Yesterday was still a holiday for us in lieu of Boxing Day and so we queued up early into the LFR rage machine.
Two different stories. Our Siege of Wyrmrest was full of hate, rage, and contempt. So like every other group out there. We had a small group who were ninja pulling the bosses and people rolling on tokens they didn't need and holding them hostage. Though none of us gave them the pleasure of our attention and went home tokenless.
We were still kind of shocked at how rude some people can be or perhaps they were just a pre-made group out to spread malice and trollocity (that is a word), but seriously I think there should be a way to just punch someone in the teeth through computer screens. Then I'll break their fingers and apologize profusely because I'm Canadian.
We then queued for the last four bosses and....holy crap the drakes on Ultraxion were taunted down ASAP, everyone but 3 people clicked their buttons, EVERYONE stacked on twilight purple thing without being told, EVERYONE only killed one tentacle and didn't go balls to the walls DPS and we one shotted deathwing without even having to use a single battle res. Though my DK and his very horrible frost-dps did very horrible didn't end up with a single upgrade (that rule still implies, the worst performers win everything), the smooth run made up for it. It was the season of giving for my little undead, our resident mage won a helm token and to help him finish his 2 piece I gave up my legs from the earlier Siege of Ragerest Temple and I had half-assedly rolled on the blood sipper sword and won from Deathwing but decided that frost is just way too boring and that a friendly paladin tank could make much more use of it than me.
tl;dr: The LFR grouping gods do exist, and one day you may get that one perfect group!
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Wonderful Friends: Trinkets
We all have and use and seek out powerful trinkets to aid us in downing the various baddies of Azeroth, but have we ever stopped and thought about what exactly these trinkets are?
Trinkets are probably some of the most powerful "things" out there. Think about the Darkmoone cards, a simple card that increases your stats significantly and some of them also have great magical bonuses or even a damage componenet. Do we carry these cards in our pockets or do we hold them out front and centre in battle so their effects could be utilized?
There are typicall three characteristics of trinkets:
Static Stats: Be it a straight up stamina/agi/int bonus, just by holding this item increases your personal power.
On Equip Effects: Be it a haste/mastery/spell/summoning proc, these trinkets somehow symbiotically link themselves to the user and react upon the user's actions when in combat.
On Use Effect: These trinkets grant us further bonuses however we must "activate" them. How do we activate them? I can imagine we crack them open or perhaps tap them three times, or maybe they are clap activated? Voice activated?
Real Life Trinkets:
1. Watch - On Use: Tell the time. +538 hit.
2. Lucky Charm - No Real Effect.
3. Mobile Phone - On Equip: Chance to make noises.
Real Life Trinkets That Resemble WoW Trinkets:
1. Lighter: On Use: Do 5 Fire Damage.
2. Headphones. On Use: Chance to absorb 100% of all sound until cancelled.
Okay I don't even know what the hell I was talking about anymore so I'm just going to end this post. Goodbye!
Truny and Trinkets?
Trinkets are probably some of the most powerful "things" out there. Think about the Darkmoone cards, a simple card that increases your stats significantly and some of them also have great magical bonuses or even a damage componenet. Do we carry these cards in our pockets or do we hold them out front and centre in battle so their effects could be utilized?
There are typicall three characteristics of trinkets:
Static Stats: Be it a straight up stamina/agi/int bonus, just by holding this item increases your personal power.
On Equip Effects: Be it a haste/mastery/spell/summoning proc, these trinkets somehow symbiotically link themselves to the user and react upon the user's actions when in combat.
On Use Effect: These trinkets grant us further bonuses however we must "activate" them. How do we activate them? I can imagine we crack them open or perhaps tap them three times, or maybe they are clap activated? Voice activated?
Real Life Trinkets:
1. Watch - On Use: Tell the time. +538 hit.
2. Lucky Charm - No Real Effect.
3. Mobile Phone - On Equip: Chance to make noises.
Real Life Trinkets That Resemble WoW Trinkets:
1. Lighter: On Use: Do 5 Fire Damage.
2. Headphones. On Use: Chance to absorb 100% of all sound until cancelled.
Okay I don't even know what the hell I was talking about anymore so I'm just going to end this post. Goodbye!
Truny and Trinkets?
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Nerf X Class! Rage!
That's pretty much my reaction to everything that happens in battlegrounds. Why am I talking about PVP? Well, this is due to that "My Little Helpers Helped Me Do Something Kill 50 People As A Gnome" achievement that I had finished up a couple days ago and I saw how very very useful the hunter T13 2-piece bonus is for the extra focus. But anyways:
"Nerf dks! They are MOVING! And they attack!"
"Nerf mages! Seriously, ice block? Nerf ice block! It makes you totally invincible that is totally unfair! Frost nova AND a pet freeze? So I have to hope that they use BOTH of these on me before I break out of 'em and just eat their weak frostbolts?"
"Nerf warlocks! They have too many dots, how am I supposed to get rid of them??"
"Nerf rogues! Stealth is too OP, nerf stealth!"
"Nerf hunters! Who the heck is allowed to attack to powerfully at ranged??" (Yes, all classes get treated fairly who attack me)
"Nerf druids! They don't really pose that much of a threat but I am attacking them so just nerf them so they die faster!"
"Nerf priests! Absorbs and totally immune to every single type of damage and a fear and slow built into every single attack that they have? They are immortal!"
"Nerf warriors! Let me be able to kite them even easier! They shouldn't be able to hit me with their weapons wtf?
"Nerf pallies! Their attacks are too shiny and seriously, after bubble wears off they end up dying anyways!"
"Nerf shamans!" Their totems are too useful and I want a chain lightning effect, it's too cool, nerf its coolness!"
Though in all honesty, with a hunter who knows what they're doing, and say that minimum range gets removed...hunters will be honestly OP as hell. Maybe let our attacks only do 75% damage in the deadzone? Or 100%, whatever, up to you! I look forward to finally FINALLY completing the Violet Protodrake achieve next year as my last last last achievement is "School of Hard Knocks", which I had avoided like the Violet Plague due to the pvp "things" that I had to do.
P.S. Is it just me or do we all feel that our pets need their own "Master's Call", which breaks US from our roots to free THEM? Would that be too OP? Well it won't be until it's used against my non-existant frost-mage!
Turby the Nerfed
"Nerf dks! They are MOVING! And they attack!"
"Nerf mages! Seriously, ice block? Nerf ice block! It makes you totally invincible that is totally unfair! Frost nova AND a pet freeze? So I have to hope that they use BOTH of these on me before I break out of 'em and just eat their weak frostbolts?"
"Nerf warlocks! They have too many dots, how am I supposed to get rid of them??"
"Nerf rogues! Stealth is too OP, nerf stealth!"
"Nerf hunters! Who the heck is allowed to attack to powerfully at ranged??" (Yes, all classes get treated fairly who attack me)
"Nerf druids! They don't really pose that much of a threat but I am attacking them so just nerf them so they die faster!"
"Nerf priests! Absorbs and totally immune to every single type of damage and a fear and slow built into every single attack that they have? They are immortal!"
"Nerf warriors! Let me be able to kite them even easier! They shouldn't be able to hit me with their weapons wtf?
"Nerf pallies! Their attacks are too shiny and seriously, after bubble wears off they end up dying anyways!"
"Nerf shamans!" Their totems are too useful and I want a chain lightning effect, it's too cool, nerf its coolness!"
Though in all honesty, with a hunter who knows what they're doing, and say that minimum range gets removed...hunters will be honestly OP as hell. Maybe let our attacks only do 75% damage in the deadzone? Or 100%, whatever, up to you! I look forward to finally FINALLY completing the Violet Protodrake achieve next year as my last last last achievement is "School of Hard Knocks", which I had avoided like the Violet Plague due to the pvp "things" that I had to do.
P.S. Is it just me or do we all feel that our pets need their own "Master's Call", which breaks US from our roots to free THEM? Would that be too OP? Well it won't be until it's used against my non-existant frost-mage!
Turby the Nerfed
Ridiculous Idea: Play Melee
I think it's the Christmas spirit getting to me that I've been having these wild and wacky thoughts all day: that I would level up and play some sort of melee dps. Say what?
I already have my DK, if it were any of my toons all he needs is a few pieces of gear and he'd be able to run LFR and test out the amazing fun that is Frost. I find playing Frost to be highly hypnotic. The potential is there to absolutely dominate on the charts but one thing I found was that it was very very boring. The first few minutes of playing is nice when all your attacks crit and what not, but...yeah no. Essentially all you do is position yourself, then stare at your three buttons, and whichever (is that a word?) lights up, you press it. Of course you have to mind your focus but that doesn't take a lot of brain power. Frost to me is at the point of just pushing buttons to churn out numbers, rather than being an ice cold frosty blade wielding frost..wielder..of..DOOM....
Next! My next highest melee-able character is my pally. She is 75% into level 84 and is currently a tank/healer. I remember being ret once and it was an absolutely horrendous experience. Perhaps one should never ever ever try out a dps spec with the mindset of being super efficient any time before level 85. Things just die too damn fast! Nonetheless in the at most 8 seconds for boss fights, I did top the meters as ret, with what little optimization that I could do but it didn't feel very...fulfilling. You know you are potentially a very good "dps player" when you can out-dps low level tanks. That's the standard I put myself up to. Yes, I've done this..even with a boomkin! Anyways, enough useless bragging. Do I want to give up tanking or healing to become clunky? Well I did see some ret pallies do very well in some of the LFR bosses....but they were probably heroic geared already...so no!
Next up is my rogue. I had a dream I was having fun playing my rogue. WTF? Again as combat/subtlety I can top the charts in the non-important level 72 dungeons that my rogue does, but in everyday use...rogues are horrible for questing. I tried out the assassination tree and OH MY is that clunky as ever or am I missing something? Makes retribution look playable! Subtlety is fun in the sense you get to sneak around but if your ambush doesn't crit then you'll spend the next ten minutes trying to out live your quest mob. Combat...ah combat, everyone and their rogue dog is combat and while it's made for teh fite, I don't think it feels very rogue-like..more akin to a nimble warrior. Or a clumsy ninja. Anyways, any class where I have to "keep up" some useless ability like savage roar or the rogue thing where it makes you attack faster....no thanks I'd prefer to be always attacking rather than waste my combo points thank you. (Aka I'm lazy)
So essentially if I were to have an optimal melee dps, it would be my DK. However...too boring. What happened to the days when we had to setup our diseases then mind our blood strike and watch our unholy/frost rune combos then either proc some death runes or wait for more blood runes or trigger certain combinations?
tl;dr: With my DK, I'm too busy watching my action bar, rather than the game. With my other characters, I can watch TV while playing the game.
*Update: I came to my sense, I'll stick with Prot/Holy on my Paladin
I already have my DK, if it were any of my toons all he needs is a few pieces of gear and he'd be able to run LFR and test out the amazing fun that is Frost. I find playing Frost to be highly hypnotic. The potential is there to absolutely dominate on the charts but one thing I found was that it was very very boring. The first few minutes of playing is nice when all your attacks crit and what not, but...yeah no. Essentially all you do is position yourself, then stare at your three buttons, and whichever (is that a word?) lights up, you press it. Of course you have to mind your focus but that doesn't take a lot of brain power. Frost to me is at the point of just pushing buttons to churn out numbers, rather than being an ice cold frosty blade wielding frost..wielder..of..DOOM....
