4 teh fite

A Retadin in ICC Part 3 - The Crimson Halls

2010-03-07T21:18:00.005+00:00

The second of the main wings to open, this wing contains two bosses for you to complete and is probably on a par in difficulty with the previous wing. Again these are technical fights which require you to be doing the right thing at the right time.

Trash
Yes, I'm going to talk about trash again because there's some annoying mobs again which are likely to need control. Repentance is incredibly useful given it's 1 minute duration so dust off that focus macro and keep your marked mob locked down, remembering to run back into range to reapply should that be required.

There's a rogue type mob that loves to shadowstep and sap your tank so keep an eye on what's attacking you and pop defensive cooldowns if necessary.

Blood Council
Yes, you've seen and defeated these guys before, whether it's in quests or dungeons but this time they've been eating their Weetabix and you get to fight them all at once.

Most of the time you'll just be smacking the guy with the health bar (empowered), but depending on who it is you'll be required to do another couple of things.

When Valanar is empowered he'll occasionally cast Empowered Shock Vortex which will require you to spread out to avoid the damage and knock back effects. The rest of the time he'll just be casting a normal shock vortex which creates a swirly effect on the ground which knock you back if you run into them, so watch out when you're running around.

When Taldaram is empowered he'll be creating giant balls of fire which will target a random player and make a bee line for them. However as it gets close to other people it will shoot off random balls of fire which reduce the final damage done when it hits it's intended victim. This means that after 80 levels you need to chase the fire until it flies out of range. Putting up Fire Res Aura can also help reduce the damage done. The rest of the time you can pretty much ignore the guy, apart from Cleansing any magic debuffs he puts on you.

Finally when Keleseth is empowered it's time to go to town as he'll be chain casting and so unable to dodge your attacks. Just be careful not to pull aggro if your raid is using a ranged tank as if you get targeted for his empowered Shadow Lance you're going to be taking a dirt nap unless a local druid is feeling generous. Keep Hand of Salvation ready just in case you start showing a bit high on Omen.

Other than that the fight is fairly straight forward (apart from all the target switching) and you just keep rinsing and repeating until they all fall down dead. Again.

Blood Queen Lanathel
You'll have seen this vampire chick from the RP before the first fight. This time you actually get to attack her so make sure you're prepared.

This fight has a very tight enrage timer but fortunately there's a cunning mechanic which means you can do the crazy dps required. About 30 seconds into the fight she'll run off an bit whoever is third on the threat meter. At this point they start doing the crazy dps, healing themselves for part of the damage they do and generating no threat whatsoever. The down side is that 75 seconds after this they'll need to bite someone else within 15 seconds to avoid being mind controlled. These two then get another 75 seconds before needing to bite someone and so it repeats until you run out of people to bite, she falls over dead or your raid hits a few problems.

While damaging her she may link you with another player with 'Pact of the Darkfallen', at this point you'll both need to run to a mutually convenient place (generally the centre of the room) to remove it before running back to smack her a few times.

Every two minutes she'll fly up into the air, cast a fear, and then throw blood bolts at everyone. At this point you'll need to be spread out, and is a perfect time to pop Divine Shield and Divine Sacrifice if you've spec'd into it.

While all this sounds complicated it can be summed up quite simply:
1) Know who to bite and when
2) Run to the middle if you're linked to someone
3) Spread out when she's up in the air

Depending on when you get bitten will dictate when you use your cool downs, but if you can use them once before you're bitten and once after make sure you do because you'll need every drop of damage you can eke out.

Overall I find this wing slightly easier than the abomination wing but that doesn't mean you can roll your way through it easily.

Stay tuned as we fight our way into the Frost wing and finally onto the big bad of this expansion, the Lich King himself.

You know you overgear heroics when...

2010-02-27T20:46:00.003+00:00

... your healer disconnects and you still manage to kill the boss.

This has happened a couple of times to me when tanking the random heroic and while it's raised my heart rate a few notches and required the use of a some extra cooldowns it's not wiped the group.

This is not a time to get complacent though, just because heroics aren't the latest raid instances doesn't mean you can always rely on them being straightforward especially when grouping with random people.

The tanking is still interesting, and the short queues are a god send, but most of all it's giving me practice for when I help out guild runs as a tank.

Love is in the Air (redux)

2010-02-13T19:17:00.002+00:00

As I mentioned in my recap of the 'Long Strange Trip' achievement last years Love is in the Air meta achievement nearly broke me due to the random nature of getting the items you required, and the fact you only had a chance once an hour to get them.

This year the holiday has been revamped to be more like Noblegarden and the other holidays with daily quests, a token system for getting what you need and a holiday boss.

Overall this makes the holiday much easier to manage everything that's required by the holiday within your playtime schedule, also there's now two weeks to do everything again reducing the pressure on getting things done.

Having effectively switched my main character to Acidlake I'm now running through the holiday achievements again to get my second Violet Proto-Drake. It's going to take some time, and won't be complete until Hallows End but it still helps pass the time between grinding through random heroics and fighting through ICC.

A quick note for pug healers

2010-02-13T15:35:00.002+00:00

Bad: Gogogogogo

Good: Feel free to chain pull etc.

Sorry awesome healer in my UP run as I didn't catch your name but that simple message in party chat cheered me no end as I charged through the place.

A Retadin in ICC Part 2 - The Plagueworks

2010-02-03T20:00:00.000+00:00

So the first of the new wings to be open is based around the Death Knight unholy tree. Here you'll find some horrendous abominations, a mad professor and a couple of unusual pets.

