many of the 5-man bosses actually have raid-like mechanics and require players to actually utilize raid-like strategies and awareness. It's been great learning these. I've completed almost all of them on heroic now - as I said, always with at least one guildie with me - and it's been a blast.
If you do have trouble with a specific fight and don't want to read forums or wikis, feel free to post and I'll help when I can."
On the 'New Healing' (in which the OP expressed frustration in general but also that dps that don't self-heal may not get heals from him/her):
"Early early early.
I've already notice regular 5-mans getting easier. I think it will be a pretty fast progression to heroics being easymode too.
Just like dps, where so far I'm barely cracking 10k in 5-mans (and no dps I've been with has). Our crit is horrid, we aren't hit capped, etc. These things will ramp up really really quickly and at least in 5-mans, mana will be less of an issue fast. In raids? It will/should (I hope) take a little more time.
As a dps, I have to take issue with your assessment though. You obviously have to triage, but forcing dps to self heal - except in emergencies - is a waste of our resources. My self heal is a rather weak death strike. Even 'per mana' your heals are far far more efficient. My assessment would be: don't try to keep dps topped off (try to keep them alive) If they pull aggro or don't avoid damage they should be avoiding - then let them die. Of course, if you're oom, then of course you have to self heal and tank heal first, but don't simply refuse to heal dps if they 'aren't' self-healing...."
and
"I know Xxxx wasn't saying he wouldn't heal dps.
And I'm not advocating healing stupid.
Just tonight, while healing Throne (on my shammy), the same hunter stood in green three times.
I didn't heal him the third time.
Yes, healers are having to smite/shock/whatever to have the best mana management right now. And it's hard.
So dps need to not make it more difficult.
I should leave it at that, but I won't.
Saying dps self-healing is the cutting edge? Not really. You know that I do what I can to mitigate damage. Like knowing when to ams and running out, etc. But a Death Strike, just one, fucks me for the rest of the fight by throwing off rune pairs. It's a really really crappy heal, and it's going to make the whole fight last longer (oooh, and require more healing/mana from the healers) because my dps will drop significantly. That's the opposite of the current game mechanics that require a healer to dps to be effective. If I self heal, I'm drastically decreasing my effectiveness over the fight.
Does that mean you won't see DS on my logs? By no means. I'm well aware of the correct order of things. If the whole group is low and about to die, healer self-heal, then tank, then dps. SO I'll bandage, DS, or whatever I can. Don't worry. And of course I'm well aware of dead dps don't. So I prefer to dps by staying alive, just that self-healing is really truly only an emergency thing to do for dps, while dps is part of the current plan for healers."
On our log of Blackrock raid (we did kill the Tol Barad boss earlier):
"I looked over the logs last night and quickly noted a few things:
1) dps is decent. Could be a little better but already on target.
2) Players in general lasted reasonably long into the encounter, particular in the latter half of our 23 recorded attempts, but at that point healers often tended to be the first to die. Not sure what to think of that.
3) Interrupts of the arcane dude are crucial and we did much better on that. However, every dps that can interrupt, should. I saw zero interrupts from one of our shammies.
4) I personally took a lot of damage (behind the tanks), but I lasted long enough, often to tank a boss for a few seconds and had only one bad death in the last 10 attempts. But I will still look at taking less damage.
5) I think we can still do better with that aoe fire attack from magnotron - trying to keep him still and all players finding the safe 'lanes' to sit in.
side note: I love the trinket (I got the boe epic Fury of Angerforge), but until it's fixed it's probably not better than the blue trink I had before. Even going back to dual-wielding didn't seem to help much. I commented on wowhead about this under 'Hirohubris.'"
All in all, a fantastic week!
More to follow. ;)
Monday, December 6, 2010
Happy Cataclysm Eve!
To all you EU players out there: less than 8 hours till launch!
To all of us US players, tonight is your night, bro! (hurrah for ancient Schwarzenegger/DeVito references)
I know we're all excited, and, I hope, prepared.
I've talked about my preparation several times, so the tl:dr version now is:
I'm frost 2H for leveling; one can pretty much howling blast/obliterate/frost strike spam everything that's non-elite, at least until Uldum/Twi Hi
I have my flasks and food prepared.
I will mine when I can, but my primary goal is leveling, so you will likely not see another post here, nor will I level cooking, rep, or anything else until I'm 85. Once I'm there, I'll have the remainder of the week to work on those things.
Good luck all, have fun, and See you on the Other Side!
To all of us US players, tonight is your night, bro! (hurrah for ancient Schwarzenegger/DeVito references)
I know we're all excited, and, I hope, prepared.
I've talked about my preparation several times, so the tl:dr version now is:
I'm frost 2H for leveling; one can pretty much howling blast/obliterate/frost strike spam everything that's non-elite, at least until Uldum/Twi Hi
I have my flasks and food prepared.
I will mine when I can, but my primary goal is leveling, so you will likely not see another post here, nor will I level cooking, rep, or anything else until I'm 85. Once I'm there, I'll have the remainder of the week to work on those things.
Good luck all, have fun, and See you on the Other Side!
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Another blogger alt post
Apparently, 'every Wow blogger on the planet has an alt post' (see comments) so I wouldn't want to disappoint! :)
With my guild taking a break from raiding the last couple weeks, there hasn't been a lot going on from an organizational standpoint.
So, what does one do?
Of course, I have spent a little time familiarizing myself with my leveling (frost) spec and am fairly comfortable with it, so I feel reasonably ready to run with it in less than a week. :) I have some 23 quests ready to turn in the moment we log in with the new level cap. I have my mats, my gold, my mounts, and my mojo.
So, what to do for the next week(s)?
A number of my guildies are running their mains through the lowbie zones doing loremaster-type quests, which are fairly easy to do at this point.
That sounded pretty boring to me. On the other hand, leveling or running lower-level characters through Azeroth wasn't all that appealing either.
I'll admit, I still wasn't sold on the idea of 'merely' changing old Azeroth and making it 'new.' Adding a few zones, letting us level to 85 instead of 90, along with new raids, still seems/seemed like an expansion-lite.
I was pleasantly surprised then, when I decided to do a little questing on my slowly-leveling level 40ish mage. As apparently everyone already knows, a few things have changed! LOLAS (as in, laugh out loud at self). My little mage had been spending time in the lush Stranglethorn vale merrily frostbolting stray gorillas. I logged in (finally) to discover that most of her quests were gone, and the few that remained were gray. She had a new quest to report to Western Plaguelands. WPL! You know, that place you never really had to go any more, because more accessible zones were more than adequate to allow you to level to 58 and on to Outlands? Hmm, after a little hemming and hawing, Hinetapeka got on Filly, her newly-epic mount, made her way to Chillwind Camp, and it was ON!
Yes, as has been oft-repeated, the questing is quite linear. In WPL alone, each hub has only a few quests, with maybe 3-4 quests and 2-3 follow up quests, then it's off to another hub nearby. There is often a flight path available, or even a 'free' horse or carriage to take you to your next hub. And in many of these places, your actions seem to change things (yay for phasing, something I lauded way back at LK release, and which Blizzard is understandably making more use of). The quests, while linear, facilitate storytelling in a much more cogent manner, and it at least gives the feel of accomplishing something (as opposed to those level 40 skellies simply respawning 60 seconds after you 'cleared the road' by killing 12 of them). At least for me, for now, what it lacks in 'freedom,' it makes up for in clarity, simplicity, and quality.
During the Thanksgiving weekend, my 10 year old son complained that he wanted a flying mount. To which I replied that he'd never leveled a character high enough to do so (except starting DKs on my account). So, I issued him a challenge. If he leveled an Alliance character on my main server past 10, I'd help him with leveling, and if/when he got to 60, I'd buy any and all mounts he wanted. So, he started a hunter and quickly exclaimed how the human starting area was so different. Inspired by Tamarind and Oddly's posts about priests, I finally caved and started my very first priest ever. I quickly leveled to 10 - the Draenei area appeares completely unchanged to me - and travelled to Stormwind. From there on, I had the opportunity to see not only the 'new' Azeroth, but this 'new' Azeroth, through 'new' eyes; my son's. We quested together and did his very first 5-man instances together. It was a blast to have him exclaim every few seconds at how fun it was. He aquitted himself reasonably well, too, finishing higher than at least one other dps in every run we did. Sure, he needed to be informed that one does NOT need on spirit cloth as a hunter, and that he had to target the mob that the tank was hitting, but he picked it up quickly! ;) I had chosen the holy tree for starters and so enjoyed the oom-ness that is lowbie healing. We even had a boss fight that we barely survived when the tank pulled extra mobs, died, then the other two dps died, but my son finished off the boss and the final add with 10% health while I squeaked out the last few bubbles and renews to keep us alive. Wow! That was, indeed, fun! And while I'm sure Cataclysm will put somewhat of a damper on our tandem leveling, he's parading proudly around Stormwind on his proud level 20 steeds. I look forward to seeing him soar in Outlands and Northrend as well. :)
While Azeroth is still Azeroth, the sundering changed things for us. Cosmetically yes, but more fundamentally in how we interact with the world, quest, tell/receive stories, and progress through content. And while I'm still a little concerned about the feeling of not 'getting enough new content,' I'm entirely on board with how it's being delivered to us!
Cataclysm is almost here!!!
With my guild taking a break from raiding the last couple weeks, there hasn't been a lot going on from an organizational standpoint.