Next! My next highest melee-able character is my pally. She is 75% into level 84 and is currently a tank/healer. I remember being ret once and it was an absolutely horrendous experience. Perhaps one should never ever ever try out a dps spec with the mindset of being super efficient any time before level 85. Things just die too damn fast! Nonetheless in the at most 8 seconds for boss fights, I did top the meters as ret, with what little optimization that I could do but it didn't feel very...fulfilling. You know you are potentially a very good "dps player" when you can out-dps low level tanks. That's the standard I put myself up to. Yes, I've done this..even with a boomkin! Anyways, enough useless bragging. Do I want to give up tanking or healing to become clunky? Well I did see some ret pallies do very well in some of the LFR bosses....but they were probably heroic geared already...so no!
Next up is my rogue. I had a dream I was having fun playing my rogue. WTF? Again as combat/subtlety I can top the charts in the non-important level 72 dungeons that my rogue does, but in everyday use...rogues are horrible for questing. I tried out the assassination tree and OH MY is that clunky as ever or am I missing something? Makes retribution look playable! Subtlety is fun in the sense you get to sneak around but if your ambush doesn't crit then you'll spend the next ten minutes trying to out live your quest mob. Combat...ah combat, everyone and their rogue dog is combat and while it's made for teh fite, I don't think it feels very rogue-like..more akin to a nimble warrior. Or a clumsy ninja. Anyways, any class where I have to "keep up" some useless ability like savage roar or the rogue thing where it makes you attack faster....no thanks I'd prefer to be always attacking rather than waste my combo points thank you. (Aka I'm lazy)
So essentially if I were to have an optimal melee dps, it would be my DK. However...too boring. What happened to the days when we had to setup our diseases then mind our blood strike and watch our unholy/frost rune combos then either proc some death runes or wait for more blood runes or trigger certain combinations?
tl;dr: With my DK, I'm too busy watching my action bar, rather than the game. With my other characters, I can watch TV while playing the game.
*Update: I came to my sense, I'll stick with Prot/Holy on my Paladin
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Fruitcakes
I was working on some of the pre-Christmas time doable achievements for Merrymaker yesterday, and I realized I had eaten my fruit-cake that is required for ['Tis the Season]. Oops! From reading the forums, from back in 2008, it sounds like we are able to get more from the gifts after the 25th? Or we randomly get presents in the mail? I don't really remember as I rescued Metzen' on four different characters, all receiving random packages which I promptly threw away the useless space-wasting contents. Honestly, what does one do when seeing random junk/food? Throw it away or eat it!
See, when I receive a present, I expect a gift, not low level food. If only I had read through ALL the metas required for Merrymaker. If only the food had been useful, like giving us a special +120 stats, I would have saved them. My toons only eat one single food and that is the Seafood Feast (yes, when I put one down it's cause my food buff ran out not because I'm sharing but....ah crap now everyone knows my secret).
Now I'm not sure if I had received the "Extra Special" gift box that has 20 fruitcakes in it, I may have thrown them all out....or maybe I hadn't....oh well!
Turby the Fruitcake Destroyer
See, when I receive a present, I expect a gift, not low level food. If only I had read through ALL the metas required for Merrymaker. If only the food had been useful, like giving us a special +120 stats, I would have saved them. My toons only eat one single food and that is the Seafood Feast (yes, when I put one down it's cause my food buff ran out not because I'm sharing but....ah crap now everyone knows my secret).
Now I'm not sure if I had received the "Extra Special" gift box that has 20 fruitcakes in it, I may have thrown them all out....or maybe I hadn't....oh well!
Turby the Fruitcake Destroyer
Monday, December 19, 2011
Don't Worry About Me, Worry About Downing the Boss
Sadly I'm going to be a bitch and rat out this hunter in what I would like to call the: We Couldn't Kill Deathwing Drama.
Ok so it wasn't actually that dramatic really. It was an unlucky week for my warlock, no upgrades, but at least she received 500 VP (low standards always works). I needed to do the last 3 bosses in LFR and queued my happy ass in there and everything went smoothly up until Madness. Now when an affliction warlock tops the charts even before anything goes below 25%, you've got problems. I was the only one doing over 45k at this point and of course we did not manage to kill dw's tentacles while killing blisterings faster than he could cast Cataclysm. Three times. Group leaves and reforms and we notice one hunter doing something to the tune of 13k dps. Or was it 15k? Regardless, so low that it's almost not possible unless you actually stop your auto-attacking given all the buffs we get during the encounter.
What I hope was happening behind that computer was someone tabbed out watching the encounter. And not porn. Or dying of a heart attack. He was discovered and a minor discussion ensued about how one could possibly do such low damage. Perhaps he had a really really poor system that rendered all actions useless, perhaps lag spiked to 7,000. Perhaps his dog jumped onto his face during the encounter, knocking everything over. Anyways, they had no excuse except telling us to worry about downing the boss rather than his dps.
True. Very true. We shouldn't be SO judgemental of others. HOWEVER, one key component to actually downing the boss requires everyone to at least be TRYING. At least make your contribution count. At least do more than the tank. (The tank was 9th on the meters in this group, that's how tight we were). At least try to push steady shot more than 2 (or was it 5) times during the encounter? Please? At least TRY, don't get carried, especially not through such brainlessly simple and mind-numbing encounters such as they are exhibited in LFR. Don't even use that as your reason for slacking, just because it is so easy you feel you are able to slack. No it doesn't work like that. Perhaps the top 5 DPS'ers might slack and miss a global cooldown (or not use Demon Soul) or skip a potion, however, they're still probably doing pretty damn good and no one would even notice.
Regardless of the reason for such underperformance, and how you judge us judging your performance, it just wasn't enough. If there was any external reason preventing you from performing "well", maybe then uhh...don't play? I mean, really, I'm not nerd-raging here, I'm not telling you to know your buttons 100% and that I know my buttons 100% but really they're just buttons....push them??
So a magic vote-kick appeared and alas, our group of 25 became 24. One less friend and adventurer. I did lament the fact that had he stayed, our other 2/3 well performing hunters would have lost both the Kiril, Staff of Viagra and Vishanka, Does a Dot to him. And guess what? We downed DW (after some more low dps left), and both those items dropped! Congratulations again. And yes, had he stayed, our 13k dps would probably have won both those items. Unless he already had them and felt too good to perform....uhhh....
Truny the Not Worrying
Ok so it wasn't actually that dramatic really. It was an unlucky week for my warlock, no upgrades, but at least she received 500 VP (low standards always works). I needed to do the last 3 bosses in LFR and queued my happy ass in there and everything went smoothly up until Madness. Now when an affliction warlock tops the charts even before anything goes below 25%, you've got problems. I was the only one doing over 45k at this point and of course we did not manage to kill dw's tentacles while killing blisterings faster than he could cast Cataclysm. Three times. Group leaves and reforms and we notice one hunter doing something to the tune of 13k dps. Or was it 15k? Regardless, so low that it's almost not possible unless you actually stop your auto-attacking given all the buffs we get during the encounter.
What I hope was happening behind that computer was someone tabbed out watching the encounter. And not porn. Or dying of a heart attack. He was discovered and a minor discussion ensued about how one could possibly do such low damage. Perhaps he had a really really poor system that rendered all actions useless, perhaps lag spiked to 7,000. Perhaps his dog jumped onto his face during the encounter, knocking everything over. Anyways, they had no excuse except telling us to worry about downing the boss rather than his dps.
True. Very true. We shouldn't be SO judgemental of others. HOWEVER, one key component to actually downing the boss requires everyone to at least be TRYING. At least make your contribution count. At least do more than the tank. (The tank was 9th on the meters in this group, that's how tight we were). At least try to push steady shot more than 2 (or was it 5) times during the encounter? Please? At least TRY, don't get carried, especially not through such brainlessly simple and mind-numbing encounters such as they are exhibited in LFR. Don't even use that as your reason for slacking, just because it is so easy you feel you are able to slack. No it doesn't work like that. Perhaps the top 5 DPS'ers might slack and miss a global cooldown (or not use Demon Soul) or skip a potion, however, they're still probably doing pretty damn good and no one would even notice.
Regardless of the reason for such underperformance, and how you judge us judging your performance, it just wasn't enough. If there was any external reason preventing you from performing "well", maybe then uhh...don't play? I mean, really, I'm not nerd-raging here, I'm not telling you to know your buttons 100% and that I know my buttons 100% but really they're just buttons....push them??
So a magic vote-kick appeared and alas, our group of 25 became 24. One less friend and adventurer. I did lament the fact that had he stayed, our other 2/3 well performing hunters would have lost both the Kiril, Staff of Viagra and Vishanka, Does a Dot to him. And guess what? We downed DW (after some more low dps left), and both those items dropped! Congratulations again. And yes, had he stayed, our 13k dps would probably have won both those items. Unless he already had them and felt too good to perform....uhhh....
Truny the Not Worrying
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Turny the Dancing Moonkin
Feral. I tried it, didn't like it, and therefore I am now a Moonkin. My bear 4 teh fite and kitty days are over. Well not really, I have a 2nd druid. Turny is now my "mana using" druid, part time heals, part time ranged DPS.
Being melee, running around, waiting for energy to replenish, keeping up stacks of various useless buffs which are actually useful (savage roar, mangle, bleeds), I just don't like the style of WoW melee in end-game PVE. There's a difference between dungeons and just regular questing and prowling around. Melee is quite fun in just "normal" everyday questing and killing. I really hope Monks will be designed as just pure throughput melee, rather than what we currently have "keep up buffs, and keep up bleeds". Of course if a class had too much oomph, it would be unbalanced for PVP. Blah who cares about PVP! Like I've suggested a thousadnieith times over: Create a generic PVP based talent tree or profile for all toons, which promote balance, but let us have our crazy PVE cooldowns!
So anyways, back on track now. I queued as a feral kitty for the LFR excitement and managed to pull in 18-20ish K, fairly suboptimal in my ACTUALLY 369 feral set. Luckily my healing set in my bags allowed me to queue bahaha! I was 6-10th in damage, which is usually unheard of on my hunter/warlock, but it was still "okay". This tells me two things, either I know what I'm doing regardless of gear, or we have people in there who really don't know what they're doing, or they were lagging, or afk....
But anyways, just for the fact that I sometimes have to wait for enough energy to use my Shred was enough to sway me to switch to Boomkin. This might just be me though, as I'm used to spamming buttons and always ALWAYS having some spell/ability casting on every single GCD from the beginning of the fight to the end. If you mess up, you lose.
Moonkin'ing.
Well, I've been levelling my second druid as a moonkin, with the intention that he would be my 4th and last ranged DPS toon. However, he had recently hit level 60 and guess where he is now? Yup, Hellfire Peninsula. Aka probably going to be stuck there for the next 6 months. So when I respecced my level 85 druid to a moonkin, everything was fairly similar save for the extra talent points and extra skills/cooldowns. From early on I had figured out the gist of the Eclipse functions and it was pretty fun cycling between nukes and also blasting out a Starsurge once in a while. The "rotation" pretty much stays the same but I also get Ents Go to War, and also Star Fall! I reckon I'd use my trees whenever they would stay alive the longest, and perhaps during bloodlust, and Starfall off cooldown and especially during my arcane spell boosted eclipse.