Precious

While not a true boss this is a named mob which you'll have to fight before you can get to the real bosses. If you cleared Naxx in either of it's incarnations you'll recognise the concept of a big patchwork dog with a Devastate effect. You'll again get waves of zombies but you don't have to worry about them healing Precious, but you will want to nuke them down before wander off and eat a healer. Holy Wrath is useful here as you should be able to stun them in any AoE your raid is producing. Any Art of War procs after Devastate should probably heal yourself to help out, and to keep you alive.

Stinky

The other named mob with a Devastate. This time there's no waves of zombies but there is an AoE nature damage pulse which means you'll definitely want to heal yourself where possible but otherwise this is the easier of the two doggies to nuke down.

Festergut

A giant abomination which acts as a DPS check so bring your A game. The major mechanic that stops this being Patchwerk II is the blight that floods the room soon after the fight starts. Initially this will do massive raid damage so helping out the healers with a few instant Flash of Lights on yourself will almost certainly be a benefit. Periodically the boss will inhale some of the blight, buffing himself and reducing the damage you take. Once he's inhaled it all and beaten up the tanks a bit, he'll let it all out doing a stupid amount of damage. Now you could Divine Protection out if it, but that's only going to help you once in the fight, and he's going to do it twice before going berserk.

Fortunately before this happens he'll release spores on two raid members at a time, which give you a debuff when they expire, providing you're stood close enough, which in turn inoculates you against a portion of the damage. This happens 3 times before the exhale, and the inoculation stacks 3 times giving you a 75% damage reduction. If you get the spores you'll either need to run and hug the tanks (best option as you can keep hitting the boss) or run out to hug the ranged (bad as you'll have to hope for an instant exorcism to carry on doing damage). Don't try and hold out though, if you need to run, run as losing a ranged dps and healers halfway through will guarantee the wipe.

Some extra utility you can provide will be to help the tanks, over time they'll get a debuff which increases their damage, once one tank has nine stacks he'll hand over to the other while suddenly having the ability to do extra damage. A timely hand of salvation will hopefully stop them pulling threat back and causing a wipe.

Pop wings after the 3rd inhale each time, and hopefully the second time will in time to start weaving in Hammer of Wrath for some extra damage as you aim to beat the timer.

Rotface

The second abomination you're forced to fight doesn't do as much raid wide damage but has a much more involved mechanic you'll need to get used to.

Most of the time you'll be stood on the boss hitting him for all your worth, and shifting when he turns to do a spray attack. At an increasing rate he'll infect members of the raid which will do damage and reduce healing done to the infected person. When the infection expires a small ooze will spawn which will instantly aggro the infected person. A single small ooze will need to be dealt with by the person who spawned it, however subsequent ones will need to be merged with an ooze that is already up to form a big ooze, or to increase the size of it.

This means it's vital that subsequent cleanses happen to spawn the little ooze almost on top of the existing one so they merge almost instantly. This means you'll need to keep your mitts off of Decursive unless someone calls out for a dispel. The big ooze will be kited by one of the tanks so when you're infected run to just in front of it, hit cleanse and then get the hell out of dodge back to the big bad. Once 5 little oozes have been absorbed then the big ooze will explode, meaning you have to move away from where everyone was standing to avoid the fallout.

Finally when running around, certain corners of the room will fill with green slime which unsurprisingly you'll want to keep out of.

This is more a coordination fight rather than a dps race, so stay alive and do what you need to do keep the oozes away from the bulk of the raid.

Professor Putricide

If you thought the Rotface fight was involved then prepare for another step up in what you need to do. Your off-tank is likely to be running around as an abomination so don't worry about seeing one running around. To start you be attacking the Professor while staying out of the green slime he'll throw on the ground. The main tank will also be kiting him from one side of the room to the other so gain space away from the adds that spawn.

Yes, this is another target switching, add killing fight so be prepared to find what needs to be killed and make it dead.

The first type of add that spawns is a green slime from the north part of the room. Once it's spawned you'll want to stay away until it's fixated on a player and moves towards them. At this point start to burn it down, and stick close as when it reaches the target player it will explode for damage shared between everyone close by and knock them back. Try and get knocked back into space so if it then fixated on you there's time to get healed up before it explodes again.

The second type is an orange slime which spawns from the south side. Again it will pick a player and chase after them. This time you'll have to kite it while a stacking debuff drops off. If you're attacking it then you'll need to run away just before it switches target because if it reaches the target with the debuff it will cause raid wide damage.

Once the Professor hits 80% he'll stun the whole raid and run off to drink a potion. If you know this is just about to happen make sure you're a long way away from any adds that are up as they choose a new target as soon as the stun wears off and this could easily kill you or the whole raid.

All the stuff you've been facing for the first 20% is still present, and now you'll have orange stuff on the ground to stay out of as well. This new way of fighting will continue until you get him to 35% at which point he'll stun the raid again and go drink another potion. Personally I call haxx as I can only drink one potion in combat, but anyway..

At this point you're in a straight dps race, the abomination is no longer around to drink slime pools so you need to kill him before you run out of places to stand.

Once he's dead sit back and congratulate yourself on being 33% of the way to facing the Lich King.

AoE tanking or tanking for AoE

2010-01-26T22:43:00.003+00:00

There's been a recent thread where it's been suggested that paladin AoE tanking it too good which leads to the other tanking classes feeling unloved and clamouring for buffs.

While it's true that the tools available to a paladin tank are well suited for generating threat on a number of bad guys all at once, especially if they're undead. In this expansion all tanks were given a method of generating threat on a number of mobs all at once helping to the removal of crowd control from all but the toughest heroic instances.

I do have to wonder now though if the reason for the current upset about what can be done is the resurgence of running heroics for the daily brace of frost badges. Given that the base level of gear available is now well in excess of what was required when level 80 characters first started running those instances and every dps character has some kind of AoE spell. Is it more a case that all tanks can't necessarily stop a stray mob from running off to smack the aggro monkey when they do all out massive AoE damage when all they need to do it stop the bad guys running after the healer.

