Still

Still 11/12.

Things about Nefarion 10 man that nobody told me and I didn't find at most of the strat hubs:

• Having a hunter turtle tank the adds with MD glyph and glyph of mend pet makes p3 much easier for picking up the adds and much less strain on the healers, while still keeping raid dps up.
• Nature resist is superpro. If you are hitting one or two crackles in p2, try to spread out nature resist between your platforms, it really helps with crackle.
• The mastery trinket with resist increases from the TB rep faction is great for your tanks. It's one minute CD is a great compliment to a tank's CDs for crackles and breaths.
• Hybrids in the transition helping heal and during p2 helping heal can make or beak a pillar group.

We aim for nef+H Halfus this weekend, if everyone is able to go. Last week with 1.5 hours of solid nef attempts we were seeing p3 pretty consistently. The fight isn't super difficult, it's just got 3 phases that require pretty solid execution.

Feel free to always drop a question in about anything and I can usually help out.

More good fun times

So yesterday's (remember- we only raid once a week) raid finally saw our set group with 8 of our regulars, and our 2 main fill-ins. This brought great joy to me as our dps chart was competitive for top spot (I was so happy I forced our rogue into mutilate, he hates the spec like I hate BM but when he puts up over 14k next to mine on heavy movement fights and is giving me a run for #1 he understands). And our bottom spot was at worst filled with our OT doing 10k as ret-which sucks horribly as a spec right now- This meant our dps charts look like a bar graph of a steady economy, as opposed to a bar graph comparing the economies of the last 5 decades (hilarious picture btw). You can check us out at World of Logs.

This week saw two new kills- bringing the total up to 5/12. Maloriak was a pushover as soon as we controlled our green phases and stopped letting random people die to random things. And double dragons took a bit of learning, and a 4th healer. As it is a one tank fight we figured we had plenty of dps to make the enrage timer with ease and that living is a much better option than not. In our kill it was our first attempt where we had nobody get phased to the razzle dazzle, and deep breaths. This fight caused me some trouble trying to call the whole fight and be aware of all the mechanics happening as well. What really gave me the best experience to learn it was ultimately a wipe where I tanked the floor from early on and I had them burn a bres to pick up the healer over me, giving me the opportunity to swirl my camera around and focus on abilities coming up. I then got used to seeing how Valiona picks parts of the room and how to convey this to my folks. I decided on counting down, then (because our ranged are stacked up at the time on one side of the room) I call out one of the following "MID" "OUR SIDE" "OTHER SIDE" which denotes where the flames are and we scamper away quickly.

Additionally, I finally got people to realize if they stack up for blackout right as it hits- they can time it so they run in, and run out- minimizing dps loss and damage taken. Also, because a few of the blackouts occur during the 3rd and 4th transitions of dragons, I decided to forgo the world raid marker and instead just slapped a mark on the head of our healing lead- the one in charge of dispelling the debuff.

We recruited another hunter into our group, creating the biggest sharing of armor outside our tanks. This doesn't really bother me all that much though with all the valor points available for gear. This does however make me happy as now we'll be able to support full raids each week as opposed to looking for more people every time.

As we put in our time learning the new fights- and we are now having one-shots on ODS and Halfus each week with only mishaps stopping us on Magmaw (our rogue was like - "yeah, whatever I'll do spikes" and did not have any clue whatsoever greatly infuriating me as I had to explain it to him- after our 3rd wipe...), I would think that next week we'll end up being able to (as in, have the time to) down conclave and get some work in on chimaeron or atramedes.

Things keep going up and up

Originally we needed more ranged. This happened when one of our melee ret dps decided to swap over to his ele sham instead. BL+ moar ranged? Yes, please. Now our biggest issue is we haven't gotten our "starting 10" on for a single raid. In the first two weeks we had 7 of our "starting 10" and 8 in our second week. This has forced me to think about possibly recruiting another dps as I'm thinking that I'd be able to get them well over 50% playing time, and having that spot filled with a consistent person has many advantages:

1. I know how they operate. My probably biggest issue with pugs is simply that I don't know how to push them and I don't get their pushback. I can't rag on them like I do the rest of my raiders (as they rag on me).

2. I don't take risks on a pug's skill. Pugs can be horrible, and they can be decent. I have yet to fill a pug spot with someone who comes in and cleans house- but if I did, I'd be happy about it.

