Well, those poor bastards that did Vashj on Sunday got booted after try number two--SC went down like a sack of shit. The server itself came back up after a few minutes, but no one could access their character lists. WEAK SAUCE, BLIZZ.
Anyway, I ended up not getting invited--our raid leader stacked the group heavily in ranged for the first few gos. Maybe I'll get to go tonight, but we'll see.
So... we one-shot Al'ar on Wednesday.
5/6 SSC, 3/4 TK. First attempt at Vashj on Sunday.
Ohhhhhh yeaaaaaaaaaaah.
Sunday was an interesting evening of raiding. First, we hit Gruul's Lair (I took Tai; still no hunter gear for her... it's a bitch to be an alt). After Gruul's, I logged Dusk for TK. We zoomed in and tore apart the trash mobs and then somehow managed to steamroll High Astromancer Solarian in one go. That was an amazing first kill (no one killed the raid, woo!).
After Solarian was looted, we went back out to the main hall and started attempts on Al'ar. Now, I hadn't done the fight before, so it took me a couple deaths before I figured out what the hell I was doing. I felt like a twat, but there's only so much I can do. Anyway, I did eventually get my roll as a tank down (the hardest part was watching for Al'ar to go to the next platform or to go up to Flame Quill people). We got him pretty close to death--that is, *after* he dies the first time. But I had to go before we were able to get him down all the way.
Well, I guess they found replacements enough because they kept on trying him and actually managed to kill him... except, somehow he bugged and reset to 100%. The going theory is he meteor-ed out of the room toward the add tank and bugged out. Either way, it is the suck, because they worked so hard to kick his ass. :/
Anyway, I would still call it 3/4 in TK. We'll pwn him again today or tomorrow.
Fabulous.
Okay, first of February. Hello, blog.
The guild conglomeration has made a lot of progess in the past two months. We are 5/6 in SSC, which is amazing to even be able to say. We did 5/6 all on Tuesday night, actually. 4.5 hours.
Here's a few newsworthy things in the world of WoW:
First, this makes me happy. Even if it's just a minor victory, it is some sort of victory against gold farmers. Rargh.
Second, Druids are getting a buff to Lacerate in 2.4. "The Feral bears will be seeing an improvement with Lacerate dealing additional damage based on your attack power. (from the class forums)" This is really awesome because a) druids get retarded awesome attack power from their weapons and b) Lacerate is a primary tool in threat-building. (My rotation: Mangle, Lacerate until the 6 sec cooldown on Mangle is up, repeat... it gets the job done.)
The other changes being made for 2.4, like warlocks *finally* being able to summon people into instances, sound like they are further streamlining the game experience. I am glad of it. In that particular instance, the last thing I like to do is wait around for someone to get to the goddamn instance so *then* we can summon them.
/end news tidbits
I feel like a dickhead because I have yet to mention my second 70 in this blog. Taidiriel, or Tai, is a blood elf hunter. I am having a blast playing her. I've been putting her through some Kara runs and so she is getting some epixx (see: Sunfury Bow of the Phoenix!). I've gone Gruul's a few times with her as well, in the hope that I will get the T4 pieces, since the place is pretty much on farm status now. No such luck yet, but we'll see what happens.
Expect to see some screenshots later on, as well as some pictures of the awesome Figure Print I got of Dusk. And it occurs to me I haven't mentioned my acquisition of the WoW Laptop from Dell. Well, there you go. I can has glorious laptop, with which a "golden ticket" for Figure Prints came. Awesome sauce.
Back to work.
We're winding down on raiding a little for the holidays, but I just want it to be known that we finally downed The Lurker Below. Screenshots to follow.
Also, more phat lootz have been acquired, including the Wildfury Greatstaff from SSC. It is so much love. :D
Expect more after the holidays have passed. Merry Christmas!
10/28/2007.
I scored Living Root of the Wildheart from him. Also, last week we one-shotted Void Reaver and I got Fel Reaver's Piston. I'm the only character from our guild to get something from both TK: The Eye and SSC right now. I am excited. :)
Something really neat I found out for Fel Reaver's Piston--the HoT effect that occurs from a direct heal can occur from a heal via Improved Leader of the Pack. I've found it's really useful for soloing and for raiding (depending on the situation) to top off my health.
As far as healing goes, however, it's not so great for resto--direct heals do not include HoTs (though the initial cast of Regrowth *does* count). But the 16 mana per 5 seconds is pretty nice.
Wow, it's been a while since I posted. Many things have happened in the past month in the world of WoW. I am eagerly anticipating patch 2.3.