However if the DPS went point and shoot on individual mobs using an assist macro the tanks shouldn't have as many issues, and threat indicators such as Omen or Threat Plates will mean you've got a better idea of what to do.

Now is this the fault of the class designers, not really, it's more a 'creative use of game mechanics' for something that we generally now massively out-gear and see as more of a chore rather than the challenge of say the new raid zone.

Rather than trying to homogenise the tanks and the type of threat output they produce it would be nice to see the dps (of which I am at times) adjusting what they do to make it easier for the tank to do what they do.

DPS Positioning Flowchart

2010-01-22T20:16:00.003+00:00

Following in the footsteps of some other bloggers I've decided to create a flow chart to aid the new melee dps fellows who are stepping into heroics to help gear up and gain experience. So without further ado my flow chart on where you should stand in boss fights.

So now you know, and if you end up in a heroic pug with me tanking, I don't expect to see you standing next to me ;)

Heading back to Tanking

2010-01-15T19:00:00.004+00:00

One of the benefits of playing a hybrid class is the ability to switch to a different role by spending your talent points differently and getting a different gear set up together.

Well the dual talent feature means it's easy to switch how your talent points are spent and gear now is very easy to get with random dungeons and all the badges you can get from doing it.

So have geared up for running retribution I carried on running the heroics in order to get a protection set up together. That, a couple of crafted items and a few drops along the way meant I've put together a pretty good tanking set which has me crit immune for raid bosses, 30k unbuffed health and a bunch of other tasty tanking stats. I've gone for a threat based build given that I mainly plan to run heroics (for zero queue time) and the majority of that tanking in there is trash pulls.

I tend to do a lot of reading around game mechanics to get advice on things I haven't done before, and there are some great references out there which mean you don't have to go in blind trying to figure out what does what and how to go about things. However knowing is only half the battle, it's only once you've actually gone in there and tried things out do you know how well you can cope and whether you've got the situational analysis to cope with mobs running around the place especially if the dps or healer has pulled aggro.

Not wanting to risk completely stuffing up a run with a random group I run a couple of random dungeons with some willing guildies and while they weren't perfect they did at least show that I could get the required trash packs under control and not have the aggro monkeys peel them off me.

While it was good to get those under my belt and get back into the swing of things the plan for short queues and easy frost badges would only work if I could do the job with four random people pulled in by the tool. Putting on some bravery I signed up (admittedly with DPS ticked as well) as a tank. After a couple of failed attempts where the DPS had clearly fallen asleep while waiting for the queue to pop, five ticks appeared and I found myself in Violet Hold.

I decided not to warn the group given that I had tanked this instance before on a previous character, and the mobs spawn at regular intervals meaning that I didn't have to worry too much about the speed of pulls and I could be fairly certain about what I would be facing for each portal. The only concern was the random bosses, but fortunately we got the two tank and spank ones and soon the place was clear and I had some extra badges.

I'd still be nervous about hitting the new IceCrown instances but everything else should be doable and a few more items should have me in a raid ready set of gear should our guild find itself in need of an extra tank.

A Retadin in ICC Part 1

2010-01-05T18:57:00.006+00:00

Having pugged my way into suitable gear for the Icecrown Citadel raid I got into one of our guilds raids which merrily cut a swathe through the enemy. So here are my impressions of the fights and if you're taking your retribution paladin in there what you should expect.

Trash

Yes, trash is back, and frankly I'm slightly pleased. There's nothing like a few short fights to dust off any cobwebs and allow a group to gel. Our guild doesn't have a standard raiding team so potential there will be different tanks, different healers and different buffs each run meaning a few kills to get used to everyone's threat generation should mean a lot fewer slip ups on the boss fights.

The mobs have a lot of health so Seal of Corruption/Vengeance is the order of the day, though if you have very high raid dps it may be worth switching to Corruption. The only caveat to this is the reintroduction of crowd control which means you need to add some extra care to where you're slinging that holy damage. Be sure you're clear before using Divine Storm or Consecrate though hopefully your tanks should be pulling their mobs clear allowing you to do what's required. If their not, then a polite word may be required.

Lord Marrowgar

A fairly straightforward tank and spank boss, with some of that annoying target switching. More than ever you'll want to stay away from the front of the boss as there is one attack which splits the damage between everyone in front of him. Normally this will be just the tanks but as plate wearing DPS you might be called upon to stand there as well.

Make sure you stand within his hit box as this will mean he can't target you with his Cold Flame ability, and hopefully the ranged will group up there as well which will make his next ability a bit easier to deal with. Bone graveyard will impale a random member and needs to be dps'd down to release them. If everyone switches then they should die quickly meaning you can get back on the boss before any of those tasty debuffs wear off.

Finally he does a whirlwind (yeah another whirlwind mob) which hits everyone in the raid for varying damage depending on how close you are to him. He'll also spawn 4 cold flames so during this phase you need to stay out of the fire and away from the boss. There's no point trying to damage him so use Flash of Light where possible to help out the healers and get ready to run back in when he's stopped. When running back remember not to get in front of him for fear of taking those nasty hits.

Rinse and repeat until he's dead and you're ready to move onto the next boss.

Lady Deathwhisper

A boss with adds, oh joy that means running about. So having cleared the trash you'll spot this Lichess who when attacked puts up a massive mana shield which absorbs all damage done but drains her mana when it absorbs damage.