Nonetheless I did way more damage and had a better time as a ranged caster after doing the other 4 bosses in LFR as a moonkin. I was in the top 3 damage dealers which kind of concerned me if we would even finish given I was testing all this out in my full healing gear with no reforges! We did get to Hagara with minor casualties though! I didn't really have any ACTUAL dps trinkets either, save for the 365 stopwatch I dug up out of my bank back from the Brewfest days.
tl'dr: Turny's now a moonkin and not a cat/bear. Not that anyone cares.
Turny the Boomkin
Being melee, running around, waiting for energy to replenish, keeping up stacks of various useless buffs which are actually useful (savage roar, mangle, bleeds), I just don't like the style of WoW melee in end-game PVE. There's a difference between dungeons and just regular questing and prowling around. Melee is quite fun in just "normal" everyday questing and killing. I really hope Monks will be designed as just pure throughput melee, rather than what we currently have "keep up buffs, and keep up bleeds". Of course if a class had too much oomph, it would be unbalanced for PVP. Blah who cares about PVP! Like I've suggested a thousadnieith times over: Create a generic PVP based talent tree or profile for all toons, which promote balance, but let us have our crazy PVE cooldowns!
So anyways, back on track now. I queued as a feral kitty for the LFR excitement and managed to pull in 18-20ish K, fairly suboptimal in my ACTUALLY 369 feral set. Luckily my healing set in my bags allowed me to queue bahaha! I was 6-10th in damage, which is usually unheard of on my hunter/warlock, but it was still "okay". This tells me two things, either I know what I'm doing regardless of gear, or we have people in there who really don't know what they're doing, or they were lagging, or afk....
But anyways, just for the fact that I sometimes have to wait for enough energy to use my Shred was enough to sway me to switch to Boomkin. This might just be me though, as I'm used to spamming buttons and always ALWAYS having some spell/ability casting on every single GCD from the beginning of the fight to the end. If you mess up, you lose.
Moonkin'ing.
Well, I've been levelling my second druid as a moonkin, with the intention that he would be my 4th and last ranged DPS toon. However, he had recently hit level 60 and guess where he is now? Yup, Hellfire Peninsula. Aka probably going to be stuck there for the next 6 months. So when I respecced my level 85 druid to a moonkin, everything was fairly similar save for the extra talent points and extra skills/cooldowns. From early on I had figured out the gist of the Eclipse functions and it was pretty fun cycling between nukes and also blasting out a Starsurge once in a while. The "rotation" pretty much stays the same but I also get Ents Go to War, and also Star Fall! I reckon I'd use my trees whenever they would stay alive the longest, and perhaps during bloodlust, and Starfall off cooldown and especially during my arcane spell boosted eclipse.
Nonetheless I did way more damage and had a better time as a ranged caster after doing the other 4 bosses in LFR as a moonkin. I was in the top 3 damage dealers which kind of concerned me if we would even finish given I was testing all this out in my full healing gear with no reforges! We did get to Hagara with minor casualties though! I didn't really have any ACTUAL dps trinkets either, save for the 365 stopwatch I dug up out of my bank back from the Brewfest days.
tl'dr: Turny's now a moonkin and not a cat/bear. Not that anyone cares.
Turny the Boomkin
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Making Sense of Bag Space, Pets, and Mounts
Our trusty steeds, our swift drakes, our backpack, our tiny companions, and our fighting companions. They are always there, convenient and easily accessed, taken for granted. Occasionally we will ask "but wait, how are we carrying around so many bags, and how are we fitting so many items into our bags and yet remain fairly mobile?"
Hunter Pets
Our five active pets are the easiest to justify. We have one active pet at all times, and the other four are out hunting/prowling/adventuring in the near vicinity of our characters until called upon! What exactly they do while inactive I can not say, but hey, there are four of them, perhaps they are playing cards!
Companion Pets
Now it gets tricky. How do we "bring" along over a hundred tiny little companions with us, and yet only have one visible at any given time? Well we can explain that some are summoned from the void while the rest just sit in this imaginary "companion" panel in our menu. Perhaps the entire world is digital and we just "load" them when we feel like it. Yes, the game is digital but...you know what I mean.
Bags and Storage
Bag space goes from reasonable to extraordinary. A new character has a single backpack and maybe an apple in their bag. That's reasonable. At end game, what do we have? Well I can tell you that my hunter has pretty much what sums up to be a weapon rack, a wardrobe, a knickknack cupboard, a mining storage bag, and a fridge on him at all times. How can we manage to carry not just our equipped weapons but a dozen other weapons with us? Do we mix the food we carry with all the severed heads we are required to loot for vengeful npcs? One could say our bags are just digital storage, with the ability to physically relay items to and fro the fabric of space and time. This could explain why gold has no weight, and is simply displayed as a balance near our bags. Another view could be that our bags are just an "idea" of what we possess, and it is our character's cognition that dictates what we own. When we delete an item, does it physically cease to exist, or does it disappear because we believe it ceases to exist? But then again, tailors make bags. Psychic bags? Nonetheless, this bag can carry a dozen polearms and my entire Wrath-Cata bow collection! That's one big bag!
Perhaps our bags use the same technology as the T.A.R.D.I.S., it's bigger on the inside! This could explain where we keep our pets and mounts. In miniature stables!
Mounts
I like to envision my character as Gandalf when summoning a mount. I whistle and they come running on the wind, ready to guide me to my next destination (usually 100 feet over, I try not to do that too often). However, a lot of us have over a hundred mounts, how are we able to memorize the call of all our different mounts? Are they ALL out in the wild? Do we keep them in a time-space technologicalized stable? Do we "summon" their form out into the physical world? This could explain how some NPCs can mail us mounts, through the mailbox. Perhaps they are sharing with us the idea of a mount. Since we believe, it exists. But only when legitimately prompted to.
So I guess I made even less sense to all the things we take for granted. Maybe our characters themselves are the "idea" of an adventurer. All we see is our character, but we don't see what is behind the scenes, their lackeys, the caravan with our actual bags, the cages and stables for our mounts and pets, our bankers, armourers. This is why "mountains" and lakes seem so small for our characters, to the point where we could either walk up them or swim across them within seconds, it's the idea of our entourage travelling. The idea of the mob out in the wild that you are fighting is actually an entire colony of that mob. Shit doesn't get real until we enter actual dungeons, that's when everything becomes localized, and to scale. It's bigger on the inside. Stonecore is a great example, from the outside we can fly around the pillar of earth in 15 seconds, but try walking around the perimeter of Stonecore!
So keep this post in mind for the next time you loot something, or call out a mount, or choose a companion pet...where did they come from? And also, when you "win" loot via roll, that's the epitome of laziness. We pretty much bypass game-time. Think of how this magical item automatically passes into your "bag", we are actually bypassing the actual movement of our characters walking up to a corpse, and looting an item.
Truny Makes Bags
Hunter Pets
Our five active pets are the easiest to justify. We have one active pet at all times, and the other four are out hunting/prowling/adventuring in the near vicinity of our characters until called upon! What exactly they do while inactive I can not say, but hey, there are four of them, perhaps they are playing cards!
Companion Pets
Now it gets tricky. How do we "bring" along over a hundred tiny little companions with us, and yet only have one visible at any given time? Well we can explain that some are summoned from the void while the rest just sit in this imaginary "companion" panel in our menu. Perhaps the entire world is digital and we just "load" them when we feel like it. Yes, the game is digital but...you know what I mean.
Bags and Storage
Bag space goes from reasonable to extraordinary. A new character has a single backpack and maybe an apple in their bag. That's reasonable. At end game, what do we have? Well I can tell you that my hunter has pretty much what sums up to be a weapon rack, a wardrobe, a knickknack cupboard, a mining storage bag, and a fridge on him at all times. How can we manage to carry not just our equipped weapons but a dozen other weapons with us? Do we mix the food we carry with all the severed heads we are required to loot for vengeful npcs? One could say our bags are just digital storage, with the ability to physically relay items to and fro the fabric of space and time. This could explain why gold has no weight, and is simply displayed as a balance near our bags. Another view could be that our bags are just an "idea" of what we possess, and it is our character's cognition that dictates what we own. When we delete an item, does it physically cease to exist, or does it disappear because we believe it ceases to exist? But then again, tailors make bags. Psychic bags? Nonetheless, this bag can carry a dozen polearms and my entire Wrath-Cata bow collection! That's one big bag!
Perhaps our bags use the same technology as the T.A.R.D.I.S., it's bigger on the inside! This could explain where we keep our pets and mounts. In miniature stables!
Mounts
I like to envision my character as Gandalf when summoning a mount. I whistle and they come running on the wind, ready to guide me to my next destination (usually 100 feet over, I try not to do that too often). However, a lot of us have over a hundred mounts, how are we able to memorize the call of all our different mounts? Are they ALL out in the wild? Do we keep them in a time-space technologicalized stable? Do we "summon" their form out into the physical world? This could explain how some NPCs can mail us mounts, through the mailbox. Perhaps they are sharing with us the idea of a mount. Since we believe, it exists. But only when legitimately prompted to.
So I guess I made even less sense to all the things we take for granted. Maybe our characters themselves are the "idea" of an adventurer. All we see is our character, but we don't see what is behind the scenes, their lackeys, the caravan with our actual bags, the cages and stables for our mounts and pets, our bankers, armourers. This is why "mountains" and lakes seem so small for our characters, to the point where we could either walk up them or swim across them within seconds, it's the idea of our entourage travelling. The idea of the mob out in the wild that you are fighting is actually an entire colony of that mob. Shit doesn't get real until we enter actual dungeons, that's when everything becomes localized, and to scale. It's bigger on the inside. Stonecore is a great example, from the outside we can fly around the pillar of earth in 15 seconds, but try walking around the perimeter of Stonecore!
So keep this post in mind for the next time you loot something, or call out a mount, or choose a companion pet...where did they come from? And also, when you "win" loot via roll, that's the epitome of laziness. We pretty much bypass game-time. Think of how this magical item automatically passes into your "bag", we are actually bypassing the actual movement of our characters walking up to a corpse, and looting an item.
Truny Makes Bags
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
In With the Old
Old heroics. Mechanics. Melee unfriendly. Old Cata.
I was happily maxing out the VP of my various toons yesterday, with my hunter being the last one just short 50 VP. Instead of doing a faceroll Twilight Heroic, I decided to queue for a regular heroic for kicks. I knew beforehand that this wouldn't be a walk in the park, and that it most likely wouldn't be completed in 20 minutes.
I got Deadmines.With a rather squishy tank who's gear was slowly breaking throughout the run. Overall this was a normal group, your normal 10k dps and whatnot.
Thinking back to these new Cata mechanics, I now find them really annoying. Is this bad? Have we been programmed even more so to feel entitled to quick loot with little work? Getting through a Deadmines with new players isn't a walk in the park, the adds hit hard, there are a lot of adds and there are things to interrupt and pay attention to which are simply not present in the new heroics. Sure you could interrupt Carrion Swarm, along with the mandatory interrupt on Azshara in WOE but that's about it.