So, what does one do?
Of course, I have spent a little time familiarizing myself with my leveling (frost) spec and am fairly comfortable with it, so I feel reasonably ready to run with it in less than a week. :) I have some 23 quests ready to turn in the moment we log in with the new level cap. I have my mats, my gold, my mounts, and my mojo.
So, what to do for the next week(s)?
A number of my guildies are running their mains through the lowbie zones doing loremaster-type quests, which are fairly easy to do at this point.
That sounded pretty boring to me. On the other hand, leveling or running lower-level characters through Azeroth wasn't all that appealing either.
I'll admit, I still wasn't sold on the idea of 'merely' changing old Azeroth and making it 'new.' Adding a few zones, letting us level to 85 instead of 90, along with new raids, still seems/seemed like an expansion-lite.
I was pleasantly surprised then, when I decided to do a little questing on my slowly-leveling level 40ish mage. As apparently everyone already knows, a few things have changed! LOLAS (as in, laugh out loud at self). My little mage had been spending time in the lush Stranglethorn vale merrily frostbolting stray gorillas. I logged in (finally) to discover that most of her quests were gone, and the few that remained were gray. She had a new quest to report to Western Plaguelands. WPL! You know, that place you never really had to go any more, because more accessible zones were more than adequate to allow you to level to 58 and on to Outlands? Hmm, after a little hemming and hawing, Hinetapeka got on Filly, her newly-epic mount, made her way to Chillwind Camp, and it was ON!
Yes, as has been oft-repeated, the questing is quite linear. In WPL alone, each hub has only a few quests, with maybe 3-4 quests and 2-3 follow up quests, then it's off to another hub nearby. There is often a flight path available, or even a 'free' horse or carriage to take you to your next hub. And in many of these places, your actions seem to change things (yay for phasing, something I lauded way back at LK release, and which Blizzard is understandably making more use of). The quests, while linear, facilitate storytelling in a much more cogent manner, and it at least gives the feel of accomplishing something (as opposed to those level 40 skellies simply respawning 60 seconds after you 'cleared the road' by killing 12 of them). At least for me, for now, what it lacks in 'freedom,' it makes up for in clarity, simplicity, and quality.
During the Thanksgiving weekend, my 10 year old son complained that he wanted a flying mount. To which I replied that he'd never leveled a character high enough to do so (except starting DKs on my account). So, I issued him a challenge. If he leveled an Alliance character on my main server past 10, I'd help him with leveling, and if/when he got to 60, I'd buy any and all mounts he wanted. So, he started a hunter and quickly exclaimed how the human starting area was so different. Inspired by Tamarind and Oddly's posts about priests, I finally caved and started my very first priest ever. I quickly leveled to 10 - the Draenei area appeares completely unchanged to me - and travelled to Stormwind. From there on, I had the opportunity to see not only the 'new' Azeroth, but this 'new' Azeroth, through 'new' eyes; my son's. We quested together and did his very first 5-man instances together. It was a blast to have him exclaim every few seconds at how fun it was. He aquitted himself reasonably well, too, finishing higher than at least one other dps in every run we did. Sure, he needed to be informed that one does NOT need on spirit cloth as a hunter, and that he had to target the mob that the tank was hitting, but he picked it up quickly! ;) I had chosen the holy tree for starters and so enjoyed the oom-ness that is lowbie healing. We even had a boss fight that we barely survived when the tank pulled extra mobs, died, then the other two dps died, but my son finished off the boss and the final add with 10% health while I squeaked out the last few bubbles and renews to keep us alive. Wow! That was, indeed, fun! And while I'm sure Cataclysm will put somewhat of a damper on our tandem leveling, he's parading proudly around Stormwind on his proud level 20 steeds. I look forward to seeing him soar in Outlands and Northrend as well. :)
While Azeroth is still Azeroth, the sundering changed things for us. Cosmetically yes, but more fundamentally in how we interact with the world, quest, tell/receive stories, and progress through content. And while I'm still a little concerned about the feeling of not 'getting enough new content,' I'm entirely on board with how it's being delivered to us!
Cataclysm is almost here!!!
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Not Done Yet
With the abundance of nostalgia posts floating around, you might think I’d jump in as well.
But no, not Hine!
I haven’t posted much because:
1) I’ve been very busy with RL stuff. In addition to the day job, I’ve been working at least as many hours on a ‘side’ job, leaving very little time for much else. I haven’t even raided much recently.
2) As a raiding-focused DK, there just hasn’t been much new to write about for the remainder of the Lich King expansion.
But I’m Not Done Yet!
I may not write a whole lot until just before or even just after Cataclysm release, but I certainly plan to return to my ‘typical’ blogging ways when we have more to write about. I never got a beta invite, so I don’t have much pre-Cataclysm stuff to discuss, and even though I’m on PTR now, I’m still waiting for the dust to settle on the class before posting much.
So, what’s happening in the Hine camp now?
-Zombie Raiding. My guild, like most, is mostly going through the motions. When I’m able to make raids, we quickly bolt through Icecrown Heroic, kill Lich King on normal, do the weekly raid, VOA, and maybe a side raid or two. 2-3 nights later, there isn’t much going on. The raids are a jumble of joking, lack of focus, and general malaise. Many of my guildies are sleepwalking through the raids, and who can blame them. It’s time for something new and different, and the motivation to push Hard Mode Halion or LK just isn’t there. So, we’ll do what we can, raid, maybe do a little 10-man raids, and wait for Cata.
-Preparing Hine for the Change. No, not that change – she’s undead for goodness sake! I don’t think offspring were ever in her future anyway, but no, no worries about hot flashes for her!
I’m hoping to take a week off the week of release to try to level as quickly as possible. A server first Death Knight/Draeni would be lovely, but just the fun of immersing myself in the new content for a week will be worth it (as it was for LK release; I was the Alliance first DK, but one Hordie beat me to 80. Still, it was an amazing experience).
I’ll have a nice surplus of buff foods/flasks etc to max my leveling experience, and yes, I plan to level fully buffed as much as possible.
I’ve already dropped Blacksmithing (keeping JC) and leveled mining to 450. I’ll mine as I level and as much as possible the first couple weeks of the expansion. First priority will be to obtain enough materials to powerlevel my JC and BS professions to the new max level as quickly as possible, and secondly to make some extra gold for the expansion. I already have the materials set aside to level BS back to 450, so I’ll just need the new Cataclysm mats.
I’ll spend enough time on the PTR to be familiar with the new rotations and talents so that it won’t slow me down as I level in the ‘new’ ‘old’ Azeroth. Since I already have a 310% mount, all I’ll need to purchase will be the relatively inexpensive flying skill for Azeroth and I’ll be off! I’m already almost as ready as I can be, but I’ll do everything I can to be prepared.
Other than that, in my remaining time available, I’m just playing around. I’m very slowly leveling a mage, Hinetapeka, and my warlock (75) gets an occasional turn through a daily dungeon before going back in the garage.
I can’t wait for Cataclysm!
Friday, September 3, 2010
I Went to Icecrown and all I got was this Lousy Screenshot
Icecrown is where it's at. Not Dragonblight, which has these little diversionary 'raids,' requiring us to run around a big room and learn one real boss fight. Certainly not that glowing spiraly purpley tower on the edge of the Borean Tundra.
Icecrown is where the Frozen Throne is. The Big Bad Lich King. Frostmourne. Nemesis of all, but particularly so for Death Knights who have experienced the half-life of being in his thrall. So, in the waning days of the second World of Warcraft expansion, it's still where raiders find themselves come time to join with their band of 25 or so plucky adventurers, finding what challenges they may, and overcoming them!
In my case, we've been doing the Glory of the Icecrown Raider achievements, and while a few of them were tricky (the tank swaps of Sindragosa's Buffet in particular), last night we found ourselves with only the Neck Deep in Vile achievement separating us from our mounts of skeletal swiftness. On two previous nights, we'd successfully gotten LK down to 1% before his explosion when a Vile Spirit hit someone. Unfortunately it was too late to keep from killing LK and we failed the achievement. Both times it was too late to wipe and the Lich King died without giving us our due. We were determined not to fail this time, and carefully modifying our kite path to ensure no wayward defiles were dropped in the middle, we managed to defeat him without encountering any Vile Spirits, although we still had to check our logs after the explosion to make sure.
Riding the exhilaration of the moment - and our shiny new mounts - we decided to see if we could accomplish an achievement sweepstakes for the week. We'd only just the previous week killed Anub'Arak in TOGC as a guild for the first time. I know, I know - that is SOOO 2009, but Insomnia had been working on the fight late last year, only to drop it when ICC opened. Now, in better gear the fight is certainly easier, but with better gear also comes more health, which means more healing for Anub in P3. We actually wiped quite a few times in getting that first kill.
We'd already cleared the first 4 bosses in TOGC without the careless mistakes that results in wipes on old content. 50 attempts remaining on Anub. Soulstones were placed on our misdirecting hunters who are so fond of attracting shadowstrikes. And we did what we so rarely have done; focused on our first pull, defeating the Beetle on our first try!
A few people had mentioned that they thought this hadn't been done by the other guilds on the server, and confirmation arrived in the announcement realm-wide of a realm first achievement! :) Many reading this will scoff, for it is an old achievement, but still one that is undone on the majority of realms. Trade was an interesting place to be afterward, with the mix of "you stupid nooobs, you suck. This server sux. Ally sucks!" along with congratulations from other raiders on the server.