During this time there will be regular add spawns from the alcoves on each side. On 10 man we only get one side at a time, but there will be three and these need to be taken down as quickly as possible. It's possible that the boss will buff one of them which will make them either 99% immune to physical or magical damage. If it's the physical one then you can run back and smack the mana shield a bit, if it's the magical one then make sure your raid leader knows you're not going to be bringing as much hurt given that seals, judgements etc. will be doing a tiny fraction of the normal damage. You'll also need to watch out for Death and Decay being put on the floor, get out of the nasty yellow stuff.

Once the mana shield goes down no more adds spawn and it turns into a fairly standard tank and spank fight. You'll still need to get out of the nasty stuff on the ground and there will be non-attackable ghosts which explode for damage you need to keep an eye on. If you find yourself below half health it will probably be worth helping your healers out with a potion or healing spell. Otherwise you might be hoping for a battle rez while you stare up from the floor at the rest of the raid.

Gunship Battle

The Chess event of this expansion, by which I mean a very straightforward event with some nice loot available at the end. As melee you're likely to be stopping on your own ship and using the cannons, however this doesn't mean you shouldn't grab one of the rocket shirts and have a jump about.

The cannons are another use of the vehicle mechanic but they also have a resource to be aware of. There are two types of shot, the first which does a set amount of damage and generates an amount of heat and the second which consumes all this heat in a flaming ball of death. You want to make sure that the amount of heat in your gun never reaches 100 otherwise you'll be unable to fire for a few seconds while it cools down. Your tactic here is to spam the '1' key still you get to 80-90 heat and then hit '2', rinse and repeat. You'll be aiming at the opposing cannons mostly but also keep a lookout for the rocketeers at the back and chuck a few shots that way.

Periodically the opposition will be boarding your ship through portals, so a tank will be round them up and a mage will appear on the opposition ship and freeze your cannon in a block of ice. While the boarding party take down the mage you can take down the invaders. Be aware of rocket strikes while doing so though, if you're stood in a target on the ground, don't be and you'll be fine.

Deathbringer Saurfang

Time to face off against the latest deathknight in the Scourge army. For melee this is very straightforward as all you have to do is stand there and hit him. However you do need to keep an eye on the other abilities he does. Throughout the fight he'll be gaining blood power based on the abilities he does, when it reaches 100 he'll cast a Mark on a random player which does damage and helps him gain blood power faster.

The biggest concern for the raid is the blood beasts that spawn. These should be nuked down by the ranged and kited/rooted away from you. Being hit by these is a big no no as this will cause an increase in blood power, so having them hitting you will cause problems. This means that you want to avoid dropping consecration 10 seconds before they spawn and not hit Divine Storm just beforehand. If you do accidentally pull aggro then run away and wait for the ranged guys to grab it off you.

Conclusion

That's the first four bosses done, and the second wing is now available with 3 new bosses to have a bosh at. So once I've had a go with the guild at them I'll add a part 2 with some impressions on those.

Dos and Don'ts of LFG

2009-12-13T20:58:00.002+00:00

I've done enough random dungeons over the last few days to pick up 'the Patient' as a title, enough badges to get 4 pieces of T9 and enchanting mats to get them raid ready. So here's my list of dos and don'ts based on recent experiences.

DO: keep yourself stocked up with reagents, water and ammo where appropriate, you don't want to be there at the beginning or halfway through a boss fight missing something vital

DON'T: assume you having a hissy fit and dropping group will make a difference, every time this has happened we've found a replacement and had a fantastic run.

DO: take a few seconds to say hello at the beginning and goodbye at the end, it doesn't take much but just helps remember you're playing with other people.

DON'T: be afraid of the Occulus. Yes it's very different to all the other instances with the vehicle mechanics but even in completely random pugs we're able to complete 'Make it Count'

DO: be prepared to wait for a group if you're dps. This might have just been my experience but it can't take a while for the group to form, which means there's plenty of time to get dailies and quests done.

DON'T: be disheartened if there's a wipe. Playing the blame game doesn't help anyone and there is still room within the game for there to be a random happenstance which gets everyone killed.

If you haven't played around with with the random dungeon finder then at least give it a go once, especially as it should be a fairly painless way to get a couple of frost emblems.

Hitting the Heroics

2009-12-11T21:42:00.002+00:00

I have made a decision in guild to switch my main from Crash to Acidlake my paladin who has been so much fun to play as ret both in solo play and in groups.

However given the guild is preparing to hit IceCrown Citadel and I'm still rocking heirloom items and quest rewards some severe gear upgrades will be required. Fortunately the recent change in badge drops and that tier 9 is wholly available from badges means that there is a clear and straightforward route to getting raid ready, heroic instances.

Normally this would have required trying to grab any groups that were forming in guild and possible get one or two done. But given we're now in the land of patch 3.3 and the new looking for group tool.

I'd only had one experience with the old LFG tool when we picked up a healer for heroic Ramparts back in TBC days. It didn't end completely well due to the complexity of heroic instances back then and since then the only random dungeons had done had been pugs organised either through whispers or adverts in /2.

Hoping that I wasn't too undergeared I signed up for a random dungeon looking forward to the possibility of new emblems and a chance to try out running as part of a group with people who don't know me from Adam.

Getting Azjol-Nerub was a bit of a blessing and having completed all the heroics before means I know the tactics well enough to know what to hit and when. We completed all the boss kills without a hitch, including the speed kill achievement on Anub'arak. Achievements appeared, extra boxes appeared to say the dungeon was completed and my collection of badges had increased.

From then on I've been hooked. The simple way of getting to the instance, not quite knowing which one it will be and the extra badges every time it completes mean I can just queue up at a time I'm able to play should I not be able to fit things in around what the rest of the guild is doing.

I'm probably 2 runs away from getting the 'the Patient' title which I shall proudly display in future pugs and have picked up a couple of very nice pieces of T9 ret gear.