Deadmines is the perfect example, first boss: Wall of Fire. Boss with cleaves and fire adds. Boss with exploding mists. The DM Gauntlet. All these were fresh and new and epic, but now they are not meant for us anymore. They are for our alts. Don't get me wrong it is still FUN, (and Torby had fun tanking a lot of trash) just not in proportion to the potential reward, in our case the raw VP. Am I implying that there should be some sort of correlation between fun vs reward? Maybe? Probably not. It all depends.
Speaking of rewards, let's talk about drops. Oh drops, the amount of rage and drama that's been linked to your dark dark history since the beginning of gaming time. Let's say you defeat Madness and your time hasting staff drops. You roll, and of course you are going to lose. This of course happened to my Warlock. However, due to the intensity and engagement of the encounter, I didn't really care. We brought a pugged group from not being able to stack on Lootship 2, to one shotting the two encounters afterwards, it was a victory! A lootless victory but still a victory! Now say the caster doing 20k dps won. Well, you are welcome for the carry but thanks for staying alive and now you've seen the fight!
Sure it's great that someone in "need" got an upgrade, but I'd also like to add some subtext, and that is a reminder that any given piece of loot will not help anyone press the right buttons. But that's as far as I'm going to talk about LFR drops.
So the old heroics are great training grounds for healers and melee! As a healer, I automatically expect one of the melee to drop to 50% on any given pull for every single pull in every single heroic. One thing I found funny when healing the new heroics was ...that didn't happen! Another thing I've noticed is that everyone is playing their rogues and rogues are doing a trillion DPS now! Coming within 5% of a hunter's damage is totally imbalanced, I shall QQ unecessarily for all hunters out there! Because the more damage someone else does, the less loot and VP and fun we get!!
So we've agreed that the new heroics and LFR are great stepping stones to....to what? To regular raiding? Free handouts up to ilvl 390 all for what? The basis has been very nicely setup, I am excited to run my Paladin through the gearing game once she hits 85 and I bet it will be MUCH smoother than before. Perhaps for when patch 4.4 hits and the three Old God heroics are released, they will be MUCH more difficult and will utilize normal/heroic modes along with the raid that comes with it?
Truny Forgot What He Was Talking About
I was happily maxing out the VP of my various toons yesterday, with my hunter being the last one just short 50 VP. Instead of doing a faceroll Twilight Heroic, I decided to queue for a regular heroic for kicks. I knew beforehand that this wouldn't be a walk in the park, and that it most likely wouldn't be completed in 20 minutes.
I got Deadmines.With a rather squishy tank who's gear was slowly breaking throughout the run. Overall this was a normal group, your normal 10k dps and whatnot.
Thinking back to these new Cata mechanics, I now find them really annoying. Is this bad? Have we been programmed even more so to feel entitled to quick loot with little work? Getting through a Deadmines with new players isn't a walk in the park, the adds hit hard, there are a lot of adds and there are things to interrupt and pay attention to which are simply not present in the new heroics. Sure you could interrupt Carrion Swarm, along with the mandatory interrupt on Azshara in WOE but that's about it.
Deadmines is the perfect example, first boss: Wall of Fire. Boss with cleaves and fire adds. Boss with exploding mists. The DM Gauntlet. All these were fresh and new and epic, but now they are not meant for us anymore. They are for our alts. Don't get me wrong it is still FUN, (and Torby had fun tanking a lot of trash) just not in proportion to the potential reward, in our case the raw VP. Am I implying that there should be some sort of correlation between fun vs reward? Maybe? Probably not. It all depends.
Speaking of rewards, let's talk about drops. Oh drops, the amount of rage and drama that's been linked to your dark dark history since the beginning of gaming time. Let's say you defeat Madness and your time hasting staff drops. You roll, and of course you are going to lose. This of course happened to my Warlock. However, due to the intensity and engagement of the encounter, I didn't really care. We brought a pugged group from not being able to stack on Lootship 2, to one shotting the two encounters afterwards, it was a victory! A lootless victory but still a victory! Now say the caster doing 20k dps won. Well, you are welcome for the carry but thanks for staying alive and now you've seen the fight!
Sure it's great that someone in "need" got an upgrade, but I'd also like to add some subtext, and that is a reminder that any given piece of loot will not help anyone press the right buttons. But that's as far as I'm going to talk about LFR drops.
So the old heroics are great training grounds for healers and melee! As a healer, I automatically expect one of the melee to drop to 50% on any given pull for every single pull in every single heroic. One thing I found funny when healing the new heroics was ...that didn't happen! Another thing I've noticed is that everyone is playing their rogues and rogues are doing a trillion DPS now! Coming within 5% of a hunter's damage is totally imbalanced, I shall QQ unecessarily for all hunters out there! Because the more damage someone else does, the less loot and VP and fun we get!!
So we've agreed that the new heroics and LFR are great stepping stones to....to what? To regular raiding? Free handouts up to ilvl 390 all for what? The basis has been very nicely setup, I am excited to run my Paladin through the gearing game once she hits 85 and I bet it will be MUCH smoother than before. Perhaps for when patch 4.4 hits and the three Old God heroics are released, they will be MUCH more difficult and will utilize normal/heroic modes along with the raid that comes with it?
Truny Forgot What He Was Talking About
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
The Annoying Thing with Demonology
Demon Soul. Fel Hunter. Fel Guard. What is the diabolical relationship between these three elements?
Our Fel Guard is our top AOE dps pet, and his/her/its Demon Soul bonus gives us increased spell damage and haste. This is the best DS for our spec. Nuking.
However, not all fights are AOE, or have lots of AOE elements in them. Think black oozes on Yor'sahj. That's about it.
The fel hunter , or fel puppy, once only used by affliction warlocks is now the top dps single target pet. With all our dots on the enemy, their shadow bites can hit for upwards of 50k, whereas our felguards could never dream of hitting for that much.
So we use the fel hunter? Well no. The fel hunter's DS is increased shadow dot damage, and our only two dots are corruption and our bane.This is a meh boost, not as great as increased damage fast nukes.
So we have to juggle. Pop DS with felguard out, use his felstorm then switch out to fel hunter until the next CD of DS, then switch to felguard. This is of course to maximize DPS. How annoying is this? Another minor annoyance is that DS does not exactly line up right with metamorphosis so possibly juggle with every other meta?
All this juggling is doable. Just really annoying. And all this while refreshing corruption, which doesn't get auto-refreshed and our bane and trying to get into melee to use shadowflame.
Annoying. But totally needed cause affliction is just not bursty.
Truny the Annoyed
Our Fel Guard is our top AOE dps pet, and his/her/its Demon Soul bonus gives us increased spell damage and haste. This is the best DS for our spec. Nuking.
However, not all fights are AOE, or have lots of AOE elements in them. Think black oozes on Yor'sahj. That's about it.
The fel hunter , or fel puppy, once only used by affliction warlocks is now the top dps single target pet. With all our dots on the enemy, their shadow bites can hit for upwards of 50k, whereas our felguards could never dream of hitting for that much.
So we use the fel hunter? Well no. The fel hunter's DS is increased shadow dot damage, and our only two dots are corruption and our bane.This is a meh boost, not as great as increased damage fast nukes.
So we have to juggle. Pop DS with felguard out, use his felstorm then switch out to fel hunter until the next CD of DS, then switch to felguard. This is of course to maximize DPS. How annoying is this? Another minor annoyance is that DS does not exactly line up right with metamorphosis so possibly juggle with every other meta?
All this juggling is doable. Just really annoying. And all this while refreshing corruption, which doesn't get auto-refreshed and our bane and trying to get into melee to use shadowflame.
Annoying. But totally needed cause affliction is just not bursty.
Truny the Annoyed
Looking for Rage
For us over here in Canada (Yes I'm Canadian, sorry to have deceived you all this time), the Fall of Deathwing LFR encounter was released (as with the rest of the world) and I was quite excited to be able to "see this encounter" as I am a "casual" player/raider, we only raid oh wait...we've gone from one day a week to three. Okay so not so casual. But still not heroic content and or completing all encounters within 10 days progression. I am a ranked BM Hunter if that means anything. (LMAO?)
ANYWAYS. I queued up and got thrown into a group on Spine of Deathwing. I was hoping "please please just let me be a replacement for one dps who couldn't finish the encounter". Nope. Corpses all over the airship.
Now what was really lacking was good leadership and also good following-instructions-skills. This is what was going on as I zoned in.
"Okay, get it to 9 and kill 3 corruptions and kill blood". Say what? Get what to 9? What's a corrupted? What blood? Then they started the encounter. Whoa, tentacles. Do I have to latch on? Do I kill 'em? How many do we kill? Whats with this big add, oh these slimes are the bloods, what do we do?
I BELIEVE this group tried to do the encounter a la Regular Mode and tried to trigger barrel rolls. NO WAY LFR will require 25 pugs to execute that properly. I reckon all we had to do was stand in the middle. (Which worked when I ran this again).
This group totally failed and half the group left. By this time I had picked up on pretty much what needed to be done. We needed to single out ONE big add, have a tank hold it near Deathwing's plate (WHICH IS THE AREA CLOSEST TO HIS NECK), then someone else hold the other 2 until we need 'em. Since you only need to blow up his plates 3 times, we only kill 3 tentacles to get 3 big adds. Ideally. Essentially killing slimes buffs the big add, so we want to kill 9 slimes near the big add until it does it's nuclear explosion.
Simple enough?
Ok, so I tried to convince people to listen. We set up markers and all the jazz. First we marked a tentacle as Moon and said "Don't kill Moon". Moon died. Oh well, it's LFR the offtank can handle 3. Then we marked the big add and told people to kill slimes near it until it got 9 stacks of buff. Nope. It died before it hit 5 buffs. Apparently "Stop DPS" means "Keep killing fools". That's okay, we still have 2. We get a big add to 9 buffs, and the tank does not move it to the plates. Failed. We run out of big adds. Wipe it.
I requeued after trying to lead this group a couple more times and one-shot 3/4 of the Deathwing encounter until we magically decided to have a Server Restart just as we were killing Kalecgos' claw on Madness. Oh well. Oh and ranged, PLEASE kill Blistering Tentacles that grow out of Deathwing's claw in case you have no idea what people are yelling about. Thanks!
It still amazes me the amount of not paying attention that goes on and also the amount of rudeness lately. Yes, Pugs are super super excruciating at times, if you had read my GUILD chat complaints you would have been crying from the profanity. However on the raid side I was trying to be calm and organized and shit but alas, that does not work.
Turby Looking for Rage
ANYWAYS. I queued up and got thrown into a group on Spine of Deathwing. I was hoping "please please just let me be a replacement for one dps who couldn't finish the encounter". Nope. Corpses all over the airship.
Now what was really lacking was good leadership and also good following-instructions-skills. This is what was going on as I zoned in.
"Okay, get it to 9 and kill 3 corruptions and kill blood". Say what? Get what to 9? What's a corrupted? What blood? Then they started the encounter. Whoa, tentacles. Do I have to latch on? Do I kill 'em? How many do we kill? Whats with this big add, oh these slimes are the bloods, what do we do?