In any case, my screenshot addon was apparently on the fritz, so all I have for you is this haphazard snapshot of the last few achievements, with my drake peeking from behind the window. Sorry.
I went to Icecrown, and all I got was this Lousy Screenshot.
Still, it was a fun night that reminded us of why we do this thing called Wow.
Have a great weekend!
Icecrown is where the Frozen Throne is. The Big Bad Lich King. Frostmourne. Nemesis of all, but particularly so for Death Knights who have experienced the half-life of being in his thrall. So, in the waning days of the second World of Warcraft expansion, it's still where raiders find themselves come time to join with their band of 25 or so plucky adventurers, finding what challenges they may, and overcoming them!
In my case, we've been doing the Glory of the Icecrown Raider achievements, and while a few of them were tricky (the tank swaps of Sindragosa's Buffet in particular), last night we found ourselves with only the Neck Deep in Vile achievement separating us from our mounts of skeletal swiftness. On two previous nights, we'd successfully gotten LK down to 1% before his explosion when a Vile Spirit hit someone. Unfortunately it was too late to keep from killing LK and we failed the achievement. Both times it was too late to wipe and the Lich King died without giving us our due. We were determined not to fail this time, and carefully modifying our kite path to ensure no wayward defiles were dropped in the middle, we managed to defeat him without encountering any Vile Spirits, although we still had to check our logs after the explosion to make sure.
Riding the exhilaration of the moment - and our shiny new mounts - we decided to see if we could accomplish an achievement sweepstakes for the week. We'd only just the previous week killed Anub'Arak in TOGC as a guild for the first time. I know, I know - that is SOOO 2009, but Insomnia had been working on the fight late last year, only to drop it when ICC opened. Now, in better gear the fight is certainly easier, but with better gear also comes more health, which means more healing for Anub in P3. We actually wiped quite a few times in getting that first kill.
We'd already cleared the first 4 bosses in TOGC without the careless mistakes that results in wipes on old content. 50 attempts remaining on Anub. Soulstones were placed on our misdirecting hunters who are so fond of attracting shadowstrikes. And we did what we so rarely have done; focused on our first pull, defeating the Beetle on our first try!
A few people had mentioned that they thought this hadn't been done by the other guilds on the server, and confirmation arrived in the announcement realm-wide of a realm first achievement! :) Many reading this will scoff, for it is an old achievement, but still one that is undone on the majority of realms. Trade was an interesting place to be afterward, with the mix of "you stupid nooobs, you suck. This server sux. Ally sucks!" along with congratulations from other raiders on the server.
In any case, my screenshot addon was apparently on the fritz, so all I have for you is this haphazard snapshot of the last few achievements, with my drake peeking from behind the window. Sorry.
I went to Icecrown, and all I got was this Lousy Screenshot.
Still, it was a fun night that reminded us of why we do this thing called Wow.
Have a great weekend!
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Milestones n fun n stuff
A few of my guildies have been bored recently, so they've been knocking out fishing achievements. One of them unsuccessfully tried about 3000 casts to get the Dark Herring (mine took about 200 casts), but he did get the turtle and also got the Ironforge fish in about 30 casts. I have yet to get the Ogrimmar fish after 3000+ casts, and I've sorta given up. I also lack the fishing derby achievement for the meta, but I'm never online for the contests, so not sure if I'll ever get that one.
In any case, a few other 'milestones' for my Warcraft toons have kept things fun.
I had a 20k fight on my DK, which admittedly isn't that hard on Blood Queen Lanathiel 10 man heroic. It's just that I've never been the first bite in 10 or 25 man before. At the time, recount suggested what would have been a top 50 parse on WOL, but we didn't have anyone parsing combat logs. Still, it was fun so I thought I'd satisfy the 'screenshot or it didn't happen' crowd. ;)
Despite my limited Wow schedule, I've spent a little time here and there leveling two of my alts, my hunter and my warlock. One of my goals is to have them 'Cataclysm ready' by release date, so I've occasionally logged onto them to nudge them in that direction. It seems the best way in general to level quickly is to quest, but if you have limited time, just doing the random 5-man dungeon is very effective, since the mobs give double xp and they usually go very quickly to the 33k dungeon completion xp bonus, along with the emblem. At any rate, I've been working a little extra on my hunter this week to get her to 80, and she's got 1 1/2 bubbles to go! The 'class I'd never play' has made the long journey to 80! Tea party at 7. Next up, gnome warlock does Northrend (he's 75 at the moment). That will make my DKs, shaman, rogue, hunter, and warlock sitting at 80 for now....
Last but certainly not least, my unscheduled raid has managed to run for 1-2 hours each of the past two weeks, accomplishing an achievement or two towards the meta-achievement.... Drakes here I come! Hopefully before Cataclysm anyway. ;) I have a few achievements left, but when I have the drakes, I'll try to remember the screenshot of that too :) Some guildies finally got Bane of the Fallen King this week, but unfortunately I don't spend enough time on 10-mans to try for that, so we'll see what happens in 25-man attempts. It was fun doing some hardmodes in Ulduar with my guild last night, but naturally somewhat anticlimactic. Still, in my first visit to observe Algalon, he did offer us a friendly chat before we punched his phase ticket to nowhere.
Hope you're still enjoying your Wow time, or if not, your hiatus until Cataclysm arrives!
In any case, a few other 'milestones' for my Warcraft toons have kept things fun.
I had a 20k fight on my DK, which admittedly isn't that hard on Blood Queen Lanathiel 10 man heroic. It's just that I've never been the first bite in 10 or 25 man before. At the time, recount suggested what would have been a top 50 parse on WOL, but we didn't have anyone parsing combat logs. Still, it was fun so I thought I'd satisfy the 'screenshot or it didn't happen' crowd. ;)
Despite my limited Wow schedule, I've spent a little time here and there leveling two of my alts, my hunter and my warlock. One of my goals is to have them 'Cataclysm ready' by release date, so I've occasionally logged onto them to nudge them in that direction. It seems the best way in general to level quickly is to quest, but if you have limited time, just doing the random 5-man dungeon is very effective, since the mobs give double xp and they usually go very quickly to the 33k dungeon completion xp bonus, along with the emblem. At any rate, I've been working a little extra on my hunter this week to get her to 80, and she's got 1 1/2 bubbles to go! The 'class I'd never play' has made the long journey to 80! Tea party at 7. Next up, gnome warlock does Northrend (he's 75 at the moment). That will make my DKs, shaman, rogue, hunter, and warlock sitting at 80 for now....
Last but certainly not least, my unscheduled raid has managed to run for 1-2 hours each of the past two weeks, accomplishing an achievement or two towards the meta-achievement.... Drakes here I come! Hopefully before Cataclysm anyway. ;) I have a few achievements left, but when I have the drakes, I'll try to remember the screenshot of that too :) Some guildies finally got Bane of the Fallen King this week, but unfortunately I don't spend enough time on 10-mans to try for that, so we'll see what happens in 25-man attempts. It was fun doing some hardmodes in Ulduar with my guild last night, but naturally somewhat anticlimactic. Still, in my first visit to observe Algalon, he did offer us a friendly chat before we punched his phase ticket to nowhere.
Hope you're still enjoying your Wow time, or if not, your hiatus until Cataclysm arrives!
Monday, August 2, 2010
Cataclysm Release Date: Take #3009
I stopped by my local GameStop to get my pre-order in (I'm slow, I know) for Cataclysm and asked what information they had on the release date. They said 'November,' but of course we all know that that may mean something, or nothing.
Ever since Blizzcon last year there has been speculation, and literally dozens, if not hundreds of release date threads on official forums.
"Logic" or "evidence" has been mulled over non-stop, and optimistic predictions of a Spring 2010 release have faded into oblivion amid jeering "LolFails."
Primary arguments have been:
1) looking at the announcement, beta, and release cycles of the game and its two previous expansions. This examination suggests an approximately Oct-November 2010 release.
2) The announcement at Blizzcon last year that said people would be whining about goblins and worgens by the next Blizzcon. This suggested a release date by the end of the summer
In any case, with closed beta well under way, we can say with some confidence that it's unlikely the end of summer scenario is accurate, which leaves us with Q4 predictions, and hopes that nothing occurs to slide the expansion into next year.
I need to plan my time off work, after all.
My guess is 18 November.
It could be 11 November.
Sooner - while surprising, would be ok with me. As long as they can get Death Knights properly put back together after they've ripped the stuffing out of the class.
And I sure hope it's not later. I want my Cata!
What's your take at this point?
Ever since Blizzcon last year there has been speculation, and literally dozens, if not hundreds of release date threads on official forums.
"Logic" or "evidence" has been mulled over non-stop, and optimistic predictions of a Spring 2010 release have faded into oblivion amid jeering "LolFails."
Primary arguments have been:
1) looking at the announcement, beta, and release cycles of the game and its two previous expansions. This examination suggests an approximately Oct-November 2010 release.
2) The announcement at Blizzcon last year that said people would be whining about goblins and worgens by the next Blizzcon. This suggested a release date by the end of the summer
In any case, with closed beta well under way, we can say with some confidence that it's unlikely the end of summer scenario is accurate, which leaves us with Q4 predictions, and hopes that nothing occurs to slide the expansion into next year.
I need to plan my time off work, after all.
My guess is 18 November.
It could be 11 November.
