So we went back into TK tonight and killed Al'ar.
We're going back for Mag, and then we'll be working on the big fights of TBC - Vashj and Kael.
We continue to make at least one progression kill a week. I'm extremely happy with my guild.
Thursday, 31 January 2008
Al'ar
Let me start by saying FUCK.
I thought nothing in WoW frustrated me like arenas did. When I lose an arena I always see how we coulda run it - if I had been a split second faster on my cyclone, my swiftmend, my bearform, if I had LoS'd or kited better. I punch my wall, swear both on and off vent, and am generally frustrated.
We started working on Al'ar the day before yesterday, after our Solarian (ezmoad btw) kill. We were hyped to possibly get two new progression bosses down in one night, for the second time. So we went back, recleared some trash, and attempted Al'ar a few times. We wiped in phase one a few times as we learned the proper positioning, how to avoid Flame Quills, how to minimize Flame Buffet damage, etc. Then it clicked and we cleared through phase one like nobody's business, minus a tank as well - we had to use rotations to keep a tank always on Al'ar.
We had a couple of hiccups with the transition to phase two, then people got it and we started to do better. We had one absolutely flawless attempt, had him at about 30% with over three-quarters of the raid alive.
All of a sudden he disappears. We have a collective, 'wtf?'
Oh look! There's that Phoenix-Hawk we didn't wait to respawn. Turns out that when Al'ar trash respawns, Al'ar despawns. Fantastic.
We grumble and make a few more attempts. He doesn't go down.
Tonight we're hyped to kill Al'ar for the first time, which'd move us up a step in the progression ladder of the server. We clear the trash, sit down and buff up, and then pull. Phase 1 goes well, despite having a new tank learning it - she made an extra, so we didn't have to rotate during phase 1 - and we clear through it. Now we're in phase 2, and every attempt seems to go somehow horribly WRONG.
A tank dies because he got no heals.
The paladin tank's healers get killed by birds/meteor and he dies.
The paladin tank's healers disconnect and/or run out of mana and he dies.
Tanks aren't quick enough to Taunt after Melt Armour and other tanks die.
More frustrating for me though was my inability to live through a meteor. It seems that invariably when I get targetted for meteor, my hots tick on myself or someone else, the birds target me, and I'm dead. Fuck.
Last attempt of the night, it's going okay, he's at about 50% in phase 2. All of a sudden he disappears. 'Wtf?' we say. Oh look - he got dragged out the door and despawned. Fuck.
The cake was taken, however, by a wipe earlier on in the night. Everyone was focusing. More than half the raid was alive. Tanks were being healed, birds were being offtanked, Al'ar is at FOUR FUCKING PERCENT. He flies up to meteor, we spread out. He comes down near our new druid tank, who had aggro on him from taunting off a tank who got Melt Armour. Then he Rebirths next to her, sends her flying and tries to attack her, evading. His health goes back up to 46%. FUCK.
I am going to watch some anime and then I am going to sleep. Tomorrow I'm not going to log into WoW until the raid. Screw daily quests, screw heroics, I'm taking a break.
Al'ar made a terrible end to an otherwise great birthday.
Fuck.
I thought nothing in WoW frustrated me like arenas did. When I lose an arena I always see how we coulda run it - if I had been a split second faster on my cyclone, my swiftmend, my bearform, if I had LoS'd or kited better. I punch my wall, swear both on and off vent, and am generally frustrated.
We started working on Al'ar the day before yesterday, after our Solarian (ezmoad btw) kill. We were hyped to possibly get two new progression bosses down in one night, for the second time. So we went back, recleared some trash, and attempted Al'ar a few times. We wiped in phase one a few times as we learned the proper positioning, how to avoid Flame Quills, how to minimize Flame Buffet damage, etc. Then it clicked and we cleared through phase one like nobody's business, minus a tank as well - we had to use rotations to keep a tank always on Al'ar.
We had a couple of hiccups with the transition to phase two, then people got it and we started to do better. We had one absolutely flawless attempt, had him at about 30% with over three-quarters of the raid alive.
All of a sudden he disappears. We have a collective, 'wtf?'
Oh look! There's that Phoenix-Hawk we didn't wait to respawn. Turns out that when Al'ar trash respawns, Al'ar despawns. Fantastic.