I BELIEVE this group tried to do the encounter a la Regular Mode and tried to trigger barrel rolls. NO WAY LFR will require 25 pugs to execute that properly. I reckon all we had to do was stand in the middle. (Which worked when I ran this again).
This group totally failed and half the group left. By this time I had picked up on pretty much what needed to be done. We needed to single out ONE big add, have a tank hold it near Deathwing's plate (WHICH IS THE AREA CLOSEST TO HIS NECK), then someone else hold the other 2 until we need 'em. Since you only need to blow up his plates 3 times, we only kill 3 tentacles to get 3 big adds. Ideally. Essentially killing slimes buffs the big add, so we want to kill 9 slimes near the big add until it does it's nuclear explosion.
Simple enough?
Ok, so I tried to convince people to listen. We set up markers and all the jazz. First we marked a tentacle as Moon and said "Don't kill Moon". Moon died. Oh well, it's LFR the offtank can handle 3. Then we marked the big add and told people to kill slimes near it until it got 9 stacks of buff. Nope. It died before it hit 5 buffs. Apparently "Stop DPS" means "Keep killing fools". That's okay, we still have 2. We get a big add to 9 buffs, and the tank does not move it to the plates. Failed. We run out of big adds. Wipe it.
I requeued after trying to lead this group a couple more times and one-shot 3/4 of the Deathwing encounter until we magically decided to have a Server Restart just as we were killing Kalecgos' claw on Madness. Oh well. Oh and ranged, PLEASE kill Blistering Tentacles that grow out of Deathwing's claw in case you have no idea what people are yelling about. Thanks!
It still amazes me the amount of not paying attention that goes on and also the amount of rudeness lately. Yes, Pugs are super super excruciating at times, if you had read my GUILD chat complaints you would have been crying from the profanity. However on the raid side I was trying to be calm and organized and shit but alas, that does not work.
Turby Looking for Rage
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
No Stride
Heh so I had said that I'd take this new patch in stride... that is until we actually strode into Dragon Soul with our regular raid roster. Morchok was easy, but for Yor'sajh and Zonnzonn...we were either lacking in DPS (only 2 of us were over 20k) or heals. Blah. You know what, I'll just have to push out another 2k dps to make up for it!
So anyways, I had said I'd take this new Deathwing stuff slowly, since we're going to be stuck with it until MOP or until secret mini-raid in 4.4 hits. My goal was to get valor capped on my two mains. Oh yes, my Warlock is now my main again now that I've gotten her geared up! It turns out I got valor capped on five toons. The plan is to use two of the toons VP to gear up Turby and Truny first (two are healers, they have quick queues).
LFR = good times. With a semi-organized group, these are pretty much free hand-outs of tier gear and trinkets. My hunter got very lucky and won two pieces of T13 off one boss, my warlock won a shoulder and a nifty trinket, my priest won a robe and a healing trinket, and of course my resto druid...he wins nothing. He hasn't won anything since his first raid in TOC when a nice warlock gave him the Perdition staff.....maybe this week will be different.
So without further ado, here's some quick tips for the current LFR bosses:
Morchok: AOE heal his stomp. Run close to a crystal if it has a beam on you. Run behind a pillar when he uses Black Blood. Too easy.
Yor'sahj the Unsleeping: Also known as "Skittles" due to his slimes. This fight is confusing at first until you get a hang of his slimes. Essentially the priority of the slimes is generally accepted to be:
-Purple > Green > Yellow > (Then I would use) Blue > Red > Black, depends on your heals. But the first three, PURPLE GREEN YELLOW are generally accepted. Sometimes you'll see Purple Yellow Green. But essentially in LFR, if you manage to kill any one you're good, the most important part is communication. Don't have some people run to one slime, and some to the other. I'm not going to explain what each slime does, but rather explain what to expect for some combinations.
So say the boss casts Purple, Yellow, Black. Automatically you should know to kill purple, then aoe down adds. You have to prepare this as you are going to kill the purple slime.
Say the boss casts Red, Green, Blue. What do you do? Kill Red, expect aoe damage from green and all dps have to prepare to kill mana void. This is when I double check lifebloom is up, or even blow tree form for multiple life blooms in anticipation of the void. Depends.
Say the boss casts Purple, Red, Green. Go kill purple, but also prepare to STACK since you see red. Red does damage based on your proximity to the boss, and we've seen a lot of casters who hang back get one shot.
Warlord Zon'ozz: Also known as Ping Pong. Now the LFR version of this boss is severely undertuned as to the actual mechanics of the fight. Essentially have a couple people handle the void ball, or actually it might have just been moving by itself....have the tank face the boss away, then stack when he does his massive AOE phase, rinse and repeat.
Hagara the Stormbinder: Aka the boss where NO ONE listens to tips.
TANKS: The one thing to look out for is "Focused Assault". If she starts doing this. MOVE AWAY FROM IT. It's the same abilities the flayers cast. You can totally strafe or sidestep or move back, or run through the boss to avoid this totally unecessary damage. MOVE AWAY FROM FOCUSED ASSAULT MOVE AWAY MOVE MOVE MOVE. (I tried doing this while healing it and the tanks didn't listen, they lived, but I don't like wasting mana as with most people right?)
Ice Phase: Everyone run to the outside ring, and kill the ice crystals in a clockwise manner. Be wary of ice walls/waves that spawn and also move clockwise. You'll have to be pro-active and run ahead of the waves rather than waiting for it, for it maybe too late. Surprisingly a lot of people die to this, and perhaps they are not [Ready for Raiding].
Lightning Phase: In this phase, Hagara spawns an add that must be killed near one of the lightning conductors around the edge of the platform. Once it dies it will overload the conductor and charge the players around it, it would be best for everyone to gather in one area while lightly spread and run together around the room by maintaining the lightning chain to overload the rest of the conductors.
But most importantly move out of Focused Assault, your healers are trained to be as efficient as possible and if you try to tank it it means they'll have to cast three or four fast-expensive heals!
So anyways, I had said I'd take this new Deathwing stuff slowly, since we're going to be stuck with it until MOP or until secret mini-raid in 4.4 hits. My goal was to get valor capped on my two mains. Oh yes, my Warlock is now my main again now that I've gotten her geared up! It turns out I got valor capped on five toons. The plan is to use two of the toons VP to gear up Turby and Truny first (two are healers, they have quick queues).
LFR = good times. With a semi-organized group, these are pretty much free hand-outs of tier gear and trinkets. My hunter got very lucky and won two pieces of T13 off one boss, my warlock won a shoulder and a nifty trinket, my priest won a robe and a healing trinket, and of course my resto druid...he wins nothing. He hasn't won anything since his first raid in TOC when a nice warlock gave him the Perdition staff.....maybe this week will be different.
So without further ado, here's some quick tips for the current LFR bosses:
Morchok: AOE heal his stomp. Run close to a crystal if it has a beam on you. Run behind a pillar when he uses Black Blood. Too easy.
Yor'sahj the Unsleeping: Also known as "Skittles" due to his slimes. This fight is confusing at first until you get a hang of his slimes. Essentially the priority of the slimes is generally accepted to be:
-Purple > Green > Yellow > (Then I would use) Blue > Red > Black, depends on your heals. But the first three, PURPLE GREEN YELLOW are generally accepted. Sometimes you'll see Purple Yellow Green. But essentially in LFR, if you manage to kill any one you're good, the most important part is communication. Don't have some people run to one slime, and some to the other. I'm not going to explain what each slime does, but rather explain what to expect for some combinations.
So say the boss casts Purple, Yellow, Black. Automatically you should know to kill purple, then aoe down adds. You have to prepare this as you are going to kill the purple slime.
Say the boss casts Red, Green, Blue. What do you do? Kill Red, expect aoe damage from green and all dps have to prepare to kill mana void. This is when I double check lifebloom is up, or even blow tree form for multiple life blooms in anticipation of the void. Depends.
Say the boss casts Purple, Red, Green. Go kill purple, but also prepare to STACK since you see red. Red does damage based on your proximity to the boss, and we've seen a lot of casters who hang back get one shot.
Warlord Zon'ozz: Also known as Ping Pong. Now the LFR version of this boss is severely undertuned as to the actual mechanics of the fight. Essentially have a couple people handle the void ball, or actually it might have just been moving by itself....have the tank face the boss away, then stack when he does his massive AOE phase, rinse and repeat.
Hagara the Stormbinder: Aka the boss where NO ONE listens to tips.
TANKS: The one thing to look out for is "Focused Assault". If she starts doing this. MOVE AWAY FROM IT. It's the same abilities the flayers cast. You can totally strafe or sidestep or move back, or run through the boss to avoid this totally unecessary damage. MOVE AWAY FROM FOCUSED ASSAULT MOVE AWAY MOVE MOVE MOVE. (I tried doing this while healing it and the tanks didn't listen, they lived, but I don't like wasting mana as with most people right?)
Ice Phase: Everyone run to the outside ring, and kill the ice crystals in a clockwise manner. Be wary of ice walls/waves that spawn and also move clockwise. You'll have to be pro-active and run ahead of the waves rather than waiting for it, for it maybe too late. Surprisingly a lot of people die to this, and perhaps they are not [Ready for Raiding].
Lightning Phase: In this phase, Hagara spawns an add that must be killed near one of the lightning conductors around the edge of the platform. Once it dies it will overload the conductor and charge the players around it, it would be best for everyone to gather in one area while lightly spread and run together around the room by maintaining the lightning chain to overload the rest of the conductors.
But most importantly move out of Focused Assault, your healers are trained to be as efficient as possible and if you try to tank it it means they'll have to cast three or four fast-expensive heals!
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Truny's Epic Summary of the Dragon Soul 5 Mans
Patch 4.3 hit yesterday and everyone was in a clamour to try out the new Raid Finder and also dabble amongst the various flows of time in the Dragon Soul 5 mans.
As my hunter had absolutely no need for the upgrades in the new dungeons, I sent Truny the Warlock to gear up. She made some great progress going from 366 to 372 in mere hours.
Let's start at the first dungeon shall we:
End Time
Echo of Bain: Tank and Melee on one platform, heals and ranged on another. (I tanked him on my druid actually). He'll shatter a platform, swim to another, get him away from lava and dispel the magic. He throws a totem, click it and throw it back at him to stun him. Done.
Echo of Sylvanas: Once again Sylvanas remains the envy of hunters all 'round Azeroth and she deserves the longest explanation. She has some potent attacks, including a shot that leaves an undispellable dot that ticks for about 25k every 2 seconds. Dodge her "thing on the ground" and once you get her health low enough, she'll spawn a circle of ghouls around the group. Essentially the ghouls form a "link" and you want to "open" the "door" to this link by killing a ghoul, best mark the ground where you want a ghoul dead, stay in FRONT of the ghoul and burst it down, then simply stroll out to safety.
Echo of Tyrande: Melee stand in, ranged stand out. Ranged dodge circly things and 3 pronged things. Done.
Echo of Jaina: Interrupt frostbolt volley, stand in fire blob on ground, dodge 3 pronged ice. Done.
Moruzond: Blow ALL cooldowns, pew pew, dodge swirls, click hour glass when overwhelmed, rinse and repeat.