Sooner - while surprising, would be ok with me. As long as they can get Death Knights properly put back together after they've ripped the stuffing out of the class.
And I sure hope it's not later. I want my Cata!
What's your take at this point?
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Forming a raid Redux (x2)
Remember how I stopped leading a regular ICC10 because I couldn't commit to a regular schedule, and because a consistent group had never shown up?
Well, looky here!
1) In which I was once again a reluctant RL - but got lucky
So, on Saturday I found myself at home (as opposed to out of town), not busy and able to log on. I decided to hop on my shammy and maybe do a VOA or something low key. Moments after logging on, a couple of guildies whispered me asking if I was going to do anything or form a group. I replied, "I really don't want to lead anything, so I think I'll just mess around a bit." I heeded the Dalaran call for a healer for VOA 25, and while preparing to kill Toravan more guildies /whispered me that one of the newer mages in the guild was putting together a group for ICC10. They said, "it looks pretty good." I said I'd be willing to heal it after Toravon, and joined a full group as soon as Mr T was dead.
Group composition:
Heals: shammy healer (myself/alt), holy pally (pug), holy priest (pug)
Tanks: bear (guild raider/offspec), protadin (pug)
DPS: rogue (guild nonraider/alt), rettie (pug), mage (raider/main spec), warlock (pug), spriest (pug)
Well, I've seen this before. One main raider, the rest alt/offspecs/pugs, and it usually doesn't end well... still, I'm here on my resto shammy, just gonna have fun.
Zoning, in, getting asked for vent info. I hit my macro button, and see who hops on vent. Eventually, the mage who formed the raid gets in vent, but no one can hear him.... uh oh. He rages in /raid about his new $50 mike, and silence ensues.... who's gonna RL now?
*eyes swivel to Hine*
Oh.
Oh no. I said I didn't wanna *cry*
*cringe*
Oh, okay. *sigh*
So, we clear trash uneventfully, and after brief discussion decide to just do normal mode ICC10 given the pug nature of the group, fortunately inspection reveals that at least everyone is reasonably well geared.
Surprisingly, Marrowgar is one-shot, nobody dies, everyone seems to know their role, and even the dps all seem competent! (all over 7k dps for the fight). Hmmm, might not be so bad after all!
Lady Deathwhisper was smoooth, even when half the group hadn't heard of the initial strategy of starting on the stage behind LDW.
Gunship? We toyed with doing On a Boat before cooler heads prevailed and we toyed with the Lootship normally.
A couple of hours later, we sat in front of Sindragosa, having one-shot every boss. Wow, everyone was commenting on how this pug was better than most guild runs. But, I thought, Sindragosa is where pugs come to die. Especially when the tank admitted he hadn't completed the fight. Taking a deep breath, I explained the fight to those who hadn't done it before. Then, we killed the mini-drakes and pulled Sindra...... and one-shot her too!
I think most of us had trouble scooping our jaws off the floor for 5 minutes afterward, even as we ported to the room of the infamous Lich King.
Now, here is where the happy story ends, but make no mistake. It IS a happy story. Just because we came back the next night - replacing only the warlock - and wiped on LK for the duration, it felt good to clear 11/12 ICC in a pug, and even have the confidence that this group can kill LK next time around.
I clearly had very little to do with it. The group somehow had a full complement of competent and decently geared pugs, and everyone quickly adopted their assigned roles even if they hadn't done it before. I can claim very little credit. Maybe the mage has some raid-forming mojo. I don't know, but in any case it was fun. We'll see what happens next week.
2. In Which I get Lucky Again.
Over the past week there had been several threads in guild forums by newer members looking for a regular ICC10 group. Unfortunately I still find myself unable to commit to any raid times outside of what is already scheduled. And then I had an idea. We're still raiding 4 nights a week, and it's an unusual week where we don't call a raid or two early, or even have Monday off when we're done with all current content. So, why not plan to run a 10-man ONLY when raid is called early? What a concept! In forums, several had trouble with how this might work. I clarified that mains and alts are acceptable, as long as the alt is well-geared. These raids would not be about getting gear. They would be about getting the achievements required for the mount. Enthusiasm was surprisingly relatively high.
Monday, the only thing left was TOGC and that lasted about an hour. So, announcing in vent I would be doing the 'standby' 10-man (I'll have to come up with a good name for it - but this won't be the Tard Ten reincarnated), I quickly had more people than I could take along, competent raiders all. In fact, the co-GMs, an officer, and several of the more-skilled raiders brought toons. Thus, it was with confidence that we entered ICC10, and proceeded to fairly quickly and efficiently kill most of the first two wings on heroic, while doing several achievements. Not bad for 'filling in' a raid during regular raid time!
3. Maybe, just maybe.....
This might work. One can only hope.... :)
Well, looky here!
1) In which I was once again a reluctant RL - but got lucky
So, on Saturday I found myself at home (as opposed to out of town), not busy and able to log on. I decided to hop on my shammy and maybe do a VOA or something low key. Moments after logging on, a couple of guildies whispered me asking if I was going to do anything or form a group. I replied, "I really don't want to lead anything, so I think I'll just mess around a bit." I heeded the Dalaran call for a healer for VOA 25, and while preparing to kill Toravan more guildies /whispered me that one of the newer mages in the guild was putting together a group for ICC10. They said, "it looks pretty good." I said I'd be willing to heal it after Toravon, and joined a full group as soon as Mr T was dead.
Group composition:
Heals: shammy healer (myself/alt), holy pally (pug), holy priest (pug)
Tanks: bear (guild raider/offspec), protadin (pug)
DPS: rogue (guild nonraider/alt), rettie (pug), mage (raider/main spec), warlock (pug), spriest (pug)
Well, I've seen this before. One main raider, the rest alt/offspecs/pugs, and it usually doesn't end well... still, I'm here on my resto shammy, just gonna have fun.
Zoning, in, getting asked for vent info. I hit my macro button, and see who hops on vent. Eventually, the mage who formed the raid gets in vent, but no one can hear him.... uh oh. He rages in /raid about his new $50 mike, and silence ensues.... who's gonna RL now?
*eyes swivel to Hine*
Oh.
Oh no. I said I didn't wanna *cry*
*cringe*
Oh, okay. *sigh*
So, we clear trash uneventfully, and after brief discussion decide to just do normal mode ICC10 given the pug nature of the group, fortunately inspection reveals that at least everyone is reasonably well geared.
Surprisingly, Marrowgar is one-shot, nobody dies, everyone seems to know their role, and even the dps all seem competent! (all over 7k dps for the fight). Hmmm, might not be so bad after all!
Lady Deathwhisper was smoooth, even when half the group hadn't heard of the initial strategy of starting on the stage behind LDW.
Gunship? We toyed with doing On a Boat before cooler heads prevailed and we toyed with the Lootship normally.
A couple of hours later, we sat in front of Sindragosa, having one-shot every boss. Wow, everyone was commenting on how this pug was better than most guild runs. But, I thought, Sindragosa is where pugs come to die. Especially when the tank admitted he hadn't completed the fight. Taking a deep breath, I explained the fight to those who hadn't done it before. Then, we killed the mini-drakes and pulled Sindra...... and one-shot her too!
I think most of us had trouble scooping our jaws off the floor for 5 minutes afterward, even as we ported to the room of the infamous Lich King.
Now, here is where the happy story ends, but make no mistake. It IS a happy story. Just because we came back the next night - replacing only the warlock - and wiped on LK for the duration, it felt good to clear 11/12 ICC in a pug, and even have the confidence that this group can kill LK next time around.
I clearly had very little to do with it. The group somehow had a full complement of competent and decently geared pugs, and everyone quickly adopted their assigned roles even if they hadn't done it before. I can claim very little credit. Maybe the mage has some raid-forming mojo. I don't know, but in any case it was fun. We'll see what happens next week.
2. In Which I get Lucky Again.
Over the past week there had been several threads in guild forums by newer members looking for a regular ICC10 group. Unfortunately I still find myself unable to commit to any raid times outside of what is already scheduled. And then I had an idea. We're still raiding 4 nights a week, and it's an unusual week where we don't call a raid or two early, or even have Monday off when we're done with all current content. So, why not plan to run a 10-man ONLY when raid is called early? What a concept! In forums, several had trouble with how this might work. I clarified that mains and alts are acceptable, as long as the alt is well-geared. These raids would not be about getting gear. They would be about getting the achievements required for the mount. Enthusiasm was surprisingly relatively high.
Monday, the only thing left was TOGC and that lasted about an hour. So, announcing in vent I would be doing the 'standby' 10-man (I'll have to come up with a good name for it - but this won't be the Tard Ten reincarnated), I quickly had more people than I could take along, competent raiders all. In fact, the co-GMs, an officer, and several of the more-skilled raiders brought toons. Thus, it was with confidence that we entered ICC10, and proceeded to fairly quickly and efficiently kill most of the first two wings on heroic, while doing several achievements. Not bad for 'filling in' a raid during regular raid time!
3. Maybe, just maybe.....
This might work. One can only hope.... :)
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Template change
They say black is a terrible background for a blog.
I suppose even Death Knights can't be Goth all the time.
So, let me know if you like the new theme, or the old one!
I suppose even Death Knights can't be Goth all the time.
So, let me know if you like the new theme, or the old one!
Monday, July 12, 2010
Still Undead and Kicking
Sorry guys for the long absence!