The new instances also provide a great way of getting gear as well as containing a fantastic part of the storyline but those journeys can wait for another post.

Shifting the questing paradigm

2009-11-09T21:08:00.002+00:00

One of the interesting things about levelling up from the original game and through the expansions is seeing how Blizzard has changed how you go about picking up quests and going through the zones.

From about level 20 onwards you generally find yourself in one or more zones, going back and forth grabbing whatever quests were available and within the right level range. Often this could be quite annoying especially if you have to wait to level before continuing with a quest chain and the constant travelling could really eat into your play time.

Things got worse as you headed towards 60, chances are you'd only be doing 1 or 2 quests in a zone before having to fly/ride off to another zone.

Once you ride through the dark portal things change slightly, suddenly there are entire zones to complete at any one time before moving onto the next one. Each quest hub you approach is suddenly awash with yellow exclamation marks which you can run around and pick up before heading off to complete the objectives. Naturally there will be quests that can be completed at the same time, but you are going to have to figure that out yourself otherwise you may well spend lots of time riding back and forth to the same spot.

Finally the frozen north beckons and you find yourself on the coast of Northrend with a whole new set of zones to quest through and quest hubs springing up. However this time instead of being awash with exclamation points there are only one or two and as you complete quests you either progress the chains or open up new quests to do. The other main advantage is that when doing quests they tend to be all grouped up in the same area.

Of the three models I definitely prefer what has been done in Northrend, the story lines are much easier to follow and I don't feel I'm wasting time travelling around trying to sort out the best order to do all the quests in. I really hope that Blizzard keep this questing model for future expansions, or indeed find some way to improve upon it.

Hitting Outlands (again!)

2009-11-01T21:54:00.002+00:00

My paladin levelling has carried on apace, and in no time I found myself at level 58 and a choice. Stay in Azeroth for the next two levels or head through the dark portal to a land of increased XP and shinier quest rewards.

Unlike a certain shaman who carried on with the plaguelands, I decided to run the risk of orange quests and hit Hellfire Peninsula. It turned out that there wasn't really much of a problem, killing demons and having plate armor meant I ran through the quests in short order and found myself at level 60 and a letter in the mail inviting me to purchase a flying mount and the skill to ride it.

Being able to fly makes a massive difference, no longer do I have to run around avoiding hellboars and questing becomes a lot more point to point rather than following the terrain. Personally this is a good thing, I've ridden around Outlands twice and it was fun at the time, but with the current expansion my sights are set on Northrend so these things that help me get there quicker are obviously a good thing.

I'm still enjoying the retribution tree which puts out a decent amount of damage while being able to stay alive through emergency heals. In fact I'm getting so comfortable with the play style that several of the elite group quests are falling easily beneath my axe.

Just four more levels and I'll but hitting the fjord again, but will also have to fit in levelling professions and trying to get epic flying skill again. Ah, good times.

Joining the fold

2009-10-17T22:59:00.003+01:00

I've started levelling another alt. There, I've said it but I don't think there's anything to be ashamed about.

The current state of the end game at 80 for me is either to run heroics repeatedly (all of which I've done) or grind the Argent Tournament for seals (which I've done).

The new raids are interesting, but are kind of a one night deal at the moment leaving any other night I decide to play slightly light on things I want to do. This isn't a rant about what Blizzard have done with the game, in fact I'm very happy with everything I'm able to do compared with the previous expansion. However there are times when I need to try out something else.

So I've resurrected my paladin alt who's currently decked out with a set of heirlooms and is tearing her way through the levels at a terrifying rate. Again it's melee dps but as I've mentioned before on this blog it's the style of play that suits me, and with the added bonus of heals and panic abilities it's very easy to tear through the mobs.

The mount changes meaning I can ride around since level 20 has also sped things up dramatically, no more running back and forth from Tarren Mill to Hillsbrad farm between quests and running past hostile mobs pretty quickly to get to where I need to go.

I have no real plans on what to do once I reach level 80. Though running through things as a ret pally could well be a laugh with the added advantages of plate armor and self-heals.

The end of a long strage trip

2009-09-27T19:30:00.025+01:00

Let us go back one year. Wrath of the Lich King is currently in Beta and lots of information has been made available about the new achievement system that has links to all parts of the game. One achievement stands out for doing all the holiday achievements as it awards a shiny protodrake mount which is a 310% speed. As this would be a very cool thing to have I like a lot of others started preparing for what was required.

This post now provides a retrospective of all that I've been through in order to get hold of this great mount.

Brewfest 2008
At this time it's required to drink each brew supplied from the 'Brew of the Month' club so the token grind was there to join the club and make sure that all the drinks would count towards this. Later Blizzard would relax this achievement, a subject I don't want to get into now, but it irked slightly at the time.

Hallows End
'Trick or Treating' and traveling summed up this holiday for me. Killing the Headless Horseman was a trivial requirement after the changes put in in patch 3.0 but getting the Hallowed Helm and Sinister Squashling (something I already had) required either a lucky drop from the boss or a drop from the treat bag. Everything else was fairly straightforward, guild members meant buying wands from the Trade channel wasn't required. This one wasn't a problem, no stress.

Winters Veil
PvP reared it's ugly head again with the requirement of getting 50 honorable kills while disguised as a gnome. Losing the disguise upon death meant there was queuing for a lot of battlegrounds but patience was the order of the day for this one. Everything else was very straightforward so again no stress.

Lunar Festival
Once again I was sent around Azeroth visiting elders and had my first taste of sneaking into Alliance cities. It was at this point that I realized just how much the Alliance could be jerks by fiercely guarding their Elder. Other than that a guild run through the Northrend dungeons and a pug for the outdoor raid meant this was wrapped up very easily with no real issues.