Well of Eternity:
Satyr Demon Guy Name Starts with P: Uhhh nothing special, but when he puts you all into camouflage mode, run around and don't get "seen" by his eyes or he one shots you. Pushover.
Queen Azshara: Kill mages, high priority is to kill hands MC'ing people, and when she does her big thing to be interrupted, get an interrupt on her. Pretty easy actually.
Varo'then and Mannoroth: Kill Varo'then, dodge fel flames, help Tyrande when she whines and then burn down Mannoroth. Make sure to click on Varo'then's sword to chuck it at Mannoroth.
Hour of Twilight
This last dungeon is so easy and brainless, and also Thrall is almost annoying as he's one of the slow "walk with me" type NPCs.
Feludius: This is the first ice boss, no one really cares about his name. Umm, dispel people chained and dodge falling ice, when he starts doing AOE, burn him. Easy sneezey.
Asira Dawnslayer: She'll mark you and there's a chance that she'll silence you on every spell cast you do, just stand behind the tank and let them take the knife hit bwahaha.
Archbishop Benedictus: Umm......dodge waves. All his other abilities don't really hit for anything.
Summary
The new dungeons are nice and all but rather easy compared to the introduction of the Zandalaris? Quick easy gear ups for the preparation of Dragon Soul. The running of all three dungeons is probably quicker than a single Deadmines, which is nice!
Now I know it's hard to please everyone but there should be a very clear cut standard between easy, challenging, and annoyingly difficult. Let's take a look at the beginning of Cata when most everyone was saying that the 346 heroics were hard. Ok, I give it to people getting used to the new class systems and new types of mechanics, but really they weren't "hard", they were just "not Wrath facerollable".
To pull off some of the achievements at or below gear level was impressive and that was the challenge. You required 329 to get in, not a big gap, 17 ilvl.
Then come the Zandalaris. They were 353 requiring 346 to enter, not a big gap and the boss mechanics were done very nicely, I would have to say there's our true challenging stuff. Staying out of crap, co-ordinating with group members and what-not.
Now the new dungeons. I would have to say they are very "cool". End time is very bleak and dreary but the bosses are pretty much throughput with dodging. Murkozond is cool because, hey who doesn't want to be able to use Metamorphosis five freaking times in a row?!
Well of Eternity is "cool", I guess. It's not really a dungeon moreso just sneaking around with Illidan. Perhaps this is the first dungeon that represents what I have been pushing for, a skirmish. Easy, casually gained 378s. Nice! Other than the one very obvious interrupt in the dungeon, there isn't much of a challenge rather just throughput.
I am kind of disappointed with Hour of Twilight (HoT). You would think this being the third in the series it would be as epic and "difficult" as Halls of Reflection. I remember when we were doing top 6k dps in Wrath the Arthas Gauntlet still felt fairly epic, or at least my constant shouting made it epic. HoT is essentially run down a hall, kill a boss. Run a bit further, adds, kill boss. None of the bosses really require multiple player co-ordination like Corla's ascendents.
Then again perhaps I'm just too used to "mechanics", and this is how dungeons in the low levels are anyways. Though it's nice to have some quick 150 VP dungeons that feel very current and "now". I mean come on, even though the regular heroics give 150 VP, it would still feel odd getting Throne of the Tides and thinking "uhhh where is this again?"
As my hunter had absolutely no need for the upgrades in the new dungeons, I sent Truny the Warlock to gear up. She made some great progress going from 366 to 372 in mere hours.
Let's start at the first dungeon shall we:
End Time
Echo of Bain: Tank and Melee on one platform, heals and ranged on another. (I tanked him on my druid actually). He'll shatter a platform, swim to another, get him away from lava and dispel the magic. He throws a totem, click it and throw it back at him to stun him. Done.
Echo of Sylvanas: Once again Sylvanas remains the envy of hunters all 'round Azeroth and she deserves the longest explanation. She has some potent attacks, including a shot that leaves an undispellable dot that ticks for about 25k every 2 seconds. Dodge her "thing on the ground" and once you get her health low enough, she'll spawn a circle of ghouls around the group. Essentially the ghouls form a "link" and you want to "open" the "door" to this link by killing a ghoul, best mark the ground where you want a ghoul dead, stay in FRONT of the ghoul and burst it down, then simply stroll out to safety.
Echo of Tyrande: Melee stand in, ranged stand out. Ranged dodge circly things and 3 pronged things. Done.
Echo of Jaina: Interrupt frostbolt volley, stand in fire blob on ground, dodge 3 pronged ice. Done.
Moruzond: Blow ALL cooldowns, pew pew, dodge swirls, click hour glass when overwhelmed, rinse and repeat.
Well of Eternity:
Satyr Demon Guy Name Starts with P: Uhhh nothing special, but when he puts you all into camouflage mode, run around and don't get "seen" by his eyes or he one shots you. Pushover.
Queen Azshara: Kill mages, high priority is to kill hands MC'ing people, and when she does her big thing to be interrupted, get an interrupt on her. Pretty easy actually.
Varo'then and Mannoroth: Kill Varo'then, dodge fel flames, help Tyrande when she whines and then burn down Mannoroth. Make sure to click on Varo'then's sword to chuck it at Mannoroth.
Hour of Twilight
This last dungeon is so easy and brainless, and also Thrall is almost annoying as he's one of the slow "walk with me" type NPCs.
Feludius: This is the first ice boss, no one really cares about his name. Umm, dispel people chained and dodge falling ice, when he starts doing AOE, burn him. Easy sneezey.
Asira Dawnslayer: She'll mark you and there's a chance that she'll silence you on every spell cast you do, just stand behind the tank and let them take the knife hit bwahaha.
Archbishop Benedictus: Umm......dodge waves. All his other abilities don't really hit for anything.
Summary
The new dungeons are nice and all but rather easy compared to the introduction of the Zandalaris? Quick easy gear ups for the preparation of Dragon Soul. The running of all three dungeons is probably quicker than a single Deadmines, which is nice!
Now I know it's hard to please everyone but there should be a very clear cut standard between easy, challenging, and annoyingly difficult. Let's take a look at the beginning of Cata when most everyone was saying that the 346 heroics were hard. Ok, I give it to people getting used to the new class systems and new types of mechanics, but really they weren't "hard", they were just "not Wrath facerollable".
To pull off some of the achievements at or below gear level was impressive and that was the challenge. You required 329 to get in, not a big gap, 17 ilvl.
Then come the Zandalaris. They were 353 requiring 346 to enter, not a big gap and the boss mechanics were done very nicely, I would have to say there's our true challenging stuff. Staying out of crap, co-ordinating with group members and what-not.
Now the new dungeons. I would have to say they are very "cool". End time is very bleak and dreary but the bosses are pretty much throughput with dodging. Murkozond is cool because, hey who doesn't want to be able to use Metamorphosis five freaking times in a row?!
Well of Eternity is "cool", I guess. It's not really a dungeon moreso just sneaking around with Illidan. Perhaps this is the first dungeon that represents what I have been pushing for, a skirmish. Easy, casually gained 378s. Nice! Other than the one very obvious interrupt in the dungeon, there isn't much of a challenge rather just throughput.
I am kind of disappointed with Hour of Twilight (HoT). You would think this being the third in the series it would be as epic and "difficult" as Halls of Reflection. I remember when we were doing top 6k dps in Wrath the Arthas Gauntlet still felt fairly epic, or at least my constant shouting made it epic. HoT is essentially run down a hall, kill a boss. Run a bit further, adds, kill boss. None of the bosses really require multiple player co-ordination like Corla's ascendents.
Then again perhaps I'm just too used to "mechanics", and this is how dungeons in the low levels are anyways. Though it's nice to have some quick 150 VP dungeons that feel very current and "now". I mean come on, even though the regular heroics give 150 VP, it would still feel odd getting Throne of the Tides and thinking "uhhh where is this again?"
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Last Minute Success
"We must down rag before the next patch!"
We made some futile attempts just this past Sunday to no avail. Poor add management and engulfing flames prevented us from killing Ragnaros. We switched up our roster and tried again yesterday.
Four futile attempts, we got him all the way down to 20% a couple times but alas, meteors overwhelmed us along with some player deaths.
Our last attempt was beautiful, all adds downed with plenty of time to spare, all fire on the ground avoided, meteors kited like bosses and BAM 10%! With more than 12 hours to the next patch! Yes even though this is the dummy version of Rag, we could still say we did it without having GROSSLY overgearing the content. And I got a hunter necklace to boot!
Turby the Too Soon
We made some futile attempts just this past Sunday to no avail. Poor add management and engulfing flames prevented us from killing Ragnaros. We switched up our roster and tried again yesterday.
Four futile attempts, we got him all the way down to 20% a couple times but alas, meteors overwhelmed us along with some player deaths.
Our last attempt was beautiful, all adds downed with plenty of time to spare, all fire on the ground avoided, meteors kited like bosses and BAM 10%! With more than 12 hours to the next patch! Yes even though this is the dummy version of Rag, we could still say we did it without having GROSSLY overgearing the content. And I got a hunter necklace to boot!
Turby the Too Soon
Monday, November 28, 2011
Gearing Up in 4.3
Patch 4.3 means exciting times with the onset of LFR and Dragon Soul. The general formula I have for my alts once they hit 85 now is as follows:
The gear gaps and jumps will roughtly look something like this for a fresh 85:
316: You might be 316 if you rushed through or power levelled through Cata zones.
329: The magic number to start doing heroics for 346 items! Spend/save your JP for T12, which is 378!
333: Regular 85 dungeons and heroics.
346: Regular heroics and should have enough JP to buy some 378 tier gear.
353: Hour of Twilight heroics, these dungeons are relatively easy for their gear level and drop 378 items.
365: Hour of Twighlight heroics, they are faster and easier than reg dungeons because most people are "geared" going in. Random Firelands pugs, which also drops 378.
372: This is the magic number, now you can start doing LFR for 384 tier/items from the first 6 bosses and also 390 items on the last two.
378: Go try out Dragon Soul for kicks for 397! You should also start using your VP for rings/capes/belts if you are getting lucky with token drops in LFR.
This is how my alts tend to get treated upon hitting 85, note I have 6 toons at 85 so running heroics isn't my cup of tea:
1. I will use any extra JP to get them bracers, and whatever JP they have for their main spec tier 12 gear.
2. Check the AH for cheap 378 items.
3. I will throw my toon into our weekly random Firelands run once they are close to mid 360 ilvl.
3. If my toons are really close to the magical 372, say sitting at 369 PVE gear, I will consider buying them the 377 pvp gear to boost them into LFR. Though this method isn't recommended if you are going to do a full set of 377 pvp gear, people will get mad at you.
4. Once you're 372 the world is yours.
Truny the Gearful
The gear gaps and jumps will roughtly look something like this for a fresh 85:
316: You might be 316 if you rushed through or power levelled through Cata zones.
329: The magic number to start doing heroics for 346 items! Spend/save your JP for T12, which is 378!
333: Regular 85 dungeons and heroics.
346: Regular heroics and should have enough JP to buy some 378 tier gear.
353: Hour of Twilight heroics, these dungeons are relatively easy for their gear level and drop 378 items.
365: Hour of Twighlight heroics, they are faster and easier than reg dungeons because most people are "geared" going in. Random Firelands pugs, which also drops 378.