The job required a trip to Alaska where the access was not conducive to blogging, and the family peace and happiness required a camping trip where the access was.... not. :)
Hine is still Undead and Kicking though, back to raiding and closer than ever to Shadowmourne (good chance of getting it this week). More Wow and DK-related stuff to come this week - I've had about 5-6 articles all bouncing around in my head for a bit, we'll see which one(s) spill out.
In any case: Anchorage was a good experience and I'll leave you with a few impressions from my RL 'raid' there:
1) Moose's Tooth is one of the best pizza and microbrew places on the planet.
2) The glaciers ARE worth seeing in person.
3) Don't get lost anywhere outside of town.
4) You can get liquor delivered via 'bush plane' to just about anywhere.
And from my camping trip to the shores of Lake Roosevelt (Columbia River above the Grand Coulee Dam):
1) Having a HUGE camp area for the family and friends is priceless (including our own little cove for our watercraft).
2) wake surfing isn't hard, but it is a rush!
3) DO tell your noob-to-camping children to pee outside the tent.
4) DON'T bring 4x the amount of food you need for a one week trip. Although the squirrels and ants will be happy if you do.
The job required a trip to Alaska where the access was not conducive to blogging, and the family peace and happiness required a camping trip where the access was.... not. :)
Hine is still Undead and Kicking though, back to raiding and closer than ever to Shadowmourne (good chance of getting it this week). More Wow and DK-related stuff to come this week - I've had about 5-6 articles all bouncing around in my head for a bit, we'll see which one(s) spill out.
In any case: Anchorage was a good experience and I'll leave you with a few impressions from my RL 'raid' there:
1) Moose's Tooth is one of the best pizza and microbrew places on the planet.
2) The glaciers ARE worth seeing in person.
3) Don't get lost anywhere outside of town.
4) You can get liquor delivered via 'bush plane' to just about anywhere.
And from my camping trip to the shores of Lake Roosevelt (Columbia River above the Grand Coulee Dam):
1) Having a HUGE camp area for the family and friends is priceless (including our own little cove for our watercraft).
2) wake surfing isn't hard, but it is a rush!
3) DO tell your noob-to-camping children to pee outside the tent.
4) DON'T bring 4x the amount of food you need for a one week trip. Although the squirrels and ants will be happy if you do.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
A good week!
What a boring post title!
Who wants to read this stuff? :P
Unfortunately, the only other topics I could come up with for this one were either just as boring, or didn't make any sense.
In any case, despite my reluctant farewell to my 10-man group, the past week of Wow and RL were very enjoyable.
I made a looong road trip to Santa Barbara, which remains one of the most beautiful places in the US, and my top choice for 'Where I'd Love to Live... if I Could.' The spouse had never been to SB before and goals #1 and #2 were both met: we both agreed In N Out is by far the best fast food on the planet, and #2 SB is pretty much Paradise on Earth. Oh, and the wedding we attended was beautiful.
As far as raiding goes, I made it back in time to jump into the final night before reset with 9/12 ICC25. We'd been working for heroic Putricide for a few weeks, and were struggling to survive goos and transitions. Monday, we reviewed the strategy, buffed, and one-shot Putri for our first kill! Whey did he die 'so easily' after lots of wipes on previous nights? Everybody was focused and knew our role. Whether that happens on attempt #1 or attempt #20, progression kills have little margin for error and require everyone to be on the ball - which we were on our first attempt on Monday. Of course, we apparently spent all our focus points for the night on that attempt, because the rest of the night people apparently completely lacked the ability to place ice tombs and avoid bombs during heroic Sindragosa's air phase. Oh well! ;)
Several folks have stopped by on level 1 (or 55 DK) alts to say hello and/or to ask questions, and I wanted to say /hello and /wave to you! I'm more than happy to chat with anyone regarding DKs or other topics. If you do happen to roll a toon on Baelgun to talk to me, I'm flattered and happy to talk. If I'm in a raid however and don't respond much, please don't be offended. I tend to get pretty focused in raids.
Last autobiographical update for today: I hit the halfway mark on Shadowfrost shards, so in 3-4 weeks I'll hopefully have that shiny new orange!
I'll be back in Alaska for the next couple weeks, so if my internet connection is solid, I'll still be able to raid - and blog, so fingers crossed!
Who wants to read this stuff? :P
Unfortunately, the only other topics I could come up with for this one were either just as boring, or didn't make any sense.
In any case, despite my reluctant farewell to my 10-man group, the past week of Wow and RL were very enjoyable.
I made a looong road trip to Santa Barbara, which remains one of the most beautiful places in the US, and my top choice for 'Where I'd Love to Live... if I Could.' The spouse had never been to SB before and goals #1 and #2 were both met: we both agreed In N Out is by far the best fast food on the planet, and #2 SB is pretty much Paradise on Earth. Oh, and the wedding we attended was beautiful.
As far as raiding goes, I made it back in time to jump into the final night before reset with 9/12 ICC25. We'd been working for heroic Putricide for a few weeks, and were struggling to survive goos and transitions. Monday, we reviewed the strategy, buffed, and one-shot Putri for our first kill! Whey did he die 'so easily' after lots of wipes on previous nights? Everybody was focused and knew our role. Whether that happens on attempt #1 or attempt #20, progression kills have little margin for error and require everyone to be on the ball - which we were on our first attempt on Monday. Of course, we apparently spent all our focus points for the night on that attempt, because the rest of the night people apparently completely lacked the ability to place ice tombs and avoid bombs during heroic Sindragosa's air phase. Oh well! ;)
Several folks have stopped by on level 1 (or 55 DK) alts to say hello and/or to ask questions, and I wanted to say /hello and /wave to you! I'm more than happy to chat with anyone regarding DKs or other topics. If you do happen to roll a toon on Baelgun to talk to me, I'm flattered and happy to talk. If I'm in a raid however and don't respond much, please don't be offended. I tend to get pretty focused in raids.
Last autobiographical update for today: I hit the halfway mark on Shadowfrost shards, so in 3-4 weeks I'll hopefully have that shiny new orange!
I'll be back in Alaska for the next couple weeks, so if my internet connection is solid, I'll still be able to raid - and blog, so fingers crossed!
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
What now, Until Cataclysm Cometh?
The lull before an expansion is the time many guilds fall apart.
The additional hurdle of the summer blues looms as well.
What then shall this Death Goddess be doing between now and Cat?
1. My lovely ladies
'Hine' is a term meaning 'woman' in several polynesian (Pacific) cultures.
Their pantheon of goddesses often but not always starts with the prefix Hine-
In searching for an appropriate name for my nascent DK, I had a long list of death and/or night gods/goddesses, and my final 10 had only two females. However, with the very important Choosing Talent, my spouse favored Hinenuitepo, and my Death Knight was born! Hence all of my toons 'born' in the LK era have been female deities, and a fun naming system it has been!
Hinemanu has been my very-slowly leveled Hunter, and she's now reached 50! Eww, female dorfs.... :)
She may or may not see 80 prior to Cataclysm, and that's fine with me. I'm enjoying the extremely casual leveling I do on her, and playing (as I've said before) the one class I said I'd never play. I've still done very little research or theorycrafting on How to Play Huntards, but I find I do just fine, thank you, as I am.
Hinetitama is currently languishing as my 'second' toon - primarily my healer - who rarely gets to play since I'm severely limiting my time in Wow and my DK is rolling both 10 and 25 man raids. Still, she has the Once Bitten achieve that Hinenuitepo lacks, and when a healer is needed for a guild run of VOA or the raid weekly or some such, out of mothballs she comes! Sometimes I feel like leveling Alchemy just to make my pots/flasks on her, since I rarely mine these days. She's herb/mining, and I almost always make my money in the AH, so farming for mats seems a waste of time.
I have several Hine-names on standby just waiting to join in the fun.
New alts? Perhaps.
Name/sex changes for existing alts? Maybe. Except for Hiro. He gets to stay the 'original' main character and will forever be my human rogue.
2. In which achievements .... suck?
Speaking of achieves, grrrrrr.
I mean, /cheer for my guildies.
I posted about forming a raid and unfortunately my 10-man raid remains unformed. I still pug 2-5 players every night, and even some of the guildies who've popped in and out of my group are somewhat less polished than most.
Hence, you can probably understand my ambivalence when BOTH the other two guild 10-mans popped up with the Glory of the Raider achievement within minutes of each other on Monday and proudly paraded their shiny new mounts around Dalaran. I'm proud of them, and I feel good for them, but I feel distinctly unsupported in my attempts to get a third group going. This could be an entirely separate blog post, but I'll cap this segment with the 'news.' My group, given its inconsistency, can't find a groove. We haven't killed Lich King since the first time, and have only managed a couple of heroic boss kills. Given that for my 'core,' 10-man regular loot is completely worthless, we've become a labor-filled farming run for alts and non-guild pugs. I've had several of my best players 'poached' by one of the other groups (including an alt-heavy Friday night run organized by the more successful Mon/Tues groups), and typically see the best new guildies gobbled up before I have a chance at them. I do feel like giving up on the group and either not raiding 10-mans, or just trying to slide into the occasional 'main' groups. That feels unfair and unfaithful to the 3-5 guildies who've stuck with me so far, so I haven't done that yet. :(
I did have a good laugh on our 25-man night after we'd made about 5 heroic Putricide attempts (lovely mess of a fight, that) when we decided to do the Nausea, Heartburn, Indigestion achievement on normal difficulty and we messily accomplished the task despite oozes sprinting all over the room.