In the world of Duskflower, things have changed a little bit. Our guilds started running Gruul's on Tuesdays before Karazhan. We can get a full clear in about 45 minutes. Then we split off to do our Kara runs. Last Tuesday, Dusk *finally* got her Tier 4 shoulders, so that makes three pieces of the T4 set. Also, on Saturday, Dusk got Terestian's Stranglestaff, which was another "it's about time" drop.
On Sundays, in place of Gruul's, we have been experimenting in Tempest Keep: The Eye and in Serpentshrine Cavern. Yesterday was our third go (I think) in TK and we actually managed to bring down Void Reaver. It was pretty amazing. 
There's more to talk about, but I don't have the time at the moment. Class calls.
Saturday, I have to say, was fucking amazing. And, skeptical though I was about that certain Paladin, he/she really came through for us. So I'm glad he/she is learning to play. I am probably a lot harder on him/her here than I should be, but I guess I just have high expectations about people who sign up to go with us in raids. Blarg.
Anyway, Saturday. We whipped through Maiden, the chess event, and Prince like it was nothing. Dusk finally got the Tier 4 helm from Prince (she looks very sexy in it XD). After realizing we had near an hour left of our set time, we decided to say fuck it and go wail on Nightbane.
And what do you know? We managed to take him out! On try number two; though, try number one really shouldn't count as Nightbane aggroed weirdly and we wiped in ten seconds. Our group has really made a lot of progress. I'm very proud of us.
Dusk managed to score some sweet loots other than the Tier 4 helm: Garona's Signet Ring and Chestguard of the Conniver. Her DPS gear is getting a lot better now, especially with the addition of the Midnight Legguards that dropped from Quagmirrian in Heroic Slave Pens.
Dusk also hit exalted with the Violet Eye and was finally able to switch over to the tanking ring, bumping her armor in Dire Bear form up to about 27k. Happyness abounds.
Sunday was pretty awesome as well. We somehow one-shotted High King Maulgar (my pauldrons did not drop, again), though it was a bit touch-and-go the last 50% of his life. Because we were able to get through it so quickly, we had about two hours to hammer away at Gruul, even dealing with the respawns again to give it a few more goes. And finally, we succeeded in taking him down! It was pretty amazing--I think the key was that Chutz (warrior, MT) and Sounder (druid [my personal idol, lol], OT/hurtful strike tank) were able to stay alive the entire time. Broog (warrior) and I were to be backup tanks in case one of them went down, but it never worked as good as it should have. Once, it worked out, but the problem is for this fight, Dusk have to do it in her DPS gear. Dusk cannot tank in DPS gear. She goes splat. Gruul's hurtful strikes did somewhere around 10k each time he hit, and she only had 14k health with the DPS gear in bear form. So she'd get knocked down to practically nothing and then get hit again too quickly to get healed up. I think the healers would have been able to heal through it fine if there was no one else but Dusk and the other tank, haha.
Anyway, it was an amazing fight. We had five hunters in the group, which was awesome. We also had five healers, which is super awesome. I think we also got really lucky on the shatters and very few people had died by the end of the fight.
So, good stuff this weekend! Can't wait to put some screenshots up.
In other news, I've taken to hitting Heroic Slave Pens with a few people from Syk. We blow through it pretty easily. It's really nice. And great for rep. Dusk is about 5,000 rep from exalted with Cenarion Expedition (need... Earthwarden...). And also, due to Nightbane and Gruul's deaths, she is now "attuned" for Serpentshrine Cavern. That is to say, of course, that it was unnecessary, but hey, I am amused by it.
I went on vacation, forgot to update this. Goooo meeee.
Since the 17th, our group managed to take out Aran (!) *and* Prince Malchezaar (!!!) on the 18th. It was, simply put, amazing. We had a really good party that day, I think. Prince dropped the Tier 4 head piece token, but our holy priest beat me on the roll (and I was glad for that--she's got to be my favorite healer of the group). We've downed Prince again since then, and he dropped a different head piece token. Here's hoping that he drops mine this week!
Starting last week, I've been raiding on all three nights (Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday) with our group. I'm really glad to not be missing anything anymore. I like the group of people I raid with (for the most part) as well. There is a paladin that has been trying to do Kara with us that really needs to learn what the hell he/she is doing, but other than that... yeah.
Due to the disaster that was our group this past Tuesday, we only downed Attumen and Moroes. So we still have to kill Maiden and then catch up on everything else. I would really like if Shard of the Virtuous drops from Maiden tonight. That'd be very cool. And would make up for the shit that happened Tuesday.