Love is in the Air
This was the achievement that nearly broke me. Everything was progressing smoothly, I had love fools to pity, arrows to shoot and rose petals to scatter. However I also needed bags of candies to pull the candies from and this would not drop for me. In the end I had to resort, on the penultimate day of the holiday to logging in once an hour on the hour to try and get it to drop. After many hours it did and the relief was tangible. Lots of stress and the beginning of some doubt as to whether it was worth it.

Noblegarden
A late arrival to the meta achievement and probably the biggest grind of all the achievements. Everything you required could be bought for chocolates but you also required enough to eat so there was a lot of running around opening eggs. Some music to listen to and a bit of patience and this one got added to the list.

Children's Week
If Love is in the Air made me question the whole thing then this festival ran it a close second. School of Hard Knocks had already been well analyzed and understood just what would be involved. The Alliance remade some ground by helping with the flag recapture in WSG and some creative use of Vanish allowed for a flag capture in AV. As it turned out a lot of patience and a complete disregard for trying to win any of the battlegrounds made the achievement very doable.

Midsummer Fire Festival
More traveling, and more sneaking into Alliance cities. A quest reset by Blizzard meant I had to sneak in more than I expected but did provide extra blossoms for buying things I actually wanted rather than what I was required for achievements. Again just some effort on my part got this one done.

Brewfest 2009
Here we are again grinding tokens for an outfit. For some reason I had to kill Coren Direbrew again but the level 80 version with the gear we're now sporting meant this wasn't really an issue. I am now officially sick of ram racing but I got enough tokens to buy the clothing, got drunk, fell a long way and danced my way to success.

So here we are with a very shiny mount and a heck of a lot of achievements.

I don't regret having gone through with it, other players have gone for the hard mode achievements in raids while others have fought hard in arena matches for similar rewards. This suited the way I play the game and so made sense for me to work towards it.

Would I do it again? This is an interesting question as I have another max level alt and others I could be working on. Having done it once on my main I'm not feeling the necessity to go through it all again. However knowing what I know now means it might be a lot easier the second time, so I wouldn't like to commit myself either way at this stage.

Not going on the raid....

2009-09-26T22:32:00.002+01:00

It's not a phrase anyone wants to hear, you've made yourself available for a raid, you've got everything prepared and now the evil raid leader (me in this case) indicates that you won't be going.

A little background, we'd added Trial of the Crusader back on the raid calendar and there were 22 signups. 5 tanks, 6 healers and 11 DPS. Given that we only run 10 man raids it was clear we could run two raids but it did mean that 2 of the signups would not get to go. Our guild has guidelines on how people get selected, generally on based on how many previous raids that person has been on and should someone be excluded they have preference for the next raid they sign up to.

You'd hope with such clear and understood reasoning in place this would be ok with people and they could wait until the raid instance reset and the guild organized another run. For the majority of people this is ok, but there always seems to be a minority who feel the need to vent on the forums that they've been somehow hard done by and why the decision to bench them for that raid was incorrect.

Now it's perfectly possible that a mistake will be made, everyone here is human and fallable, but even if this happens don't go ranting and raving about it. If anything, all this is going to is antagonize those who run the raids and a petty raid leader may put you on the bottom of the list of signees. Fortunately for those involved I'm not like that (though have been tempted) I just write about them here.

As with all things I resort back to my maxim of 'It's just a game' so if you're going to get so bent out of shape about missing one night's instance please realize that this is your issue rather than mine.

Oh gods...

2009-09-19T00:33:00.002+01:00

Oh gods what have I done.

There's been some changes in our guild with GMs stepping down one of whom happened to be the raid leader. Obviously this left a void and in the hope of trying to preserve the work that had been done over the last year I may have put my name forward and agreed to organize the attendees for each of the raids we've got on our calendar.

Now the only complications that there are include the fact that other officers at the moment are pushing to have a committee choose the signups which I don't believe will work with the way our guild runs and we're looking to start having official runs (rather than guild pugs) into Trial of the Crusader while still working towards clearing Ulduar.

The trick, when it comes down to it, will be trying to organize raids which all members who want to can go on, and that also maintain a good chance of defeating the encounters and not have a frustrating night running up repair bills.

Over the next few weeks we'll see how well this works out, whether the guild copes with me doing this organization and whether I'm able to cope with organizing it.

May the Earth Mother be with me.

I remember this place...

2009-09-12T12:02:00.002+01:00

After a serious case of real life kicking my backside up and down the corridor of my office I've managed to get back into playing a bit and hitting some raid groups.

Having slightly burnt out grinding the Argent Tournament to get the Crusader title it's been nice to play at a slightly more relaxed pace. The badge changes have meant that there are plenty of groups forming in the guild to do daily quests and it's been possible to catch up with gear and then start boshing my way through Ulduar redeeming the keepers and generally seeing the bad guys off.

Mutilate is still proving to be a lot of fun though I have switched my offspec back to combat swords, currently I'm using some rep reward swords but I'm hoping for some drops which will make it more raid viable, especially for fights where different poisons or the combat abilities are required.

Our guild is about to start scheduling runs into Trial of the Crusader and I'm feeling good about trying my blades in there and hopefully picking up some shiny new ones.

Not entirely sure what direction (if any) I'm going to take with future posts so they might be random ramblings or they might have some kind of theme. Hopefully there'll be a few readers out there to find out.

Can we get some adds with a little less whirlwind

2009-04-25T22:17:00.003+01:00

Rounding up and AoEing trash in instances and raids isn't a massive problem for rogues these days, no cooldown on Fan of Knives and a couple of slow daggers means we can easily keep up with mages and warlocks.