We grumble and make a few more attempts. He doesn't go down.
Tonight we're hyped to kill Al'ar for the first time, which'd move us up a step in the progression ladder of the server. We clear the trash, sit down and buff up, and then pull. Phase 1 goes well, despite having a new tank learning it - she made an extra, so we didn't have to rotate during phase 1 - and we clear through it. Now we're in phase 2, and every attempt seems to go somehow horribly WRONG.
A tank dies because he got no heals.
The paladin tank's healers get killed by birds/meteor and he dies.
The paladin tank's healers disconnect and/or run out of mana and he dies.
Tanks aren't quick enough to Taunt after Melt Armour and other tanks die.
More frustrating for me though was my inability to live through a meteor. It seems that invariably when I get targetted for meteor, my hots tick on myself or someone else, the birds target me, and I'm dead. Fuck.
Last attempt of the night, it's going okay, he's at about 50% in phase 2. All of a sudden he disappears. 'Wtf?' we say. Oh look - he got dragged out the door and despawned. Fuck.
The cake was taken, however, by a wipe earlier on in the night. Everyone was focusing. More than half the raid was alive. Tanks were being healed, birds were being offtanked, Al'ar is at FOUR FUCKING PERCENT. He flies up to meteor, we spread out. He comes down near our new druid tank, who had aggro on him from taunting off a tank who got Melt Armour. Then he Rebirths next to her, sends her flying and tries to attack her, evading. His health goes back up to 46%. FUCK.
I am going to watch some anime and then I am going to sleep. Tomorrow I'm not going to log into WoW until the raid. Screw daily quests, screw heroics, I'm taking a break.
Al'ar made a terrible end to an otherwise great birthday.
Fuck.
Wednesday, 30 January 2008
Friday, 25 January 2008
Overhealing
So the other day I was watching a video of Nihilum's first Al'ar kill, from Awake's PoV. And I noticed that he was overhealing a helluva lot. So I thought about this a bit, and then I said to myself, 'well, if you're not oom before the end of the fight then it doesn't really matter how much you overheal.' And I tried healing more agressively - i.e. keeping Rejuvenation up on the tank I was healing constantly as well as lifebloom, and using Regrowth where I would normally use Rejuv (this was on FLK), and he was in much less danger of dying than normal. So I'm going to put this into practice more often - on hard hitting bosses, i.e. FLK - well, the shaman add, and the hunter add since our protadin tanks both the hunter and the pet - Tidewalker (if I ever heal anything but watery graves on Tidewalker), Hydross when at +50-100%, Gruul later in the fight, etc. Hopefully this will lead to less dying by tanks and more epics by us.
I also got the 2-piece T5 bonus yesterday (shoulders + pants now), and I reckon that's a pretty good reason to start using Regrowth on tanks more. I'm considering respeccing to include Imp Regrowth in my spec as well.
I also got the 2-piece T5 bonus yesterday (shoulders + pants now), and I reckon that's a pretty good reason to start using Regrowth on tanks more. I'm considering respeccing to include Imp Regrowth in my spec as well.
Thursday, 24 January 2008
WLK
What I want from WLK - is for the larger raid to come first in progression.
When I first hit 70 I joined a guild that was just starting out in Kara. We wiped on Moroes for several nights. We progressed week by week until we were farming the place. We were actually about #3 on the server at one point. But because we had a 10-man raiding force, we stayed in Kara until Gruul's was old news. We fell behind. Eventually we merged with another guild and got into 25-mans, but we were never cutting-edge again.
My mum's guild (yes, my mum plays WoW) is in sort of a similar situation. They clear Kara. They're working through ZA. But because they formed with the intention of doing first Kara and then maybe 25-mans later, they're chained to 10-mans. Sure, they could merge with another guild or break up and find new guilds, but they're a tight-knit group of friends that play the game for each other rather than for the game. So they run heroics, they run Kara, they run ZA and they don't get to see all of the wonderful 25-man content. They miss out on most of the raiding game, because they wanted to do Kara first.