3. I don't have to loathe giving gear to pugs. Last week- ODS drops the hunter chest (Yay me!) but I end up losing the roll to the pug hunter we brought (He did decent enough dps, even though it was horrible dps for a surv hunter- 12k to my 16). Halfus drops the Agi+ trinket... I then realize I have to step up and just take this from him and the other pug hunter (we pulled in another by this time) as that gear will significantly increase my ability to do better which directly effects our raids right now. Gear helps, and we don't have a lot of it atm. Single upgrades to our players will help us push new content.

Anyway, we got do BH to start each week (free epix- yet not a single piece of tier for the raid yet) then move to BRD and got ODS our first week, Magmaw our second along with halfus. I fully expect us to have Double dragons this week and most likely Maloriak. Decent enough progression I think.

P.S. Conclave isn't very hard- yet for some reason our boomkin keeps getting DC'd in it, which leads to major issues as 9-manning that fight is quite difficult due to having to stack at the right times with everyone in the raid performing a location specific role (we end up always silenced from Rohash when he DC's).

Paladin, kinda gone?

My friend has played wow on and off from beta until now. Since then he's sold his account twice. After the first time he sold his account, he went and made a new one. After the second time he sold his account, he found out when he wanted to come back to the game that the guy he sold his account to never changed the email (this was before bnet changes), password, or anything else. He ended up using this account the 3rd time he came back.

That was up until a few days ago- when that guy decided to take that account back (as by this time the bnet account matched his name, not my friends').

This was kind of amusing to me as I had originally told him to transfer his toons off that account for his own security, but even that would have been complicated as the names would have had to match. What happened though was he was all of a sudden without an account and without the time required to level from 1-80, let alone 80-85 in a reasonable period of time.

Enter Turiel. My paladin. He leads my guild in achievement points, as the GM, and has more mounts, pets, and titles you can shake a stick at. A full character, my main forever. How do I retire a main when I know that I'll always feel obligated to complete achievements (Long strange trip anyone?), get him gear, and keep him up to date? I realized with the swap to the much better fit for me now hunter, the perfect opportunity has landed in my lap to achieve this. I made another bnet account, he purchased all the games, paid for a transfer of my paladin over, and now he has another account (RAF'd from my original one) and my paladin. I'm able to now go to our raids with both my paladin AND my hunter- at the same time. What better way for me to retire my paladin than to make sure it'll stay active in my own raid guild at the hands of my friend?? Perfect I dare say. (plus, if he ever quits the game the account is actually under my control, so the paladin is never really too far away!)

That being said I know I'll continue to discuss healing in general as well as my hunter's awesome skills.

Cata first look

Cataclysm, huh?

Logged in (took like 12 years to do so), trained flying, went to the breadcrumb for Vash and went on my way! Vash to me wasn't as fun right away, but it really ramped up fast. There is that lul where you start helping out Budd stop being an undead person and you are hunting sharks and such, but it is kind of amusing nonetheless. Also, Budd cracks me up because of remembering him from ZA (I think it's the same Budd).

The whole underwater thing I'm not a super huge fan of- I've been out of town playing on a terrible six year old laptop I have, and let me tell you- when you can't see very far it is a lot harder to navigate the depths... especially finding caves can get very tough. After a little while I can spatially map everything in my head and I get a feel in 3D where things land not just on the X/Y-Axis I'm used to, but incorporating the Z as well. I also realize if I was on my 1 year old computer I have at home I'll be a much happier camper as well.

Also, being a hunter underwater presents it's own difficulties as well due to not getting too close and the depth perception I have in this game without visual reference points all the time helping me see how close I am to something. I really liked Malygos and the vehicle mechanic used there, but I would quickly hate it if it was used frequently. Swimming was fun with Kael'thas in MgT as well, but in each instance these mechanics were used infrequently. In Vash it's fine for questing, but if I had to do this for a raid I'd probably kill myself out of frustration.

All in all I'm loving this zone but have only spent a couple hours total. This weekend I'll totally geek out on it.

Hopefully ya'll are loving it up!

Cata Ships, QQ.

Cata shipped this morning while I was sleeping in a hotel away on work for a week. I brought with a personal laptop that has wow installed on it- but when I'm away on work I generally work... all week. I work, eat, sleep, and work out.

I'm not trying to say poor me, because I'll have time to play it later, but the inner child in me wants to go dig though my parent's closet in November to find my Christmas presents NOW. Hell, I'll probably be happier to be able to sit down this weekend and power through stuff, and I'll probably take it at a more leisurely pace as well.

Also, there is a benefit to not trying to fight teeth and claw with everyone else during those first few hours- I don't have to deal with as much server failure and fighting for quest mobs being tagged like mad. I had it in wrath, and as fun as it was (because it was) I just don't necessarily NEED it.

If you have time for it I hope you are enjoying it!