However there is a certain ability that warriors are fond of in PvP that several trash mobs are also keen to use. I'm talking about Whirlwind, something that will kill me 9 times out of 10, and quite frankly it's getting on my nerves.

I'm not talking about remove the ability, that would be unnecessary, but can we stop giving it to trash mobs that the tank expects to round up and be burned down at the same time.

Reasons are this:

When doing single target dps, Quartz will show me when whirlwind is being cast and I can run the heck away.
When mobs are being tanked away from each other, a mob spinning around is a good indication that it's performing whirlwind.

Problem when 4 mobs are grouped up on top of each other, and the marked skull doesn't whirlwind chances are the rogue is going to die.

This came to light the other night when we were attacking the military wing in Naxx. Our melee DPS included me and 2 death knights and unless I got lucky with evasion or the healers were on the ball I died on nearly every trash pull compared to the plate wearers who laughed it off. This slows the raid while I'm rezzed and buff up and quite frankly annoys the bejesus out of me. In the end I resorted to try and train ranged skills and this isn't fun.

I mention this now because of the Razorscale fight in Ulduar which has Iron Dwarf adds during the air phase and the highest priority one to kill does a, guess what, whirlwind attack. At least this one we should be able to run away from, but that still limits dps on a fight that relies on killing things quickly.

This is probably a personal moan, and I expect QQ comments should anyone choose to do so. But when raid trash is designed to be rounded up and killed en mass it seems slightly unfair that classes with low armor that need to stand in the middle (I'm including Arcane mages in this) can be killed very quickly because one guy decides to spin around with his big sword.

Patch 3.1 Fallout

2009-04-22T19:17:00.002+01:00

The big patch has landed (and was quickly followed up by a smaller one) which has brought many changes and additions to the game. Here's a quick run down of the major ones that have affected me and my thoughts.

Fishing dailies
Having leveled fishing up to 450 trying to catch the rat and fishing up all the coins in the fountain it's quite nice to have something else to fish for with random rewards. There's only been three of the five quests offered so far but I've received the jeweled fishing pole, the weather beaten fishing hat, a new fishing line and some vendor trash which has netted a tidy sum.

Dual Specs
I've purchased this for Crash so far, which does provide a slightly pricey achievement. I've stuck with an assassination spec for raiding and have a subtlety one for mucking about in PvP and soloing. Personally it's just a nice thing to have, but for classes which can do more than one thing it does add an extra dimension to putting groups together and changing group makeup once you're in the raid.

Assassination Spec
The two big changes I've noticed are the Hunger for Blood change, which is a blessing given how much I hated having to try and remember to refresh the buff within 30seconds. Now once a bleed is there I can put the buff up and given Rupture up almost constantly it's less of a problem to refresh it when I have spare energy. Secondly the changes to poisons to proc based on weapon speed rather than a flat figure means it's possible to use a 1.8 speed dagger in the main hand again rather than trying to find the fastest available, and not necessarily finding them in the raids we're hitting as a guild.

Subtlety Spec
I hadn't played subtlety since TBC when I spec'd for a blast at the battlegrounds to grind honor for the season weapons when they were the best available to the 10 man raider. However now for soloing and hitting battlegrounds or WinterGrasp it feels really good. Premiditation, Ambush, Eviscerate is generally enough to reduce most mobs to tears if not kill them outright.

Ulduar
Our guild is clearing Naxx fairly regularly now and so far we've had one night to have a play around in this new instance. The Flame Leviathan fight is an interesting diversion and we've managed to down Razorscale. However the lack of spawns in the air phase of that fight means I don't think we've done it properly, but at least know what not to stand in and the tanks know what to do during the landed phase. This appears to be a tougher raid than Naxx which means hopefully the challenge will remain for longer. Plus there's always the hard modes to beat once we've killed the bosses on normal.

Argent Tournament
I loved the Isle of Quel'Danas when it opened, especially considering the Blood Elf lore surrounding it, and worked hard to get to exalted with the Shattered Sun Offensive in order to purchase the title once our server unlocked phase 4.

The new tournament appears to be more of the same and I'm eagerly working my way through the quests. So far I've managed to become the exalted champion of Silvermoon and am currently working on Thunder Bluff as I need the most rep with them. Once I've become a champion with them I'll move onto the Trolls which should then net me the Ambassador title while I work my way to the Crusader title that I really want for when we face Arthas.

Non-combat Pets
Finally the Horde have a way of getting hold of some pets that were only available to the Alliance. The Westfall chicken is obtained by buying the seed from the farmer in Brill and then spamming a /chicken emote at a nearby chicken until the quest becomes available. The Sprite Darter Hatchling is another kill grind through Feralas. This was a lot quicker and easier than any of the dragon whelps, twenty minutes of running around and the egg dropped.

I'm planning to write some more posts about my experiences on the bosses in the new raid as and when we hit them.

The one where Crash writes a catch up post

2009-03-25T20:39:00.002+00:00

By the Sunwell, where does the time go when everything appears to be happening at once.

Real life has been intruding quite a lot recently which has meant I've not had the time to write as much and playing has been mostly in fits and starts as and when time has allowed.

Some notable stuff that has happened:

I finally got round to sticking my head in Obsidian Sanctum and have defeated Sartharion.
I've defeated every boss in Naxxramas, and picked up a piece of T7.
Chef Crashandburn has been seen around the place adding cooking, to the list of professions at 450 (Skinning, Leatherworking and First Aid being the others).
Medrare has dinged 80 and has successfully tanked a heroic, grabbing a staff at the same time.

I've been hitting a few achievements as and when time allows, plus I need to stay ahead on points against a certain obsessive shaman, but at the same time taking a relaxed approach given there isn't a set of holiday achievements to grind for the shiny mount.