So I think that in WLK, the first raid should be a 25-man raid. People are saying Naxx will be the first raid - it's definitely been said by Jeff Kaplan that it will be an entry-level raid - but I think that the very first thing, right off the bat, should be a boss similar to Onyxia or Magtheridon - one boss in the instance, enormous monster. He's relatively weak, so a blue-geared tank can tank him. He has a couple of gimmicks, say a Saber Lash, or a raid-wide silence, or an enrage timer, or some predictable raid damage, or some adds, or phase changes (think Bear boss). But all in all, he is a reward for organising 25 people to get together and go and kill a dragon. And he should drop four epics - two nonset and two set.
The first boss in the first 10-man instance should be difficult. He should require co-ordination and skill. New raiders should look at him and say, 'hey, he's hard... maybe we should get some gear and experience from the 25-mans before we try him?' And he should drop two nonset epics, of a quality half a tier higher than the theoretical entry-level 25-man boss.
And so new guilds will say, 'Our goal is to kill Enormous Loot Pinata and then maybe start looking at other raids.' The transition from 25-man to 2x 10-man should be much easier than the transition from 10-man to 25-man. Because having to scrape together people for Gruul's from your two Kara teams, for lack of a better word, sucks. If you start with a proper 25-man raiding force, then you don't need to worry about that. You can keep progressing right from the start. You can start with Enormous Loot Pinata, then you'll immediately be able to walk into Naxx. Well, you say, we don't have the tanks for Patchwerk yet. I hear that Anub'rekhan is pretty easy - and he does drop those sexy tier 9 gloves! Okay fellows, let's do it. And then you're working through Naxx, and then you kill Kel'Thuzad and you can start working through Azjol'Nerub.
All in all, I think that 10-mans should sort of be off to the side in the logical progression of WLK. Like where ZA is now. You can start ZA if you can kill Nightbane regularly - it's hard, but it's doable. Likewise, you can start Gruul's Lair if you have two groups who can kill Nightbane regularly. In WLK, you should start the first 10-man if you can kill Enormous Loot Pinata regularly. You can start the second 10-man if you can kill Kel'thuzad or the boss of the first 10-man regularly. Et cetera.
Looks like I've rambled on a bit again, repeating myself for the most part. Oh well. Perhaps I shouldn't post when I'm mostly asleep.
When I first hit 70 I joined a guild that was just starting out in Kara. We wiped on Moroes for several nights. We progressed week by week until we were farming the place. We were actually about #3 on the server at one point. But because we had a 10-man raiding force, we stayed in Kara until Gruul's was old news. We fell behind. Eventually we merged with another guild and got into 25-mans, but we were never cutting-edge again.
My mum's guild (yes, my mum plays WoW) is in sort of a similar situation. They clear Kara. They're working through ZA. But because they formed with the intention of doing first Kara and then maybe 25-mans later, they're chained to 10-mans. Sure, they could merge with another guild or break up and find new guilds, but they're a tight-knit group of friends that play the game for each other rather than for the game. So they run heroics, they run Kara, they run ZA and they don't get to see all of the wonderful 25-man content. They miss out on most of the raiding game, because they wanted to do Kara first.
So I think that in WLK, the first raid should be a 25-man raid. People are saying Naxx will be the first raid - it's definitely been said by Jeff Kaplan that it will be an entry-level raid - but I think that the very first thing, right off the bat, should be a boss similar to Onyxia or Magtheridon - one boss in the instance, enormous monster. He's relatively weak, so a blue-geared tank can tank him. He has a couple of gimmicks, say a Saber Lash, or a raid-wide silence, or an enrage timer, or some predictable raid damage, or some adds, or phase changes (think Bear boss). But all in all, he is a reward for organising 25 people to get together and go and kill a dragon. And he should drop four epics - two nonset and two set.
The first boss in the first 10-man instance should be difficult. He should require co-ordination and skill. New raiders should look at him and say, 'hey, he's hard... maybe we should get some gear and experience from the 25-mans before we try him?' And he should drop two nonset epics, of a quality half a tier higher than the theoretical entry-level 25-man boss.
