Brewfest Complete!

So I guess it takes an insurmountable effort of bitching, whining, and moaning to actually get anything done in this game. I've been complaining and complaining about not getting loot and mounts ALL week, and that ALL I needed was the Swift Brewfest Ram to drop so I wouldn't have any other reason to log in until raid, which by the way is going great.

I've really really been meaning to do the Celestial Pet Tourney for baby Xuen, but...levelling a second Chrominius/Anubisath/Snail is just....bah, I'd rather level and quest in Final Fantasy 14, which is where I've been hiding lately!

So lo and behold, as I am cycling toons with my friend in our Coren Direbrew slaughter, a Ram drops!

Done Brewfest forever!

Truny the Ramful

Thoughts on Flex Raid

Good Evening!

So we cleared Flex on Saturday. Whoopdeedoo useless content-level cleared up to date. Elitist snark aside, Flex is something that i've been looking forward to ever since our bored escapades during Cataclysm.

What? Yes. We would get together a small task group and run some old raids for achieves and what-not and it was casual and half-brainless FUN.

Wait what? Did you say FUN?

Then LFR gets released in Cata, and now we are stuck with running a dumbed down current content with 24 other assholes. Why? People are mean and bad and do mean bad things.

So we ask for a localized "things", scenarios, heroic scenarios popped up on stage. Things are looking promising. Now Flex hits, pure localized LFR with the illusion of being harder than LFR. I'm not sure about you but I'm not sure I want to categorize mindlessly easy into two categories. Anything easier than normal is just that, easy.

We blasted through and got some gear, a LOT of gear actually, more than I've ever seen in many many weeks of when I used to run LFR last year.

For a decent competent group, Flex provides the base acceptable level of challenge all while encompassing the long forgotten factor of "fun".

How do we define fun? Well clearing bosses is fun, without smashing our keyboards in. Leave that to the players who matter, the heroic raiders.

Anyways, luckily the servers completely crashed last night so my 2nd Flex run (with the other guild) was cut short. Thank goodness, cause I would rather level my Thaumaturge in FF than do Flex garbage twice a week.

Wait what? Garbage? I thought you liked Flex?

Well yes, but it's only fun the first time, now let's get moving on to doing the "real" thing. Except reg no longer matters anyways. Hmm....conflicted!

ANYWAYS, tonight we are heading into Regular SoO and from the looks of the mechanics build this new raid is tuned waaaay below how ToT and T13 started out. Easy gear? Probably.

Turny the Flexible Tree Who Didn't Even Do Flex With His Tree

More Thoughts on 5.4

Hello!

Timeless Isle

After spending a bit more time on the Timeless Isle stalking Celestials on my alts, i've become curious on two aspects, in game and as a player.

In game, what does Orodos, the god that the Yaungol worship have anything to do with this mysterious time-locked island?

As a player, is this patch for me? It seems ridiculously "casual", with all the rares and vanity items and 496 garbage. On a "casual" basis, this is great. Run around, tag some mobs get some coins, camp out Huolon for his mount occasionally. But in terms of "progression" it seems it's...go raid or shut up.

The only two activities worth doing weekly are the celestial(s), and Ordos. Except I appear to be the only player to have gotten a shitty 540 glove off Ordos while everyone walked away with TWO 559 war-forged. Go figure, now I have to push my incinerate button a bit harder to catch up to them.

I'm not sure what all the fuss is about with everyone running around. What is their motivation? Are they all fresh 90s? Who the hell would even want 496s? Alts to the level of being unplayed that's what. Like, my rogue and priest whom i've barely used, they could use a piece or two but that's about it.

The timeless coins gets us a nice trinket, considering how lucky i've been with drop rates, when the time comes that i get 50,000 coins i will pick up that +9500 crit for 20 seconds trinket to replace the old haste one. But that's it.

I guess there are achievements to be got, but, I think i've stopped caring.

Proving Grounds

Who is THIS new thing targetted towards? Do I really have to prove myself? I've already ranked in several real dps fights, is this going to be hard? Is it like doing Kan'rethad Ebonlocke? I see mobs with 500k HP, will it just be like questing in the vale where destro locks can just gather up 45 mobs and Fire and Brimstone them down in 5 seconds?

Speaking of green fire, our Dreadsteeds now turn green if you have the tome's ability turned on!

Celestial Tournament

I think as I recover from my lack of sleep, my brain is slowly starting to accept the fact that I will actually have to use it to plan out "teams" for taking those drasted tournament fighters. Maybe this weekend maybe, I mean we didn't level 75 pets to level 25 for that stupid grasshopper for nothing right?

Truny the Lazy

Warlock T-16 Bonuses

Timeless Isle

Ahh so yesterday was exciting wasn't it? The Timeless Isle aka Gong Show Island opened up and everyone and their mother and their dog were there kiling anything that moved and generally being very confused.

Well I was very confused. Why the shit would I waste time gathering garbage 496 or vanity items to waste my bag space? What's with these stupid coins used to buy stupid items? I wanted my tier.

It was very confusing, I flew to the Timeless Isle and I saw a poor giant shark being beaten upon. Poor shark. I joined in and immediately got some garbage item and 1,466 timeless coins. Well.