3. Shadowmourne Cometh Before Cataclysm!
We had the shared joy of watching Massakur carefully present his 50 shards to Mograine and in return our first (and Alliance server first as well) Shadowmourne. Mass is well-deserving and it does feel to me like a true guild accomplishment.
In addition, my 5 month old decision to leave my more-casual but wonderful guild has been vindicated, and more-than-vindicated. Not only has my still-not-quite hardcore guild killed Arthas (which is where my old guild and 20,000 other guilds are stuck), we've progressed to 8/12 heroic Icecrown. ANND, my belief that I was surrendering the dream of a Shadowmourne of my own has been resurrected! I put in the personal effort to craft Shadow's Edge, complete all the quests, received the support from Insomnia for the raid quests, and was the de facto - and default - next in line for the legendary! Thus, I was humbled and thankful to receive my first Shard en route to 49 more and a shiny never-before-obtained orange. :P If all goes well, in approximately 6-8 weeks I'll have the privilege of holding a nice new axe.
4. The rich get richer.
I already posted on my Cataclysm prep plans, but this summer another goal I have is to save gold and mats as much as possible to be ready for the next expansion. It'll keep me busy :) As my main, Hinenuitepo is fairly well set up with everything she 'needs,' but if it looks like heirloom items will work at 80+ (I doubt it), I'll fill out my set. If any rep or anything else is needed, I'll grind that out too.
The pre-expansion blues may slow even my fervor (as it does for so many people) - that and the incredibly busy summer I have before me - but I plan to hang around and enjoy many of the fun times to be had in Wow between now and then.
The additional hurdle of the summer blues looms as well.
What then shall this Death Goddess be doing between now and Cat?
1. My lovely ladies
'Hine' is a term meaning 'woman' in several polynesian (Pacific) cultures.
Their pantheon of goddesses often but not always starts with the prefix Hine-
In searching for an appropriate name for my nascent DK, I had a long list of death and/or night gods/goddesses, and my final 10 had only two females. However, with the very important Choosing Talent, my spouse favored Hinenuitepo, and my Death Knight was born! Hence all of my toons 'born' in the LK era have been female deities, and a fun naming system it has been!
Hinemanu has been my very-slowly leveled Hunter, and she's now reached 50! Eww, female dorfs.... :)
She may or may not see 80 prior to Cataclysm, and that's fine with me. I'm enjoying the extremely casual leveling I do on her, and playing (as I've said before) the one class I said I'd never play. I've still done very little research or theorycrafting on How to Play Huntards, but I find I do just fine, thank you, as I am.
Hinetitama is currently languishing as my 'second' toon - primarily my healer - who rarely gets to play since I'm severely limiting my time in Wow and my DK is rolling both 10 and 25 man raids. Still, she has the Once Bitten achieve that Hinenuitepo lacks, and when a healer is needed for a guild run of VOA or the raid weekly or some such, out of mothballs she comes! Sometimes I feel like leveling Alchemy just to make my pots/flasks on her, since I rarely mine these days. She's herb/mining, and I almost always make my money in the AH, so farming for mats seems a waste of time.
I have several Hine-names on standby just waiting to join in the fun.
New alts? Perhaps.
Name/sex changes for existing alts? Maybe. Except for Hiro. He gets to stay the 'original' main character and will forever be my human rogue.
2. In which achievements .... suck?
Speaking of achieves, grrrrrr.
I mean, /cheer for my guildies.
I posted about forming a raid and unfortunately my 10-man raid remains unformed. I still pug 2-5 players every night, and even some of the guildies who've popped in and out of my group are somewhat less polished than most.
Hence, you can probably understand my ambivalence when BOTH the other two guild 10-mans popped up with the Glory of the Raider achievement within minutes of each other on Monday and proudly paraded their shiny new mounts around Dalaran. I'm proud of them, and I feel good for them, but I feel distinctly unsupported in my attempts to get a third group going. This could be an entirely separate blog post, but I'll cap this segment with the 'news.' My group, given its inconsistency, can't find a groove. We haven't killed Lich King since the first time, and have only managed a couple of heroic boss kills. Given that for my 'core,' 10-man regular loot is completely worthless, we've become a labor-filled farming run for alts and non-guild pugs. I've had several of my best players 'poached' by one of the other groups (including an alt-heavy Friday night run organized by the more successful Mon/Tues groups), and typically see the best new guildies gobbled up before I have a chance at them. I do feel like giving up on the group and either not raiding 10-mans, or just trying to slide into the occasional 'main' groups. That feels unfair and unfaithful to the 3-5 guildies who've stuck with me so far, so I haven't done that yet. :(
I did have a good laugh on our 25-man night after we'd made about 5 heroic Putricide attempts (lovely mess of a fight, that) when we decided to do the Nausea, Heartburn, Indigestion achievement on normal difficulty and we messily accomplished the task despite oozes sprinting all over the room.
3. Shadowmourne Cometh Before Cataclysm!
We had the shared joy of watching Massakur carefully present his 50 shards to Mograine and in return our first (and Alliance server first as well) Shadowmourne. Mass is well-deserving and it does feel to me like a true guild accomplishment.
In addition, my 5 month old decision to leave my more-casual but wonderful guild has been vindicated, and more-than-vindicated. Not only has my still-not-quite hardcore guild killed Arthas (which is where my old guild and 20,000 other guilds are stuck), we've progressed to 8/12 heroic Icecrown. ANND, my belief that I was surrendering the dream of a Shadowmourne of my own has been resurrected! I put in the personal effort to craft Shadow's Edge, complete all the quests, received the support from Insomnia for the raid quests, and was the de facto - and default - next in line for the legendary! Thus, I was humbled and thankful to receive my first Shard en route to 49 more and a shiny never-before-obtained orange. :P If all goes well, in approximately 6-8 weeks I'll have the privilege of holding a nice new axe.
4. The rich get richer.
I already posted on my Cataclysm prep plans, but this summer another goal I have is to save gold and mats as much as possible to be ready for the next expansion. It'll keep me busy :) As my main, Hinenuitepo is fairly well set up with everything she 'needs,' but if it looks like heirloom items will work at 80+ (I doubt it), I'll fill out my set. If any rep or anything else is needed, I'll grind that out too.
The pre-expansion blues may slow even my fervor (as it does for so many people) - that and the incredibly busy summer I have before me - but I plan to hang around and enjoy many of the fun times to be had in Wow between now and then.
Monday, April 26, 2010
10 vs 25 man raids in Cataclysm
Bleh. My last post about AVR - which I still think is a game-changer - was overshadowed by the news that Blizzard plans to start having shared lockouts for 10 and 25-man raids, and will try to tune gear and difficulty to be the same for both raid sizes.
WOW... that's big stuff. I'm sure there's already 50 different blogs about this already, but it can't be ignored, and I've been too busy to read what others have said so far. At any rate, here's some of my thoughts on the planned changes.
I LIKE:
1. The possibility of having 4 days of main raiding, most likely still 25-man raids, and not feeling 'forced' to do 10-mans in addition to that as I do now. Given that most of my guild does 10-mans on heroic, there is some implication that if I don't also do 10-mans I'm not adequately preparing/gearing. I know, the 'really' hard core guilds will still run multiple full 25-man raids (or 10-mans) so they can prepare for world firsts, but even for a 'normal' guild, it's hard to pass up all those badges, practice, and gear. It might be nice to not feel forced to log on for a full raid nearly every night.
2. 10-man guilds don't have to feel like second class citizens.
3. If you really want to, it will be easier for 'hard core raiders' to feel ok about raiding with their real friends as opposed to what happens in 25-mans (inevitably there are people you don't like but you put up with for the sake of the raid/guild).
I DON'T LIKE:
1. It's easier to do 10-man raids. They may tune the difficulty, but I suspect most guilds are likely to pick their 10 best raiders and go for progression. Most guilds, even server top-5 guilds (like mine), tend to have at least 4-5 players that just aren't the caliber of their guildies. One could easily sideline them, form the best team or two, and progress more quickly through 10-man content.
2. Either there will be NO advantages to 25-mans (you can get the same stuff in 10-man) OR 25-mans will still be 'better.' Blizz is trying to walk the line on this one, but I don't buy it. They'll put more gear per player in the bigger raids or allow legendaries only in 25-mans, or different colored mounts, or something. Either way, 25-mans will still be superior, or if too similar disincentivized. Which means....
3. This could spell the death of 25-mans. I didn't raid 40-mans, but I know I would lament the loss of the 25 man raids and have always felt like killing a boss with the larger group to be the more exhilerating experience compared to the smaller 10-man raids. I'm pretty sure Blizz still wants us doing 25-mans, so it will be interesting to see how they make them worthwhile without making them the only Big Boy Raid available.
4. Additionally, there's a lot of other logistical problems. The balance issues will be huge. Homogenization could be an issue. If Blizz wants 10-man raiders to feel they're getting all the buffs, then 25-man raids will be subjected to more and more overlapping buffs and less of a feeling of each player bringing something valuable.
All in all, I have mixed feelings about the proposed changes.
Honestly, I hope they can make all this work, but I also hope they don't kill 25-man raiding - I'd still love to feel good about the 'big' raids and have a reason to keep doing them.