And so new guilds will say, 'Our goal is to kill Enormous Loot Pinata and then maybe start looking at other raids.' The transition from 25-man to 2x 10-man should be much easier than the transition from 10-man to 25-man. Because having to scrape together people for Gruul's from your two Kara teams, for lack of a better word, sucks. If you start with a proper 25-man raiding force, then you don't need to worry about that. You can keep progressing right from the start. You can start with Enormous Loot Pinata, then you'll immediately be able to walk into Naxx. Well, you say, we don't have the tanks for Patchwerk yet. I hear that Anub'rekhan is pretty easy - and he does drop those sexy tier 9 gloves! Okay fellows, let's do it. And then you're working through Naxx, and then you kill Kel'Thuzad and you can start working through Azjol'Nerub.
All in all, I think that 10-mans should sort of be off to the side in the logical progression of WLK. Like where ZA is now. You can start ZA if you can kill Nightbane regularly - it's hard, but it's doable. Likewise, you can start Gruul's Lair if you have two groups who can kill Nightbane regularly. In WLK, you should start the first 10-man if you can kill Enormous Loot Pinata regularly. You can start the second 10-man if you can kill Kel'thuzad or the boss of the first 10-man regularly. Et cetera.
Looks like I've rambled on a bit again, repeating myself for the most part. Oh well. Perhaps I shouldn't post when I'm mostly asleep.
Wednesday, 23 January 2008
The four-GCD rule.
Okay, so I decided to start throwing together notes on how I heal as a tree druid, in the hopes that someone will read it and be a better healer for it. If I get enough of these together I may compile them into a guide and post them on the Druid forums. At any rate, here's the first one.
Something I've learned when healing as a Druid is that you're somewhat restricted by refreshing your lifeblooms periodically. This is just how it is for us; by no means should you not stack lifeblooms on the tanks, but it is necessary to learn how to heal around them. The 7-second duration of lifebloom means that you'll get four GCDs, plus an extra second or so of slack time, in each rotation. The slack time means that if you're quick and have minimal lag (speaking from an Australian point of view; minimal lag is ~200 ms over here) you can use Regrowth in these rotations instead of an instant cast, however you're more likely to lose your lifebloom stack.
When you're healing one tank, you should lifebloom him every fourth cast.
i.e. Lifebloom, free, free, free, Lifebloom, free, free, free
Two tanks just adds a second lifebloom in every rotation.
i.e. Lifebloom 1, Lifebloom 2, free, free, Lifebloom 1, Lifebloom 2, free, free
Replace these free GCDs with rejuvenation, regrowth, swiftmend, or lifebloom (for raid heals).
Remember than NSHT takes two GCDs (one to cast HT, one to shift back into tree form) but shifting back isn't urgent.
Don't be afraid to let your lifeblooms expire (especially now that trinketing lifeblooms doesn't work) - a bloom for ~1.4k, swiftmend for ~3.5k, NSHT for ~5k can save a tank's life in two GCDs, and bringing your lifebloom stacks up again isn't mana-intensive. However, you'll get more overall HPS and HPM from keeping them rolling than letting them bloom.
To switch from healing one tank to healing two, it's best to refresh your lifebloom on the first tank, then stack three on the second, then immediately refresh the stack on the first again. This will make the new tank the first tank in your rotation. (A situation where this is used is on the Bear boss in ZA, as he switches from bear form to troll form).
Anyway, that's all I can think of for now, so I'm off.
Something I've learned when healing as a Druid is that you're somewhat restricted by refreshing your lifeblooms periodically. This is just how it is for us; by no means should you not stack lifeblooms on the tanks, but it is necessary to learn how to heal around them. The 7-second duration of lifebloom means that you'll get four GCDs, plus an extra second or so of slack time, in each rotation. The slack time means that if you're quick and have minimal lag (speaking from an Australian point of view; minimal lag is ~200 ms over here) you can use Regrowth in these rotations instead of an instant cast, however you're more likely to lose your lifebloom stack.
When you're healing one tank, you should lifebloom him every fourth cast.
i.e. Lifebloom, free, free, free, Lifebloom, free, free, free
Two tanks just adds a second lifebloom in every rotation.
i.e. Lifebloom 1, Lifebloom 2, free, free, Lifebloom 1, Lifebloom 2, free, free
Replace these free GCDs with rejuvenation, regrowth, swiftmend, or lifebloom (for raid heals).