372: This is the magic number, now you can start doing LFR for 384 tier/items from the first 6 bosses and also 390 items on the last two.
378: Go try out Dragon Soul for kicks for 397! You should also start using your VP for rings/capes/belts if you are getting lucky with token drops in LFR.
This is how my alts tend to get treated upon hitting 85, note I have 6 toons at 85 so running heroics isn't my cup of tea:
1. I will use any extra JP to get them bracers, and whatever JP they have for their main spec tier 12 gear.
2. Check the AH for cheap 378 items.
3. I will throw my toon into our weekly random Firelands run once they are close to mid 360 ilvl.
3. If my toons are really close to the magical 372, say sitting at 369 PVE gear, I will consider buying them the 377 pvp gear to boost them into LFR. Though this method isn't recommended if you are going to do a full set of 377 pvp gear, people will get mad at you.
4. Once you're 372 the world is yours.
Truny the Gearful
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Heroic Dungeons: Acceptable DPS and Gear
Alright my reader, let's think way way back to before Firelands, and before the Zandalaris. Think T10. No not ilvl 372, think early early Cata when a lot of us were mainly in a mix of 346s and 359s if any. Ok, got it?
Now at this time, we were both probably just running heroics and getting our points and whatnot. What was the "good" DPS doing?
Think.
Early early on I remember seeing a Shadow Priest doing 11k and thought "Wow, so amazing", everyone else was at around 9 or 10k as their non-raiding gear numbers restricted their maximum output. Ok, so 9 or 10 was good so let's say 7-8k dps is acceptable in regular heroics.
Alright, now that we've gotten that straightened out, please use the above analysis to confirm when someone SUCKS.
We do not want to see "Wrath DPS", it makes us as the tanks or healers shudder at the endlessly long fights due to 5k dps. In a Zandalari, please ensure you are able to pull at LEAST 10k. Please. And in the new Dragon Soul dungeons, please at least 18k.
Please note for a majority of players there was absolutely no access to gear above 359, nowadays we have a spattering of 365s and easily accessible 378s. Ay, there's the rub.
Though we all know gear does not equal skill. Gear is just an illusion of progression for some. Take my hunter for example, after he had mastered his class, my skill progression remained pretty much static save for the progressive knowledge of current fights. Gear essentially bumps up my raw numbers based on the total amount of numbers I am able to push out give the constraints of the numbers my gear is able to push out.
The sad thing is, some people think that receiving an upgrade somehow move them closer to their theoretical maximum than the static increase in throughput. Say you see a BM hunter who never uses Kill Command *shudder*, and all you do is hear them complain about not being geared enough, and even when they are they perform subpar. NO piece of gear is going to somehow magically "make" them push Kill Command more, or at all. Ever. Let's break this down into simpler terms.
What Gear Does For You:
-Increases your theoretical throughput. Assuming you are able to maximize every single number at every single moment.
-Increases your stats. Increases your static output.
-Increases your armour.
-May make you look better or worse.
What Gear Does Not Do For You:
-Magically teach you spell/ability priorities.
-Help you stay out of fire.
-Cure your tunnel vision.
See the difference? One may argue that with a massive increase in health/spellpower that the risks of standing in fire could be deterred. But now you're just being a BAD. Why stand in the flames in the first place and char the beautiful gear that you so lusted after? Also, there's something called Expansions that let us immensely out-HP/Damage content.
I'm not saying we shouldn't "want" gear, I am just saying that if you have no idea what you are doing, it probably won't help you and you shouldn't get too hung up about upgrades and perhaps work on learning encounters, learning your buttons, and staying out of shit.
Truny on Gear
Now at this time, we were both probably just running heroics and getting our points and whatnot. What was the "good" DPS doing?
Think.
Early early on I remember seeing a Shadow Priest doing 11k and thought "Wow, so amazing", everyone else was at around 9 or 10k as their non-raiding gear numbers restricted their maximum output. Ok, so 9 or 10 was good so let's say 7-8k dps is acceptable in regular heroics.
Alright, now that we've gotten that straightened out, please use the above analysis to confirm when someone SUCKS.
We do not want to see "Wrath DPS", it makes us as the tanks or healers shudder at the endlessly long fights due to 5k dps. In a Zandalari, please ensure you are able to pull at LEAST 10k. Please. And in the new Dragon Soul dungeons, please at least 18k.
Please note for a majority of players there was absolutely no access to gear above 359, nowadays we have a spattering of 365s and easily accessible 378s. Ay, there's the rub.
Though we all know gear does not equal skill. Gear is just an illusion of progression for some. Take my hunter for example, after he had mastered his class, my skill progression remained pretty much static save for the progressive knowledge of current fights. Gear essentially bumps up my raw numbers based on the total amount of numbers I am able to push out give the constraints of the numbers my gear is able to push out.
The sad thing is, some people think that receiving an upgrade somehow move them closer to their theoretical maximum than the static increase in throughput. Say you see a BM hunter who never uses Kill Command *shudder*, and all you do is hear them complain about not being geared enough, and even when they are they perform subpar. NO piece of gear is going to somehow magically "make" them push Kill Command more, or at all. Ever. Let's break this down into simpler terms.
What Gear Does For You:
-Increases your theoretical throughput. Assuming you are able to maximize every single number at every single moment.
-Increases your stats. Increases your static output.
-Increases your armour.
-May make you look better or worse.
What Gear Does Not Do For You:
-Magically teach you spell/ability priorities.
-Help you stay out of fire.
-Cure your tunnel vision.
See the difference? One may argue that with a massive increase in health/spellpower that the risks of standing in fire could be deterred. But now you're just being a BAD. Why stand in the flames in the first place and char the beautiful gear that you so lusted after? Also, there's something called Expansions that let us immensely out-HP/Damage content.
I'm not saying we shouldn't "want" gear, I am just saying that if you have no idea what you are doing, it probably won't help you and you shouldn't get too hung up about upgrades and perhaps work on learning encounters, learning your buttons, and staying out of shit.
Truny on Gear
Monday, November 21, 2011
Adventures of the Forsaken Toon
I wonder if anyone else has this Toon Deleting Syndrom that I suffer of. Let me tell you a story. A story of my 10th character slot and all of its inhabitants.
Mt 10th character slot was not always the last one on my list of adventurers. Oh no, this was back when I was in the process of making my seventh character, a fresh Shaman named in the memory of my quitted-WoW friend. I had great plans for this shaman, as she trained in herbalism and became my main inscriptionist for over a year. I learned how to low-level heal (which means I didn't learn anything) by placing Earth Shield on the tank and running off to read a book, watch TV or play another video game, and that got me giddy as it was pretty much queue for a dungeon for free exp. That got boring REALLY fast and I took up training with the Elemental aspects of shamanism. Chain lightning is by far one of my favourite spells of all time in the game. Lava Blast, Fulimination, it was all very raw and primal. This poor shaman levelled all the way up to level 65, even having endured a lot of outlands quests but ended up sitting idle as Cataclysm had just hit, and my high priority toons needed tending to.
Half a year passed and I had focused my attention to characters #8, 9, and 10 more than my Shaman. This would have been my Paladin (84), Priest (85), and Warrior (66). This was when I decided I wanted another hunter to level up with my RAF friend. My shaman died that day, only to be reborn later in this story.
I had great fun levelling with my RAF friend and his hunter with my newly made Undead hunter. We blasted to level 60 really fast and once we hit Outlands, it would have been very obvious to distinguish which person was the jaded WoW player and which was the new player. I sat around in Hellfire Peninsula for several weeks, refusing to quest through Outlands again and eventually I deleted this hunter when my RAF friend had already hit 85. I believe I then created another low level Shaman only to have him deleted very soon.
Soon I created an Alliance hunter, as I think the Sabre mounts are epic cool but then ended up deleting it as I had wanted to see the Goblin starting zone. I levelled this new Goblin hunter to his mid-40s, yes by physically questing and doing dungeons the old fashioned way. I even had him "adopt" one of my old original raptor pets to help him out. Pretty soon Firelands and the Molten Front came out and again, the high priority toons got the much desired gaming attention and this poor Goblin, Torby, sat idle. You see, one reason for this second hunter was that I thought I needed more stable space for "normal" pets on my main hunter, and this second one would go hunt some high level rares one day via "adoption". I guess after several weeks of Firelands I realized I only really stick to the four or so pets and this second hunter had no value anymore.
Deleted.
Guess what I had created to take up this spot? His name was Torby. No guesses? Yes! A shaman! He did not last long. He was a Goblin and he quested hard to get off the Isle of Kezan and the moment he landed at the shores of Orgrimmar....a complete standstill. There's something about the entirety of Durotar that makes me not want to quest in it. If it isn't the dusty deserty feel, then it's probably the fact that all my "original" toons grew up there (yes even my Undead Warlock) and seeing the world changed and streamlined didn't feel right. (Azshara's supposed to be a desolate wasteland with no one in it, not a questing zone!)
Now we're up to the current day, and in this fabled character slot sits my second druid. Ever since I became more active in Wrath and raided ICC I had been curious about dabbling in le art du Boom Chicken. Though this was back when questing was still tedious and I had witnessed at end-game that most Moonkins we've seen weren't as competitive as other DPS. Perhaps I just hadn't seen a very very good one, but that was a good enough reason to not delete my existing toons. Remember this would have been when my first shaman occupied this spot and was a pro-inscriptionist.
If you remember one of my old posts (you must be very old), I did have about TEN minutes of experience as a boomkin from when my druid Turny the Restless Tree was growing up. He would have been in his 40s and how he even got up there I have no idea, I must have levelled him as Feral or levelled him as Resto and purely healed dungeons. I'll have to look back at some OLD posts to find out. But anyhoo, my ten minutes of Boomkinness ended when I realized I would have to root and kite every mob that I tried to fight and that just wasn't my cup of tea.
So anyways, the reason for a second druid wasn't purely a spur of the moment decision. Druids are awesome! That and I wanted another ranged DPS and the only other one out there besides an Ele Shaman would be a Moonkin. Shadow priesting is interesting and all but I don't find it any fun just standing there refreshing dots and shooting face beams.
Torby the Druid. I sent him off over to the other side of the world to level up, to flesh out the new storyline of Sylvanas vs the Worgen and everything is running smoothly...for now. We shall see, perhaps I shall report back, or not.
Torby the Druid
Mt 10th character slot was not always the last one on my list of adventurers. Oh no, this was back when I was in the process of making my seventh character, a fresh Shaman named in the memory of my quitted-WoW friend. I had great plans for this shaman, as she trained in herbalism and became my main inscriptionist for over a year. I learned how to low-level heal (which means I didn't learn anything) by placing Earth Shield on the tank and running off to read a book, watch TV or play another video game, and that got me giddy as it was pretty much queue for a dungeon for free exp. That got boring REALLY fast and I took up training with the Elemental aspects of shamanism. Chain lightning is by far one of my favourite spells of all time in the game. Lava Blast, Fulimination, it was all very raw and primal. This poor shaman levelled all the way up to level 65, even having endured a lot of outlands quests but ended up sitting idle as Cataclysm had just hit, and my high priority toons needed tending to.