Then there was talk of Ordos. Ordos must be the new world boss something to do with legendary cape something to do with gear. Ok how the fuck do I get there? I need a cape? How? What quest? I aint got time for that.

Then I saw Niuzao fighting some people so I joined in and got tier gloves! Well now I don't have to log in until next week! This was also a direct upgrade from my T15 gloves since stupid freaking dark animus and twins would NOT drop a fourth piece for me all of last tier.

Warlock T-16 Bonuses

So down to business, let's talk tier bonuses, something that I haven't done in a very long time.

Please note my bias will be 90% towards Destro and 10% Demo and 5% Affliction (we always give it more than our all!)

Two piece: Conflagrate has a 20% chance to increase the critical strike chance of Immolate and Incinerate by 15%. Unstable Affliction critical hits have a 40% chance to increase all damaging effects of Malefic Grasp and Drain Soul by 30% for 10 sec. Soul Fire has a 20% chance to increase you and your pet's damage dealt by 20%.

Four piece: When a Burning Ember fills up, your critical strike chance is increased by 15% for 5 sec. Haunt has a 20% chance to refund its shard when expiring. Shadow Bolt and Touch of Chaos have a 20% chance to also cast Hand of Gul'dan at the targe

2P Comments: This is kind of boring kind of interesting but a not so bad passive. So say your crit is 25%, a fifth of a quarter of a time your nukes have a 40% chance of critting. So of course if that procs AND immolate is dropping off or is not up, then use it, otherwise incinerate. Whatever. As for Demo, casting Soulfire is now an extra little bonus to watch out for to maximize that little damage bonus.

4P Comments: Now this is interesting, so with the reduction of embers from RoF, we still occasionally fill up an extra ember while using DS and CB spam. So now we want to REALLY watch out for those extra embers filling up during DS, perhaps cycling conflag + incinerates to fish for double ember bits. I'll let you know if I ever manage to get a 4P. This set entices me to start stacking crit over not-so-much-crit, as to leave haste as it is. Perhaps haste shall be completely wiped off my gear. We will see.

Back to the Island

So other than getting tier, which is pretty much the only value of this new island, there are other weird activities which I have managed to actually SEE amongst the throes of a thousand curious players.

Lil Oondasta. Dang this guy hits like a truck and totally wiped out my Darkmoon Faire team. I switched to three mechanical pets: Robo Chicken, Clockwork Gnome, and Darkmoon Zeppelin and he died fairly easily. Easy 500 coins.

Celestial Tournament: I took a spin in here but didn't realize I couldn't heal so I wasted all my good pets on the first 3 fights. I currently don't have the patience or brain power to work out teams and can't be bothered to switch pets so I will check this out in a few weeks.

Shaohao: I have no fucking clue how to start getting rep with this guy. So then I logged out.

Truny the Quitter.

Saying Goodbye to the Vale

What can I say it's been a great run. I think we as members of the evaporating Horde have learned a lot about ourselves. We were born to fight and having since adventured so extensively upon the mysterious land of Pandaria I think we've found the answer to the question" "What is worth fighting for?"

Bullshit drop-rate gear that never ever drops that's what!

No just kidding.

We just finished off our very last Lei Shen kill of the tier, and I'd have to say this last run through I am not going to miss any of the 12 bosses and their bullshit drop rates. Just joking again. Can you sense the bitterness?

I think it's officially time to say goodbye to the Vale. Goodbye to the days of farming for Alani's poop pieces, goodbye to lazily mining ghost iron, goodbye to dailies which we can now finish in 5 minutes by pulling every single mob in the zone and using Fire and Brimstone to mow them down like the scum that they are.

We will be busy next patch. Our "boss" Garrosh is up to no good and he must be stopped before he consumes all of Kalimdor, and soon, the whole of Azeroth. I just have to ask, where the fuck were we when he dug up the heart of Ysarrj? I know where, NOT logged in or busy taking down Lei Shen that's where! Why didn't Taran Zhu call us? Or text us?

I have no news of the patch that will hit tomorrow other than a brief idea of what I will be doing: Collecting the new pets, and first priority is finishing off my Val'anyr, Hammer of the Ancient Kings (separate post pending once we finish).

I also know what I will NOT be doing next patch:

1. LFR. No more LFR. It ruins the raiding experience in that my very first exposure to a new raid is now shared with 24 idiots rather than competent people whom I'd like to actually raid with.

Oh wait, remember what happened in this expansion? LFR is pretty much the only "content" we have so....well...that's the 1 thing I am not doing. Perhaps I will take a leisurely stroll through this new "Timeless Isle" people are talking about. We will see we will see.

In other news, game cameo: Does anyone else play a mobile game called Defender of Texel? It's a little RPG i've been playing, you know...your typical collect 9 pixel fighters, place them onto a 3 x 3 grid, swipe them for glory type of thing. Here's a little gif I made of one of the legendary fighters, Nanaya, the Legendary Cannon Crab.

"I'm a crab with a cannon on my head. Your argument is invalid"

Truny the Invalid