Remember than NSHT takes two GCDs (one to cast HT, one to shift back into tree form) but shifting back isn't urgent.
Don't be afraid to let your lifeblooms expire (especially now that trinketing lifeblooms doesn't work) - a bloom for ~1.4k, swiftmend for ~3.5k, NSHT for ~5k can save a tank's life in two GCDs, and bringing your lifebloom stacks up again isn't mana-intensive. However, you'll get more overall HPS and HPM from keeping them rolling than letting them bloom.
To switch from healing one tank to healing two, it's best to refresh your lifebloom on the first tank, then stack three on the second, then immediately refresh the stack on the first again. This will make the new tank the first tank in your rotation. (A situation where this is used is on the Bear boss in ZA, as he switches from bear form to troll form).
Anyway, that's all I can think of for now, so I'm off.
Tuesday, 22 January 2008
Progression!
Raid starts. We'd cleared Lurker and Tidewalker on a previous night, as well as had about three attempts on Leo.
Leo down attempt #2.
Awesome! says everyone. Let's go attempt another boss!
FLK down. Attempt... #7? I forget.
Considering that about half the raid (including me) had never seen either of the bosses before Mantra...
Damn good night.
:D
Leo down attempt #2.
Awesome! says everyone. Let's go attempt another boss!
FLK down. Attempt... #7? I forget.
Considering that about half the raid (including me) had never seen either of the bosses before Mantra...
Damn good night.
:D
Wednesday, 16 January 2008
Why I raid
Morogrim down and the start of learning Solarian, and I rediscover the two reasons why I raid.
The first is the first kill - seeing all the learning we'd been doing pull together and almost flawlessly executing a boss fight that neither the guild, or me personally, had ever seen downed.
The second is new content. Not necessarily a new zone, just a new room, new trash, new boss. Not wiping to the trash in Solarian's bit of TK while learning it was a great feeling - we were winging it, and we were winning. And we got two vortices and an epic from it, which was nice, but that's beside the point. Also, pulling Solarian for the first time, seeing my first new 25-man boss since my old Horde guild started working on Morogrim, which was... four? months ago, was awesome.
And the fact that we seem to be getting at least one progression kill per week makes me think we'll be in tier 6 content before too long. That's what I want from this game. I want to be a top raider, whatever my role or class, and I want to contribute to first kills of bosses that are considered to be the hardest in the game, and for once, that feels as if it's in reach for me. Perhaps Kael'thas will stop us like he apparently does to so many guilds, but I don't know. I have a good feeling.
On another note, we cleared Hex Lord and Zul'jin in the same night recently - while that was good, 10-man kills can't compare to 25-man kills in the feeling of victory they bring - and I scored [Staff of Primal Fury] from Malacrass. However, my cat gear (and maybe my bear gear) is now better than my healing gear, if not as well socketed/enchanted. Irritation abounds.
On Zul'jin: Most FUN encounter I have done in a while. Especially phases 3 and 4. First and second phases were very easy (PerfectRaid's buff display system makes healing the Grievous Throw very very easy, and we had two cleanses and a dispel for the paralysis). Phase 3 was the toughie for us.
Phase 3 Zul'jin somehow manages to simultaneously makes me want to beat my head against a wall and to be the best new concept for a boss fight ever. For the unfamiliar, in phase 3 Zul'jin transforms into an eagle and flies to the center of the platform, where he starts making some kind of energy storm. This is channeled or something, so he doesn't actually attack for this phase. Four whirlwinds fly around the platform, randomly targeting people - they deal about 900 - 1100 damage and knock you back if they touch you - and (here's the thing) whenever anyone casts a spell, they receive 1250 nature damage. A spell is anything you can't cast while silenced, so most Hunter abilities don't count.
When I first read up on this phase, I was like 'how the hell do I heal through this?' Once I got used to the way damage is dealt in this phase, I started using only Rejuvenation to keep people alive, which seemed to work. I would pretty much keep Rejuvenation constantly on myself, Swiftmend if I dropped below ~4k, and cast Rejuv on anyone with a relatively high health defecit. However, I had to stop myself reflexively HoTing myself when I was very low - that would of course get me killed by the energy storm - and had to think to use a healthstone, a potion, or wait for one of the other healers to get around to me.