As far as the other raiding news, I'm happy with gating as Blizzard said, and I imagine all but the most hard core will be able to accept it. And even then, I think that in having to wait for content the 'hard core' will benefit in not simply finishing the content and then being burned out/bored. Kinda like opening ALL your presents on Christmas morning and then finished 30 minutes later. I always preferred opening a few presents a few days before, then some on Xmas eve, then some in the morning, and finishing a few more later with other friends and family.
I'm also ok with multiple shorter raids, could be cool to have locations with different 'feel,' but I also hope they have at least one 'epic' instance in each expansion. I'd prefer 4-6 boss instances to the single room instances we got in Lich King.
WOW... that's big stuff. I'm sure there's already 50 different blogs about this already, but it can't be ignored, and I've been too busy to read what others have said so far. At any rate, here's some of my thoughts on the planned changes.
I LIKE:
1. The possibility of having 4 days of main raiding, most likely still 25-man raids, and not feeling 'forced' to do 10-mans in addition to that as I do now. Given that most of my guild does 10-mans on heroic, there is some implication that if I don't also do 10-mans I'm not adequately preparing/gearing. I know, the 'really' hard core guilds will still run multiple full 25-man raids (or 10-mans) so they can prepare for world firsts, but even for a 'normal' guild, it's hard to pass up all those badges, practice, and gear. It might be nice to not feel forced to log on for a full raid nearly every night.
2. 10-man guilds don't have to feel like second class citizens.
3. If you really want to, it will be easier for 'hard core raiders' to feel ok about raiding with their real friends as opposed to what happens in 25-mans (inevitably there are people you don't like but you put up with for the sake of the raid/guild).
I DON'T LIKE:
1. It's easier to do 10-man raids. They may tune the difficulty, but I suspect most guilds are likely to pick their 10 best raiders and go for progression. Most guilds, even server top-5 guilds (like mine), tend to have at least 4-5 players that just aren't the caliber of their guildies. One could easily sideline them, form the best team or two, and progress more quickly through 10-man content.
2. Either there will be NO advantages to 25-mans (you can get the same stuff in 10-man) OR 25-mans will still be 'better.' Blizz is trying to walk the line on this one, but I don't buy it. They'll put more gear per player in the bigger raids or allow legendaries only in 25-mans, or different colored mounts, or something. Either way, 25-mans will still be superior, or if too similar disincentivized. Which means....
3. This could spell the death of 25-mans. I didn't raid 40-mans, but I know I would lament the loss of the 25 man raids and have always felt like killing a boss with the larger group to be the more exhilerating experience compared to the smaller 10-man raids. I'm pretty sure Blizz still wants us doing 25-mans, so it will be interesting to see how they make them worthwhile without making them the only Big Boy Raid available.
4. Additionally, there's a lot of other logistical problems. The balance issues will be huge. Homogenization could be an issue. If Blizz wants 10-man raiders to feel they're getting all the buffs, then 25-man raids will be subjected to more and more overlapping buffs and less of a feeling of each player bringing something valuable.
All in all, I have mixed feelings about the proposed changes.
Honestly, I hope they can make all this work, but I also hope they don't kill 25-man raiding - I'd still love to feel good about the 'big' raids and have a reason to keep doing them.
As far as the other raiding news, I'm happy with gating as Blizzard said, and I imagine all but the most hard core will be able to accept it. And even then, I think that in having to wait for content the 'hard core' will benefit in not simply finishing the content and then being burned out/bored. Kinda like opening ALL your presents on Christmas morning and then finished 30 minutes later. I always preferred opening a few presents a few days before, then some on Xmas eve, then some in the morning, and finishing a few more later with other friends and family.
I'm also ok with multiple shorter raids, could be cool to have locations with different 'feel,' but I also hope they have at least one 'epic' instance in each expansion. I'd prefer 4-6 boss instances to the single room instances we got in Lich King.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Putting together a raid
Ah, the luxury of being in an established group! Raid invites start 15 minutes before 'first pull,' you joke around in /raid and vent, slot people into groups, and at least 12/27 people are in raid when raid time starts. You've done this before, you know your role. The Raid Leader calls a few instructions out on vent. As soon as everybody zones in, buffs go out and everyone is ready (and does so quickly after every wipe as well). Your group efficiently plows through the first bosses of ICC until reaching your current progression boss. Even there the process is effective: you review strats (that everybody has already watched on tankspot or youtube), get set up, and make your first pulls. From there, you make progress on most attempts, until the new boss bows to your combined might!
Too good to be true?
Well, a solid raid group may not be quite this idyllic, but in general, raids can be well-organized (and have been often enough in my experience) and be a pleasure to work with.
Flash to the Present.
I'm in the middle of putting together a 10-man group that is starting 'from the ground up' since we decided to move to a new night, dropping our main raiders' alts and allowing two nights to work on progression into heroic ICC10 (hereafter HICC10). This first week, we had no tank show up (and when he did, he went into a different groups' 10-man on his hunter), a healer's comp had blown up, and several dps that had indicated interest were missing. We had to pug a tank, a healer, and a dps, and have two players bring alts. I ended up tanking most of the night, switching to healing on my alt when the guild tank finally switched over. DPS was low, heals were spotty, and the tanks didn't know much beyond Saurfang (including myself with limited tank experience in ICC). We made some ill-fated attempts on heroic Marrowgar, and finally gave up on heroic modes except for gunship which only required two attempts (sad, I know, but those axe throwers DO hit hard if you let them enrage). We struggled to get to Putricide.
The second night was even worse. We had to re-pug another healer and dps (although the pug tank came back for a second night and performed competently), and 9-manned a number of attempts but never got Putri down.
I KNOW my group can get there - most of us (although a few Kingslayers were no-shows) have Lich King kills on 25- and 10- man ICC. My guild already has two 10-man groups deep into HICC10. So, how does it work?
Some of you may be familiar with Tuckman's influential work on group development. He's known for a 5-stage model that describes how groups come together and eventually are able to work on shared goals. Let's take a look.
FORMING
Wikipedia has a nice concise article summarizing these stages as well, so I won't try to re-invent the wheel, but obviously in stage 1 the group comes together. The group forms around a common goal, but not much is known about each other, or how each will fit into the the team.
Despite the fact that the core of my HICC10 group are raiders I do 25-man with, there are members who are non-raiders or are non-guildies, or doing a slightly different role (I dps in 25-man, and little else. For our HICC10, I'm RL and organizing). We started Forming when discussing the need for two nights to work on progression, and different guildies posted their interest in the guild forums or via vent or /w.
STORMING
Storming involves resolving conflicts in goals, how the group will proceed, and philosophy. It also means dealing with interpersonal difficulties that are likely to crop up between group members, early on. While some storming type behavior can occur throughout the life of the group, it's likely to occur most often shortly after forming.
A rather stressful and unsuccessful first week leaves our HICC10 still doing some Forming, but also Storming to resolve where we're at and how we're going to make the group work. I may need to replace the tank who said he'd be there, but essentially wasn't. In addition, the group's previous de factor RL didn't show at all, essentially abdicating the group's leadership to myself and another group member who is stepping in to help out. Decisions will have to be made as to how many chances guildie group members will get to drop in and out of group vs finding reliable non-guildies. Other decisions will include how many wipes to allow on heroic mode before switching to normal. Loot is a small issue in that it won't use dkp or epgp and master looter will only be used if group members appear to abuse need (unlikely). Still, this stage is uncomfortable, and I don't like being in it. :)
NORMING
If the group makes it through the first two stages, some cohesiveness and positivity start to develop. Getting the same full group for two nights in a row, starting to kill bosses quickly and efficiently, working on a 'new' (hard mode) boss fight. The first 'real' heroic boss kill, and the norming stage arrives. There is a tendency for the group to enforce group expectations, like showing up on time, and who talks on vent, and how people are expected to bid on loot. If the Raid Leader tends to dissallow contributions or everyone is too passive, creativity may be stifled in this stage, leading to stagnation and undercurrents of dissatisfaction. My group's clearly not there yet - though I hope we will be soon.
PERFORMING
The guild raids described at the top of this post illustrate a performing group, and they are a pleasure to be in! Yes, the group leaders are still 'in charge,' but their need to speak up or direct actions is minimal, and the group knows how they fit together and where they are going. They know their roles, and they know when/where their teammates will be.
A great example is doing TOGC Faction Champions. We get there, and we pretty much know who is charging in. The warlocks decide among themselves who is banishing the tree, the pally kicker already knows their job, healers set up fear wards/totems/etc, and not much needs to be said before the pull, but every Champion is controlled/interrupted/kited, and down they go shortly after.
This is, of course, the goal of any group. Good leadership is essential, but every member is valuable and plays an important role. I certainly hope to arrive there in the next few weeks as we solidify who's in it for the long haul and who is willing and capable to contribute to the group's success.
(ADJORNING)
Tuckman later added a fifth stage to indicate the ending of the group. This may happen when all the goals are accomplished, or when members have to leave for one reason or another. When this happens there is likely to be a sense of loss and sadness.
In guilds this may happen when the leadership moves on and the group decides to dissolve instead of continue. Given the nature of guilds, most solid groups can absorb the loss of almost any raider but needs to be constantly aware of recruitment needs and be ready to find new members to fill any voids that are created. One never wants a good thing to end, but eventually, everything does.
Well, I hope you enjoyed the post as I reflect on my own incipient group's process, and I'll occasionally post our progress as we form/storm/norm/perform!
Too good to be true?