Updated List of Phat Lootz from Karazhan:
- Violet Badge (It's a quest reward, but I love it so very, very much)
- Bladed Shoulderpads of the Merciless
- Headdress of the High Potentate
- Handguards of Malorne (Restoration Tier 4 gloves XD)
I recently started raiding Gruul's Lair with everyone on Sunday evenings. It's been fun trying to learn the fights. XD Gruul's Lair works thusly: there are about three trash mobs, either brutes or priests. As soon as you kill the first mob, you start the one hour timer to kill High King Maulgar (once Maulgar is dead, the respawns won't happen, of course). So, you get through the mobs. High King Maulgar is flanked by four other ogres: Krosh Firehand, mage; Olm the Summoner, warlock; Kiggler the Crazed, shaman; and Blindeye the Seer, priest. The kill order, as it were, is the priest and the warlock first (in that order). From there, melee proceeds to attacking Gruul (and the shaman, too), while ranged DPS concentrates on downing the shaman and the mage. Once those four are down, everyone pretty much focuses on Maulgar.
When Maulgar's at half life, he starts doing this weird berserk whirlwind thing. We have everyone but the main tank group up near the entrance to the big cave Maulgar resides in, and then we have all the other tanks stand in front of the group. Maulgar, when doing said weird thing, starts spinning back and forth between the MT and the group, so it's the other tank's job to pull aggro (taunts work, yay) and bring Maulgar back to the MT. It's tricky, but it works.
Maulgar drops the Tier 4 shoulder token. Which is great, but we use Suicide Kings for that fight, so I have yet to get it. XD The next time we fight Maulgar, however, I will be pretty much at the top of the list for the token, and will totally suicide for that. XD
There are five or six mobs between us and Gruul by that point, and they also have the same one hour timer. We have yet to kill Gruul--I think the closest we've come is 21%. A lot of that fight is luck. Gruul does a kind of knockback which literally sends everyone flying through the air. When you land, you have about five to ten seconds to get away from as many people as possible. Gruul then "shatters" everyone, and the amount of damage is based on how many people you are near (if none, no damage, if three, maybe 9,000, etc.). There are also points in the battle where he causes a cave-in of the ceiling and you need to get all the melee out of there so they don't have a stupid death (I know from personal experience on that one, sadly).
It's tough, but we're getting really close, I feel. I bet we can do it soon!
Wishlist for Gruul's Lair:
Maulgar:
- Malefic Mask of Shadows
- Brute Cloak of the Ogre-Magi
- Pauldrons of the Fallen Defender (which yield: Mantle of Malorne)
Gruul:
- Cowl of Nature's Breath
- Teeth of Gruul
- Eye of Gruul
- Gronn-stitched Girdle
- Leggings of the Fallen Defender (which yield: Greeves of Malorne)
Gruul drops a lot of healing stuff, good grief. Also: Shuriken of Negation? Totally awesome.
I created a Tauren shaman a while back, and am now really getting into playing her. I decided to go the route of Enhancement, as it is a) awesome, b) really awesome, and c) a good solo spec (though I did not know that at the time). Ishunda is level 19 (+1/2) at the moment, dicking off in the Ghostlands. I will have her go to the Barrens after the Ghostlands stuff is done, as I hate the Barrens and will only mildly enjoy blowing through all the quests at eight or so levels higher than I should be. I'm mainly doing that for the rep. :B Might even bounce back and forth between Barrens and Silverpine (which I do not hate). Who knows.
The highest level shaman I've ever played was Softshoe at level 24, so I hope I can keep up with Ishunda and play her at least through 30. Shamans really get some fun abilities as they get "older."
Also: FROST SHOCK!!!!!
Well, the Thursday group stalled on the Opera--the Paladin tank had to be subbed out because the Big Bad Wolf was kicking his butt. They wiped on Curator a few times and called it, so... that means, not only do I not miss the Chess event (FREE EPICS YAY), I get to kick the ass of the Curator again. XD I kind of hope that the Tier 4 token drops for Druid, etc. again because if I happen to win it (assuming it's not needed by anyone else), I would love to get the Tier 4 Resto gloves. That would rock.
/excited
Last Saturday's run was rough. The entire evening was spent trying to down Shade of Aran. I think the lowest in health we got him to was 25% (on our first go). After that he got no lower than about 30%. He's a tough bastard!
Here's a general outline of the way the fight goes: Aran casts Fireballs, Frostbolts, and Arcane Missles one right after another. You want to have the Fireballs and Frostbolts interrupted (Arcane Missles get called out so healers can focus on who's getting hit, but we don't interrupt them because we don't want Aran to use his mana *too* fast)--Rogues and Warriors are really good for the interrupts, and it's best to have about three people interrupting due to the cooldowns of the abilities.