Annoying, however, was being ganged up on by three tornadoes one of our attempts - they all hit me for ~1k, I get knocked back into the fence, fall into them again, get hit again for ~1k, etc. Luckily a healthstone, some fleeing, and the other healers got me out of that alive. Still, even though we had the phase down pat, it kept me completely switched on - watching my health, the raid's health, my mana, my cooldowns, looking out for tornadoes, and doing mental math in my head between GCDs (can I afford to heal that guy? should I heal myself next?) made it an intense fight for me.
Phase 4 requires intense healing as well, but in a different way. While phase 3 could be called a test of how much you can not heal, phase 4 is definitely a test of how much you can heal. Lynx form Zul'jin has two main abilities - Claw Rage and Lynx Rush.
When he uses Claw Rage, he dashes to a random person in the raid (RSTS I think) and starts meleeing them. The first hit does roughly 500 damage, the next 650, the next 800, and so on - this adds up to about 16k damage in about six seconds. Which means that the healers have to be on their toes to react to this abilities, and be able to spam heals on the target.
The second ability is Lynx Rush, which he uses a little less than Claw Rage. When he uses Lynx Rush, he dashes to nine random members of the raid in quick succession, dealing ~2.2k (mitigated by armour) instant damage and another 7500 over 10 seconds, which means the healers need to be able to top everyone off before the next Claw Rage or Lynx Rush to ensure everyone stays alive. So phase 4 is both a raid healing check and a focused healing check. Fun stuff.
Phase 5 Zul'jin is somewhat of a disappointment, but I suppose if they made it too hard then people would get tired of clearing through the first four phases to wipe on the last over and over. He sorta breathes fire on everyone, and makes pillars of fire you have to move out of or you'll die. Not difficult really.
Huh. I wrote a lot more than I intended to. Oh well.
The first is the first kill - seeing all the learning we'd been doing pull together and almost flawlessly executing a boss fight that neither the guild, or me personally, had ever seen downed.
The second is new content. Not necessarily a new zone, just a new room, new trash, new boss. Not wiping to the trash in Solarian's bit of TK while learning it was a great feeling - we were winging it, and we were winning. And we got two vortices and an epic from it, which was nice, but that's beside the point. Also, pulling Solarian for the first time, seeing my first new 25-man boss since my old Horde guild started working on Morogrim, which was... four? months ago, was awesome.
And the fact that we seem to be getting at least one progression kill per week makes me think we'll be in tier 6 content before too long. That's what I want from this game. I want to be a top raider, whatever my role or class, and I want to contribute to first kills of bosses that are considered to be the hardest in the game, and for once, that feels as if it's in reach for me. Perhaps Kael'thas will stop us like he apparently does to so many guilds, but I don't know. I have a good feeling.
On another note, we cleared Hex Lord and Zul'jin in the same night recently - while that was good, 10-man kills can't compare to 25-man kills in the feeling of victory they bring - and I scored [Staff of Primal Fury] from Malacrass. However, my cat gear (and maybe my bear gear) is now better than my healing gear, if not as well socketed/enchanted. Irritation abounds.
On Zul'jin: Most FUN encounter I have done in a while. Especially phases 3 and 4. First and second phases were very easy (PerfectRaid's buff display system makes healing the Grievous Throw very very easy, and we had two cleanses and a dispel for the paralysis). Phase 3 was the toughie for us.
Phase 3 Zul'jin somehow manages to simultaneously makes me want to beat my head against a wall and to be the best new concept for a boss fight ever. For the unfamiliar, in phase 3 Zul'jin transforms into an eagle and flies to the center of the platform, where he starts making some kind of energy storm. This is channeled or something, so he doesn't actually attack for this phase. Four whirlwinds fly around the platform, randomly targeting people - they deal about 900 - 1100 damage and knock you back if they touch you - and (here's the thing) whenever anyone casts a spell, they receive 1250 nature damage. A spell is anything you can't cast while silenced, so most Hunter abilities don't count.