Well, a solid raid group may not be quite this idyllic, but in general, raids can be well-organized (and have been often enough in my experience) and be a pleasure to work with.
Flash to the Present.
I'm in the middle of putting together a 10-man group that is starting 'from the ground up' since we decided to move to a new night, dropping our main raiders' alts and allowing two nights to work on progression into heroic ICC10 (hereafter HICC10). This first week, we had no tank show up (and when he did, he went into a different groups' 10-man on his hunter), a healer's comp had blown up, and several dps that had indicated interest were missing. We had to pug a tank, a healer, and a dps, and have two players bring alts. I ended up tanking most of the night, switching to healing on my alt when the guild tank finally switched over. DPS was low, heals were spotty, and the tanks didn't know much beyond Saurfang (including myself with limited tank experience in ICC). We made some ill-fated attempts on heroic Marrowgar, and finally gave up on heroic modes except for gunship which only required two attempts (sad, I know, but those axe throwers DO hit hard if you let them enrage). We struggled to get to Putricide.
The second night was even worse. We had to re-pug another healer and dps (although the pug tank came back for a second night and performed competently), and 9-manned a number of attempts but never got Putri down.
I KNOW my group can get there - most of us (although a few Kingslayers were no-shows) have Lich King kills on 25- and 10- man ICC. My guild already has two 10-man groups deep into HICC10. So, how does it work?
Some of you may be familiar with Tuckman's influential work on group development. He's known for a 5-stage model that describes how groups come together and eventually are able to work on shared goals. Let's take a look.
FORMING
Wikipedia has a nice concise article summarizing these stages as well, so I won't try to re-invent the wheel, but obviously in stage 1 the group comes together. The group forms around a common goal, but not much is known about each other, or how each will fit into the the team.
Despite the fact that the core of my HICC10 group are raiders I do 25-man with, there are members who are non-raiders or are non-guildies, or doing a slightly different role (I dps in 25-man, and little else. For our HICC10, I'm RL and organizing). We started Forming when discussing the need for two nights to work on progression, and different guildies posted their interest in the guild forums or via vent or /w.
STORMING
Storming involves resolving conflicts in goals, how the group will proceed, and philosophy. It also means dealing with interpersonal difficulties that are likely to crop up between group members, early on. While some storming type behavior can occur throughout the life of the group, it's likely to occur most often shortly after forming.
A rather stressful and unsuccessful first week leaves our HICC10 still doing some Forming, but also Storming to resolve where we're at and how we're going to make the group work. I may need to replace the tank who said he'd be there, but essentially wasn't. In addition, the group's previous de factor RL didn't show at all, essentially abdicating the group's leadership to myself and another group member who is stepping in to help out. Decisions will have to be made as to how many chances guildie group members will get to drop in and out of group vs finding reliable non-guildies. Other decisions will include how many wipes to allow on heroic mode before switching to normal. Loot is a small issue in that it won't use dkp or epgp and master looter will only be used if group members appear to abuse need (unlikely). Still, this stage is uncomfortable, and I don't like being in it. :)
NORMING
If the group makes it through the first two stages, some cohesiveness and positivity start to develop. Getting the same full group for two nights in a row, starting to kill bosses quickly and efficiently, working on a 'new' (hard mode) boss fight. The first 'real' heroic boss kill, and the norming stage arrives. There is a tendency for the group to enforce group expectations, like showing up on time, and who talks on vent, and how people are expected to bid on loot. If the Raid Leader tends to dissallow contributions or everyone is too passive, creativity may be stifled in this stage, leading to stagnation and undercurrents of dissatisfaction. My group's clearly not there yet - though I hope we will be soon.
PERFORMING
The guild raids described at the top of this post illustrate a performing group, and they are a pleasure to be in! Yes, the group leaders are still 'in charge,' but their need to speak up or direct actions is minimal, and the group knows how they fit together and where they are going. They know their roles, and they know when/where their teammates will be.
A great example is doing TOGC Faction Champions. We get there, and we pretty much know who is charging in. The warlocks decide among themselves who is banishing the tree, the pally kicker already knows their job, healers set up fear wards/totems/etc, and not much needs to be said before the pull, but every Champion is controlled/interrupted/kited, and down they go shortly after.
This is, of course, the goal of any group. Good leadership is essential, but every member is valuable and plays an important role. I certainly hope to arrive there in the next few weeks as we solidify who's in it for the long haul and who is willing and capable to contribute to the group's success.
(ADJORNING)
Tuckman later added a fifth stage to indicate the ending of the group. This may happen when all the goals are accomplished, or when members have to leave for one reason or another. When this happens there is likely to be a sense of loss and sadness.
In guilds this may happen when the leadership moves on and the group decides to dissolve instead of continue. Given the nature of guilds, most solid groups can absorb the loss of almost any raider but needs to be constantly aware of recruitment needs and be ready to find new members to fill any voids that are created. One never wants a good thing to end, but eventually, everything does.
Well, I hope you enjoyed the post as I reflect on my own incipient group's process, and I'll occasionally post our progress as we form/storm/norm/perform!
Monday, April 12, 2010
Frost Delayed
I still plan to do a post on Frost dps for 3.3.3, but I'll have to wait a week to do it.
My raid is progressing into some of the more difficult heroic 25man bosses and needs me performing at my best, and we already have a frost DK for the buffs. On 10-man, I'm having to tank for now - although after reset I may be able to go back to dps. When that group has settled in a little more, I may be able to go frost for more than 5-man heroics.
Comments on this blog and elsewhere have certainly been positive, and my guildies going frost have done well. I've seen claims that it may beat out unholy for dps but I haven't seen that quite yet, while it's apparent that it is competitive.
I look forward to giving frost dps a try, it'll just have to wait a week.
Also, thanks for the comments on the Cataclysm preview. I'll try to remember to address them this evening. I was out of town over the weekend.
My raid is progressing into some of the more difficult heroic 25man bosses and needs me performing at my best, and we already have a frost DK for the buffs. On 10-man, I'm having to tank for now - although after reset I may be able to go back to dps. When that group has settled in a little more, I may be able to go frost for more than 5-man heroics.
Comments on this blog and elsewhere have certainly been positive, and my guildies going frost have done well. I've seen claims that it may beat out unholy for dps but I haven't seen that quite yet, while it's apparent that it is competitive.
I look forward to giving frost dps a try, it'll just have to wait a week.
Also, thanks for the comments on the Cataclysm preview. I'll try to remember to address them this evening. I was out of town over the weekend.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Waiting for Vizzini
On the eve of 3.3, I find myself waiting.....
waiting....
We know about the changes coming tomorrow, so today, I find myself just reflecting on where my DK (and other toons) are at.
Hinenuitepo is ready.
Unfortunately, my guild has banged it's head collectively on P2 of the Lich King encounter for a few weeks now and hasn't gotten him down. Partially this has been poor execution and repeated mistakes by a few people (handling the valkyr and defile - along with infest - on 25-man is no joke), and part of it for us has been the natural attrition that takes place in guilds. We've struggled to field 25 players and often have had to settle for non-ideal comps for the LK encounter. We'll get there soon, I'm confident. We'll recruit who we need, and we do have good people. And there is, of course, that zonewide bufflolol.
In any case, My DK has been able to acquire every item pre-heroic/LK that she needed. She is essentially in best-in-slot gear until we kill the Lich King. In addition, my stocks of consumeables/gems/etc is ready to go: (have well over a 100 fish feasts/spiced mammoth/speed pot/armor pot/strength elixir, 50+flasks, etc).
I'm waiting..... for Vizzini..... (catch the reference?).
Back to the beginning..... Heroic Icecrown represents a fresh start, along with the coming final raid encounters of the Lich King expansion. Looking forward to it!
This weekend I also spent a little more time on my hunter, Hinemanu, burning through her rested experience points. She'll sit on level 38 until next weekend. Here's a shot of her recent progress:
waiting....
We know about the changes coming tomorrow, so today, I find myself just reflecting on where my DK (and other toons) are at.
Hinenuitepo is ready.
Unfortunately, my guild has banged it's head collectively on P2 of the Lich King encounter for a few weeks now and hasn't gotten him down. Partially this has been poor execution and repeated mistakes by a few people (handling the valkyr and defile - along with infest - on 25-man is no joke), and part of it for us has been the natural attrition that takes place in guilds. We've struggled to field 25 players and often have had to settle for non-ideal comps for the LK encounter. We'll get there soon, I'm confident. We'll recruit who we need, and we do have good people. And there is, of course, that zonewide bufflolol.
In any case, My DK has been able to acquire every item pre-heroic/LK that she needed. She is essentially in best-in-slot gear until we kill the Lich King. In addition, my stocks of consumeables/gems/etc is ready to go: (have well over a 100 fish feasts/spiced mammoth/speed pot/armor pot/strength elixir, 50+flasks, etc).
I'm waiting..... for Vizzini..... (catch the reference?).
Back to the beginning..... Heroic Icecrown represents a fresh start, along with the coming final raid encounters of the Lich King expansion. Looking forward to it!
This weekend I also spent a little more time on my hunter, Hinemanu, burning through her rested experience points. She'll sit on level 38 until next weekend. Here's a shot of her recent progress:
Ding!
In any case, while there's not a lot of excitement going on, there's always things to be done in wow, like a fisherman mending his/her nets after the last trip to sea, and before heading out into rough waters again.
Happy fishing tomorrow!
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