Aran also casts three special versions of these spells: Blizzard, Firestorm, and Arcane Explosion. Blizzard's somewhat self-explainatory: a huge wedge-shaped fall of ice starts rotating around the room (clockwise, I believe), and if you get near it, there's a chance for you to be ice chained to the ground and get pelted by ice (plus you're slowed). Arcane Explosion is kind of scary: Aran sucks everyone into the middle, casts a mass slow effect, and after about ten seconds does an Arcane Explosion for something like 7k. You have to get the hell out of that as soon as he draws everyone in. And finally, the worst one, Firestorm: a storm of fire errupts in the room and *no one* can move. You can still attack in place and do abilities and all that, but you cannot move your character from that spot, not even to turn. You have to stay like that for fifteen-ish seconds, which is probably why there's a bit of a warning before he casts it (so you can get into position to kick his butt!).
At about 30% health, Aran summons a bunch of water elementals to help him fight. These guys suck, because they're casting Frostbolts all over the damn place. They kind of randomly choose their targets, so the healers have a tough time keeping up when they appear. There are two saving graces about these: they have lowish health, and they are only there for thirty seconds to one minute (can't remember).
When Aran has low mana (hopefully this happens *after* the elementals have disappeared, but it's not reliant on that event), he polymorphs everyone, sits down, and drinks to restore his mana. After getting back up, he casts a mass Fireball. This is usually the time when we all eat shit, assuming we've made it that far.
After all of that, I guess he's a walk in the park to kill, but we haven't been able to do it yet. One of the issues we had last week was we only had two Rogues for the interrupt cycle (no Warriors--Paladin main tank), so we had a lot of healing going toward the spells they missed. Another issue was that Dusk's cat form DPS is nowhere near scale with a Rogue, so as the only other melee DPSer, she was not contributing a lot to the fight (other than causing Aran to bleed *a lot*).
Here's hoping this Saturday goes a little better than last week.
We've started a rotation of three nights a week for Karazhan now. Tuesday nights, we down the first couple bosses (up to Maiden of Virtue, usually). Thursday nights have been the Opera event and Curator (I don't get to go to Thursday night raids until after this quarter of school is done). And Saturday nights have been for taking runs at Shade of Aran and doing the Chess Event. Here's hoping we can take out Aran this weekend!
Here's a list of the epic loots I have received from Kara as of today:
- Spectral Band of Innervation
- Forestlord Striders
- Gauntlets of Malorne
- Ring of Unrelenting Storms
- Bracers of the White Stag
- Moroes' Lucky Pocket Watch
- Forest Wind Shoulderpads
- Barbed Choker of Discipline
- Nethershard Girdle
- And of course, the Revered version of this Violet Eye signet ring (would like a different ring though, blarg).
I've done pretty well for myself, honestly. Too bad very little of it (two items) has been for my main role as Off-Tank. Oh well. I don't mind getting the other gear, especially since it'll help if I respec again!
She's getting there!
Dusk is now at the tail end of the Swift Flight Form questline. She needs a run through Shadow Labyrinth to hit Revered with Lower City, but after that, she'll be able to taken on Anzu in Heroic Sethekk Halls. Watch out, raven god!
I keep forgetting to update about Karazhan. So, in lieu of a real update, here is a list of the Ten Commandments of Being in a Group, courtesy of the Laughing Vengeance guild forums. All n00bs, please read and follow accordingly. Srsly.
I. "This is thy group, which brought thee out of the land of PUG'ing, out of the house of boredom; thou shalt have no other groups before thy current group."
What this means really is if you're in a group to do a run, don't be a bastard and ditch the group to go do another run with a different group. Commit to the run you're with and see it through. Decide BEFORE the run if you have better things to do or not enough time to finish the run. If you're going to be short on time, let the rest of your group know before you start and let them decide whether you should come along.
II. "Thou shalt not wear thy gear in vain."
Gear with sockets should have gems in them (even if it's just a 2 gold green gem). Gear that can be enchanted should be enchanted. Yes, it may be crap gear you intend to replace soon but you can still put a cheaper enchant on it to help you get by in the meantime. These little things help you to pull your weight in the run and whatever your class or spec, that's your job.
III. "Remember the mana bars and keep them full."
This one is mainly for the tanks... it's easy to look up, see you've got a full health bar and decide you're ready for the next pull. STOP. Look down. There are a bunch of other bars there. These days most of them are likely to be a health bar with a mana bar right under it. If those mana bars aren't full, stop and wait for folks to get mana before you start the pull.