When I first read up on this phase, I was like 'how the hell do I heal through this?' Once I got used to the way damage is dealt in this phase, I started using only Rejuvenation to keep people alive, which seemed to work. I would pretty much keep Rejuvenation constantly on myself, Swiftmend if I dropped below ~4k, and cast Rejuv on anyone with a relatively high health defecit. However, I had to stop myself reflexively HoTing myself when I was very low - that would of course get me killed by the energy storm - and had to think to use a healthstone, a potion, or wait for one of the other healers to get around to me.
Annoying, however, was being ganged up on by three tornadoes one of our attempts - they all hit me for ~1k, I get knocked back into the fence, fall into them again, get hit again for ~1k, etc. Luckily a healthstone, some fleeing, and the other healers got me out of that alive. Still, even though we had the phase down pat, it kept me completely switched on - watching my health, the raid's health, my mana, my cooldowns, looking out for tornadoes, and doing mental math in my head between GCDs (can I afford to heal that guy? should I heal myself next?) made it an intense fight for me.
Phase 4 requires intense healing as well, but in a different way. While phase 3 could be called a test of how much you can not heal, phase 4 is definitely a test of how much you can heal. Lynx form Zul'jin has two main abilities - Claw Rage and Lynx Rush.
When he uses Claw Rage, he dashes to a random person in the raid (RSTS I think) and starts meleeing them. The first hit does roughly 500 damage, the next 650, the next 800, and so on - this adds up to about 16k damage in about six seconds. Which means that the healers have to be on their toes to react to this abilities, and be able to spam heals on the target.
The second ability is Lynx Rush, which he uses a little less than Claw Rage. When he uses Lynx Rush, he dashes to nine random members of the raid in quick succession, dealing ~2.2k (mitigated by armour) instant damage and another 7500 over 10 seconds, which means the healers need to be able to top everyone off before the next Claw Rage or Lynx Rush to ensure everyone stays alive. So phase 4 is both a raid healing check and a focused healing check. Fun stuff.
Phase 5 Zul'jin is somewhat of a disappointment, but I suppose if they made it too hard then people would get tired of clearing through the first four phases to wipe on the last over and over. He sorta breathes fire on everyone, and makes pillars of fire you have to move out of or you'll die. Not difficult really.
Huh. I wrote a lot more than I intended to. Oh well.
Sunday, 13 January 2008
Timed loot
Woot, Eagle timed loot. First time for us. We didn't screw anything major up on the way to Halazzi, we were about to start pulling the mobs on the inside of his temple when the prisoner was executed. I reckon higher DPS is all we need. The [Signet of the Quiet Forest] will be mine!
Even though it has haste on it.
Grr @ haste.
Even though it has haste on it.
Grr @ haste.
Saturday, 12 January 2008
The greenshunter strikes back!
So a while ago I was running normal Steamvaults for the key fragment for my RL friend Kathoon (/wave if you're reading this). He was my main tank when I was raiding on my mage; he also has a lot more raid experience than I do, by virtue of being in the #1 guild on Barthilas pre-BC. (three bosses in Naxx down, I believe it was). We rerolled at the same time, but because I'm online a lot more I hit 70 long before he did. Hence, he needs the Kara key, whereas I'm off cavorting about in T5 instances. Hehe, cavorting.
Since it's well nigh impossible to pug nonheroic 5-mans on Caelestrasz, there were a couple of guildies in the group. I think we ended up with me tanking, since I was feral for the day to farm, a holy priest guildy healing, a holy-respecced-ret-for-the-run paladin guildy, the greenshunter in question, and a pug DPS whose class I can't recall. The run went smoothly, we got some shards and the key fragment. Anyway, partway through the run our paladin says to me, 'So how come you don't get Kathoon in as a friend of the guild?' since we have a rank specifically for that.
I blinked a couple of times and said, 'uh... I don't know.' Few minutes later, sure enough, he was enjoying a guild tag. Go figure.
Anyway, we were in TK about a week later, clearing to VR for our free T5 shoulders, and our ret paladin (not the same one), who's pretty sick, says he has to go. Fair enough, he wasn't planning to come that night anyway.
That leaves us one DPS short. Hmm. We didn't have any hunters in the raid.