Our guild is moving on to attempt Malygos at the moment, and once I get another couple of upgrades then I'll be aiming to stab the big blue a few times.

The only other big decisions at the moment are whether I'll go for dual specs on both characters, or just Medrare in case I decide to scratch an itch to try healing, plus working out how the class changes will affect how I play each of my characters. I've avoiding getting too attached or repulsed by any of the changes as they get announced as chances are they'll change before ever hitting the live server.

Catch you soon....

Rogue guide to achieving 'Intense Cold'

2009-02-20T18:57:00.003+00:00

The Intense Cold achievement is done in heroic Nexus and is on the last boss Keristrasza. To do this you have to prevent the Intense Cold debuff to stacking to more than two. Normally this isn't a problem as movement will cause the debuff to be removed. However the Crystal chains which you get hit with stop you moving for 10 seconds and can be enough to ruin your attempt.

So if you need to have this on your rogue here's how I managed it in a heroic pug.

Positioning: Like pretty much all dragon bosses in game you want to stay away from the head and the tail as there are cone based attacks around this area. So stick yourself facing the ribs and you should be safe from those attacks.

Movement: A simple jump is enough to remove the debuff so that's all you need to do every time Intense Cold gets applied.

Chains: The first time this gets applied use Cloak of Shadows, the second time Vanish. After this unless you're combat spec'd with Improved Sprint you'll need to hope your dps is high enough to take the boss down before you get chained again. A sub rogue could also use Preparation to reset the necessary cool downs, but as a HfB/Mutilate rogue I was left with just the two and a lot of praying.

Don't be disheartened if you don't manage it the first time you should hopefully running this instance a few times for the chest piece and the trinket. (I have yet to see the trinket drop but the chest piece has dropped every time).

Good luck

Fool for Achievements

2009-02-14T21:32:00.003+00:00

The holiday event achievements have been a great way to experience all the various parts of the events plus there's the titles and the grand prize of a flying mount.

Love is in the Air is in game for just 5 days over the Valentines weekend and has various things that have to be done in order to grab the meta-achievement and the title. This included running a quest chain and then performing various actions with holiday related items. However the vast majority of these items could only be obtained as a random drop from something you could only get one of once an hour.

Time wise this meant this was the least demanding of all the ones that I've done, but conversely turned out to be the least fun. The random nature of things meant that I could potentially have ground a pledge/gift every hour for the whole event and not got everything I needed to complete the meta-achievement.

Now I'm not saying that the achievements should be attainable just by logging in at the right time but I do prefer the concept of being able to work towards something, even if it requires a group for parts of it, rather than just logging in performing a couple of mouse clicks and crossing my fingers.

However as it currently stands this is Elder Merrymaker Crashandburn the Hallowed the Love Fool signing off.

Mistakes Happen

2009-02-12T21:03:00.002+00:00

Nobody's perfect!

Right, now that the shock is out of your system let me put some perspective on this possible statement of the bleeding obvious.

Behind every tank, healer and dps character in your raid is a human being hopefully trying their best to complete the encounter, and because they are a human being occasionally they might make the odd mistake or two.

This in itself is not a problem but the key thing is to learn from it. There's nothing more frustrating than wiping on a boss because someone keeps standing in the fire, however this doesn't mean you can call them out on it unless you are 150% certain they are just carrying on with what fails without trying something else.

Conversely if you do make a mistake and realize it, nothing helps appease your raid members than admitting it and apologizing. Trying to make out it's not your fault or it was some random bug can have the complete opposite effect and set up resentment within the raid group, leading to more mistakes and a less pleasant night's raiding all round.

A couple of examples of the positive from our recent raids include:
The MT on Patchwerk successfully picks him up but forgets just how much damage the slime in that room does and proceeds to try and tank whilst standing in it. Within seconds all the melee and the OT are dead but whilst running back the apology allowed us to laugh about it and the next time the boss dies.

Whilst clearing trash I got a bit keen and failed to notice that Tricks of the Trade hadn't been cast on the MT properly. As I opened up with some big damage moves I quickly pulled aggro and died at the hands of the big nasty spider. Whilst the MT was trying to apologize for letting me die (assuming he'd made the mistake) I owned up. While this may have helped my Karma, it also kept confidence high with the tank knowing they had been doing everything right whilst learning the new raid zone.

Don't Panic!

2009-02-09T21:33:00.004+00:00

There's another patch on the horizon which does contain some rogue changes. I'm not talking about 3.1 which is so far out there that I'm not going to comment on the changes that have snuck out so far as they'll likely change again (like with patch 3.0).

Patch 3.0.9 is due to hit this week and amongst the changes is a doozy. A 30% drop in mutilate damage against poisoned targets. On it's own this would seem like a horrendous nerf, but whilst Blizzard taketh away, they also giveth. Hunger for Blood is being buffed up to 15% damage increase from 9% and Slice'n'Dice is increasing attack speed by 40% up from 30%.

Now I haven't crunched the numbers so I can't tell you if the damage output from a mutilate rogue such as myself will be the same but I would hope that they would be given I seem to be holding my own damage wise against other dps classes in our raids.

However this could be a buff when we look at the next big raid encounter, Ulduar. The bane of the mutilate rogue has always been the poison immune mob, I'm looking at you here Curator. Now given that the current Halls of Stone and Halls of Lightening instances have contained a light smattering of poison immune mobs it's not a huge leap to assume that there might be some more in the raid instance.

With this change hopefully we won't be at such a disadvantage as our combat and subtlety spec'd brethren. Of course there may still be a lack of damage at which point it might be time to work out a combat daggers spec or try and get hold of some swords and head back to the monotony of combat swords to have as the alternate spec.