But as I said, it's only mainly for the tanks and some of you mana users are just as guilty. Not because you ignore the needs of your other group members before starting the pull, but because you're not drinking to get mana yourself! If the pull goes badly for whatever reason, you're going to want that mana pretty soon.
IV. "Honor thy tank and thy healer."
This one's easy... if you're dps and you see the tank has started the pull, what should you do? The right answer is nothing. Absolutely nothing. Don't do a thing until you've seen the tank not only close with the mob(s), but has had a chance to land at least two blows. This doesn't mean time your spell so it will land after the 2nd blow, it means don't even start casting until the 2nd blow. The only exception is if you specifically have a job in the pull doing crowd control. And yes, this applies even if it's "only trash mobs". If the target the tank is pulling is a boss, you shouldn't do anything until the tank has had a good 10 seconds to get a hold on the aggro. Yes, there are specific bosses that are an exception to this rule but I'm sure your tank/instance leader will point them out to you.
What does this have to do with "thy healer"? Very simple... if the tank gets the aggro and is able to hold it, 90% of the healer's effort is going toward keeping the tank alive and well. And trust me, the tank is going to take a lot less damage when he's getting hit than a rogue or a mage will. That means the healer doesn't have to throw around his heaviest, mana-hungry, threat-magnet heals. He'll be able to keep healing longer and keep lower threat the whole fight.
V. "Thou shalt not break CC."
The only person that should ever break crowd control is the tank, and that is when they are about to begin focusing threat on that target. If you break CC because you want to speed things up, you're just going to make the tank's job harder because now he has to chase the mob down, taunt it, and hope he can build his threat fast enough. That's no way to treat the person who's playing that tank.
VI. "Thou shalt not pull the mob."
90% of the time the only people that should pull the mob(s) are the tank or a hunter using misdirection. 9% of the time it will be a sheep pull because the mobs present make that a more reasonable pull (ask the tank first before you just do this). The last 1% is for bizarre scripted scenarios where someone else needs to pull because of the way the fight works. That's it. Pulling mob(s) because you're bored and the run isn't going fast enough for your taste means you need to be patient and respect the other people you're running with rather than deliberately threatening the run. If you're in a hurry due to time constraints, explain that to the others in the run so that they can take all reasonable steps to speed things up without causing wipes.
VII. "Thou shalt not steal aggro."
Get KLH Threat Meter (KTM), better yet get Omen. These days there's no good reason not to have a threat meter. And then pay attention to it! Omen will give you warnings when you're about to steal aggro from the person currently holding the mob (which we hope is the tank). This also gets back to the fourth commandment and honoring your tanks and healers. If you do steal aggro, DON'T RUN AWAY FROM THE TANK. You're just making it harder for the tank to get the aggro back and thus the mob is going to hit you even longer.
VIII. "Thou shalt bear buffs upon thy neighbors."
If you can buff the party, you should buff the party. If you're a paladin, that means use your blessings and auras. If you're a priest, get out those prayers. Just about every class can buff their fellow party members in some way and if you can, you should do it every time the buffs go down. Yes, some classes like paladins and shamans have some damn short durations on their buffs (blessings and totems respectively) but you chose the class, that means you get to keep up the buffs despite their short durations. If you're a paladin, consider getting the Cirk's Blessings addon as it will make blessing management a lot easier.
IX. "Thou shalt not be a loot whore."
That's a pretty easy and straight-forward statement. If you can use the loot drop, then by all means, roll need or pass and roll after or spend DKP, whichever is the method your group is using. But when you've won two items and you're looking at a third and someone else in the group can use it, it's time to pass. Similarly, rolling need on a BoE item just because an alt of yours can use it isn't cool. Ask the group first and only if they say it's ok should you do so.
X. "Thou shalt not come unprepared, desiring not thy neighbor's potions, nor food, nor bread and water, nor reagents, nor scrolls, nor ammo, nor anything that belongs to thy neighbor."
Yeah, I threw in the bread and water because it fit well and yeah, mages should provide bread and water to their group but the point remains, bring your own buff food, reagents, ammo, and potions. At the very least you should have ammo, reagents, and a stack of health/mana potions appropriate to your level. For more serious runs like heroics or raids, you should also have elixirs or flasks to buff yourself as far as you can go. And being prepared means having your armor repaired fully for a run.
Short version: We downed the Curator on Monday. One try, no deaths. Smooth as silk. The tier 4 glove token dropped for Warriors, Priests, and Druids. Three of us rolled on it, and I won! 
Fuck yeah. So exciting. :3