So here's this hunter, wearing mostly greens, shooting stuff with [Lohn'goron, Bow of the Torn-heart] (he upgraded to [Valanos' Longbow] when it dropped from one of the packs in VR's room), getting his level 67 ravager sawblade'd and pounding'd, misdirect pulling all this raid trash that pretty much kills him if it sneezes on him, and showing a lot of us up by not dying to arcane orbs and stuff. Next day, we're doing Lurker and we're short on people again, so we grab him and mid-raid he gets promoted to Trial status.
Of course, he's not attuned to Kara.
We were going to do Black Morass today, but it was so damned hot I stayed in bed, dozing and sweating (sometimes simultaneously) until four-thity in the afternoon, and I haven't been on since. Hopefully they ran without me so he could get some gear from Kara this week.
Of course, my biggest spot of irritation is that he outdpsed my kitty dps in Durnholde. I'm mostly purple in my cat set. Grr.
In other news: RIP rolling Lifeblooms. You shall be missed.
Since it's well nigh impossible to pug nonheroic 5-mans on Caelestrasz, there were a couple of guildies in the group. I think we ended up with me tanking, since I was feral for the day to farm, a holy priest guildy healing, a holy-respecced-ret-for-the-run paladin guildy, the greenshunter in question, and a pug DPS whose class I can't recall. The run went smoothly, we got some shards and the key fragment. Anyway, partway through the run our paladin says to me, 'So how come you don't get Kathoon in as a friend of the guild?' since we have a rank specifically for that.
I blinked a couple of times and said, 'uh... I don't know.' Few minutes later, sure enough, he was enjoying a guild tag. Go figure.
Anyway, we were in TK about a week later, clearing to VR for our free T5 shoulders, and our ret paladin (not the same one), who's pretty sick, says he has to go. Fair enough, he wasn't planning to come that night anyway.
That leaves us one DPS short. Hmm. We didn't have any hunters in the raid.
So here's this hunter, wearing mostly greens, shooting stuff with [Lohn'goron, Bow of the Torn-heart] (he upgraded to [Valanos' Longbow] when it dropped from one of the packs in VR's room), getting his level 67 ravager sawblade'd and pounding'd, misdirect pulling all this raid trash that pretty much kills him if it sneezes on him, and showing a lot of us up by not dying to arcane orbs and stuff. Next day, we're doing Lurker and we're short on people again, so we grab him and mid-raid he gets promoted to Trial status.
Of course, he's not attuned to Kara.
We were going to do Black Morass today, but it was so damned hot I stayed in bed, dozing and sweating (sometimes simultaneously) until four-thity in the afternoon, and I haven't been on since. Hopefully they ran without me so he could get some gear from Kara this week.
Of course, my biggest spot of irritation is that he outdpsed my kitty dps in Durnholde. I'm mostly purple in my cat set. Grr.
In other news: RIP rolling Lifeblooms. You shall be missed.
Monday, 7 January 2008
Tuesday, 1 January 2008
Badges!
So I finally got the last of the 75 badges I needed for my healing legs ([Pants of Splendid Recovery] ftw!), and I said to myself 'well, I think I'll start collecting feral gear now.' Then I looked through the gear I would need to get from badges to have a decent tanking set.
395 badges.
Three hundred and ninety five.
Sweet jesus.
Then I'll need more for cat gear.
Sweet zombie jesus on a stick.
Okay, math time. Karazhan clear every week - 22 badges - plus the daily heroic every day (average 3 + 2 badges per day, 35 per week), plus another heroic every day (average 3 badges per day, 21 per week). That comes to 78 badges per week. 395 / 78 = 5.1 weeks.
That's ages.
Even if I get a couple of badges from ZA and do a third (!) heroic every day, that's still a fair while.
And if I want to get some moonkin gear as well...
Badges badges fucking badges.
395 badges.
Three hundred and ninety five.
Sweet jesus.
Then I'll need more for cat gear.
Sweet zombie jesus on a stick.
Okay, math time. Karazhan clear every week - 22 badges - plus the daily heroic every day (average 3 + 2 badges per day, 35 per week), plus another heroic every day (average 3 badges per day, 21 per week). That comes to 78 badges per week. 395 / 78 = 5.1 weeks.
That's ages.
Even if I get a couple of badges from ZA and do a third (!) heroic every day, that's still a fair while.
And if I want to get some moonkin gear as well...
Badges badges fucking badges.
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