Half a year passed and I had focused my attention to characters #8, 9, and 10 more than my Shaman. This would have been my Paladin (84), Priest (85), and Warrior (66). This was when I decided I wanted another hunter to level up with my RAF friend. My shaman died that day, only to be reborn later in this story.
I had great fun levelling with my RAF friend and his hunter with my newly made Undead hunter. We blasted to level 60 really fast and once we hit Outlands, it would have been very obvious to distinguish which person was the jaded WoW player and which was the new player. I sat around in Hellfire Peninsula for several weeks, refusing to quest through Outlands again and eventually I deleted this hunter when my RAF friend had already hit 85. I believe I then created another low level Shaman only to have him deleted very soon.
Soon I created an Alliance hunter, as I think the Sabre mounts are epic cool but then ended up deleting it as I had wanted to see the Goblin starting zone. I levelled this new Goblin hunter to his mid-40s, yes by physically questing and doing dungeons the old fashioned way. I even had him "adopt" one of my old original raptor pets to help him out. Pretty soon Firelands and the Molten Front came out and again, the high priority toons got the much desired gaming attention and this poor Goblin, Torby, sat idle. You see, one reason for this second hunter was that I thought I needed more stable space for "normal" pets on my main hunter, and this second one would go hunt some high level rares one day via "adoption". I guess after several weeks of Firelands I realized I only really stick to the four or so pets and this second hunter had no value anymore.
Deleted.
Guess what I had created to take up this spot? His name was Torby. No guesses? Yes! A shaman! He did not last long. He was a Goblin and he quested hard to get off the Isle of Kezan and the moment he landed at the shores of Orgrimmar....a complete standstill. There's something about the entirety of Durotar that makes me not want to quest in it. If it isn't the dusty deserty feel, then it's probably the fact that all my "original" toons grew up there (yes even my Undead Warlock) and seeing the world changed and streamlined didn't feel right. (Azshara's supposed to be a desolate wasteland with no one in it, not a questing zone!)
Now we're up to the current day, and in this fabled character slot sits my second druid. Ever since I became more active in Wrath and raided ICC I had been curious about dabbling in le art du Boom Chicken. Though this was back when questing was still tedious and I had witnessed at end-game that most Moonkins we've seen weren't as competitive as other DPS. Perhaps I just hadn't seen a very very good one, but that was a good enough reason to not delete my existing toons. Remember this would have been when my first shaman occupied this spot and was a pro-inscriptionist.
If you remember one of my old posts (you must be very old), I did have about TEN minutes of experience as a boomkin from when my druid Turny the Restless Tree was growing up. He would have been in his 40s and how he even got up there I have no idea, I must have levelled him as Feral or levelled him as Resto and purely healed dungeons. I'll have to look back at some OLD posts to find out. But anyhoo, my ten minutes of Boomkinness ended when I realized I would have to root and kite every mob that I tried to fight and that just wasn't my cup of tea.
So anyways, the reason for a second druid wasn't purely a spur of the moment decision. Druids are awesome! That and I wanted another ranged DPS and the only other one out there besides an Ele Shaman would be a Moonkin. Shadow priesting is interesting and all but I don't find it any fun just standing there refreshing dots and shooting face beams.
Torby the Druid. I sent him off over to the other side of the world to level up, to flesh out the new storyline of Sylvanas vs the Worgen and everything is running smoothly...for now. We shall see, perhaps I shall report back, or not.
Torby the Druid
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
The Great Wait: The 359-378 Gear Gap
Let's take a look at our current general route to gearing up a freshly dinged level 85.
1. You buy then 359 shoes with leftover JP from another toon.
2. You craft or buy some random 359s and 353s.
3. Run heroics or dungeons until you are high enough for 353s, accumulating your T11 and 353s.
4. You do the Save Thrall quest for your 365 cape.
5. You hope this ALT has done the Hyjal quests, and try to step into Firelands to at least get the first 365 item.
6. Perhaps donate to them a 378 bracer.
This seems pretty general right? I pretty much did this on my Priest, and it wasn't as tedious as it sounds since I had a lot of fun mucking about Holy spec and also practising my Shadow spec in case it was ever needed. Also, the added benefit of now knowing 6/7 of the Firelands fight to the point of boredom has allowed my priest to heal and receive many upgrades while being obnoxious and loud with her Lightwell macros.
But, we can not raid all the time, and some of us do not raid at all. How *else* to "improve" our characters except to grind a MONTH of Fireland dailies? This seems quite painful does it not? Seeing that we had already grinded these quests on our mains for a month several months back. As of now, amongst my five raid-able characters, only my main Hunter has completed the Firelands dailies. Truny and Turny are sitting at around 30 tokens for the first phase (haven't recruited anyone yet), and the other toons haven't even quested far enough into Hyjal. There's ALWAYS the grind-your-980-Valor-Points a week thingamajig, but we all know how fun that is. Perhaps when the change to have ALL dungeons reward 140 VP we will find a cure to our Zandalari nightmares. (Seriously, GTFO if you're doing less than 10K)
Then again, perhaps I just have too many toons.
1. You buy then 359 shoes with leftover JP from another toon.
2. You craft or buy some random 359s and 353s.
3. Run heroics or dungeons until you are high enough for 353s, accumulating your T11 and 353s.
4. You do the Save Thrall quest for your 365 cape.
5. You hope this ALT has done the Hyjal quests, and try to step into Firelands to at least get the first 365 item.
6. Perhaps donate to them a 378 bracer.
This seems pretty general right? I pretty much did this on my Priest, and it wasn't as tedious as it sounds since I had a lot of fun mucking about Holy spec and also practising my Shadow spec in case it was ever needed. Also, the added benefit of now knowing 6/7 of the Firelands fight to the point of boredom has allowed my priest to heal and receive many upgrades while being obnoxious and loud with her Lightwell macros.
But, we can not raid all the time, and some of us do not raid at all. How *else* to "improve" our characters except to grind a MONTH of Fireland dailies? This seems quite painful does it not? Seeing that we had already grinded these quests on our mains for a month several months back. As of now, amongst my five raid-able characters, only my main Hunter has completed the Firelands dailies. Truny and Turny are sitting at around 30 tokens for the first phase (haven't recruited anyone yet), and the other toons haven't even quested far enough into Hyjal. There's ALWAYS the grind-your-980-Valor-Points a week thingamajig, but we all know how fun that is. Perhaps when the change to have ALL dungeons reward 140 VP we will find a cure to our Zandalari nightmares. (Seriously, GTFO if you're doing less than 10K)
Then again, perhaps I just have too many toons.
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Be Stingy on Mana
Whenever I try out a new healing spec, my first instinct is to try to figure out what my "mana neutral" button presses are. At low levels this is troublesome since our toolkit is under-developed, and most of the time at low levels, mana is pretty much infinite, allowing healers to pew pew while being bored out of their socks.
Let's take a look at Paladins. Yes, I have a level 84 paladin, which I have levelled through tanking AND healing. I switched into a healing spec after getting bored of tanking Utgarde Keep for the seven hundreth time and I never looked back.
My first step was to stick to the basic rule of Cataclysm healing: Mana Conservation. How could I heal the tank and everyone else efficiently, and also retain as much mana as possible. Obviously, spamming the "easy" flash heal wasn't the trick. We have a beacon, which reproduces 100% of Holy Light, and 50% of all other heals. So put that up, and use Holy Light on all the things. We also have a quick instant heal that builds up holy power for the Healing Laser, and a single target big heal. Obviously then, those are used depending on the situation, whether or not you want to build up points to heal a potential incoming aoe damage, or large health spikes.
Though this is just basic stuff you can derive from reading the talent trees. Putting it all into practise is another thing. You'll need to get a feel for the speeds and strength of your various heals, predict incoming damage on the tank as well as DPS, so you can use a Holy Light on one of the silly melee taking damage.
An excellent reason for the dungeon finder is that sometimes...some PUGS just...don't know what they are doing. Ever. I take this as a golden opportunity to test out my "Oh Shit" healing capabilities. Everyone is taking damage, multiple mobs are being pulled. My first question is still: "How can I 'oh shit' heal while being as mana efficient as possible?". Usually this is when Flash of Light comes into play, but when damage smooths out, I switch back to Holy Lightning the silly melee DPS who caused the trouble to begin with.
For all you new healers out there, well first of all you won't be at this blog but...well here's a tip. Take a look at ALL your possible healing spells, and look at the mana cost of each of them. We are programmed to be a society of instant gratification seekers, hence Regrowth, Flash Heal, Flash of Light, Flash Flush(Whatever Shamans Use). Those are quick and strong, but EXPENSIVE.
Going OOM is not heroic. Going OOM, and when I say OOM it means your Mana is below 60% for no reason at all, means you probably didn't need such quick heals. Think about it. Though possibly at the very very end phases of boss fights, I tend to go balls to the walls in heals for the hell of it just cause I know I can drink up right afterwards.
(After creating, deleting, and recreating my various Shaman toons, I made a brand new Goblin one, and this time I won't delete it!)
Let's take a look at Paladins. Yes, I have a level 84 paladin, which I have levelled through tanking AND healing. I switched into a healing spec after getting bored of tanking Utgarde Keep for the seven hundreth time and I never looked back.
My first step was to stick to the basic rule of Cataclysm healing: Mana Conservation. How could I heal the tank and everyone else efficiently, and also retain as much mana as possible. Obviously, spamming the "easy" flash heal wasn't the trick. We have a beacon, which reproduces 100% of Holy Light, and 50% of all other heals. So put that up, and use Holy Light on all the things. We also have a quick instant heal that builds up holy power for the Healing Laser, and a single target big heal. Obviously then, those are used depending on the situation, whether or not you want to build up points to heal a potential incoming aoe damage, or large health spikes.
Though this is just basic stuff you can derive from reading the talent trees. Putting it all into practise is another thing. You'll need to get a feel for the speeds and strength of your various heals, predict incoming damage on the tank as well as DPS, so you can use a Holy Light on one of the silly melee taking damage.
An excellent reason for the dungeon finder is that sometimes...some PUGS just...don't know what they are doing. Ever. I take this as a golden opportunity to test out my "Oh Shit" healing capabilities. Everyone is taking damage, multiple mobs are being pulled. My first question is still: "How can I 'oh shit' heal while being as mana efficient as possible?". Usually this is when Flash of Light comes into play, but when damage smooths out, I switch back to Holy Lightning the silly melee DPS who caused the trouble to begin with.
For all you new healers out there, well first of all you won't be at this blog but...well here's a tip. Take a look at ALL your possible healing spells, and look at the mana cost of each of them. We are programmed to be a society of instant gratification seekers, hence Regrowth, Flash Heal, Flash of Light, Flash Flush(Whatever Shamans Use). Those are quick and strong, but EXPENSIVE.
Going OOM is not heroic. Going OOM, and when I say OOM it means your Mana is below 60% for no reason at all, means you probably didn't need such quick heals. Think about it. Though possibly at the very very end phases of boss fights, I tend to go balls to the walls in heals for the hell of it just cause I know I can drink up right afterwards.
(After creating, deleting, and recreating my various Shaman toons, I made a brand new Goblin one, and this time I won't delete it!)
November Updates
Hello my dear one reader, how are you? It's been a very long time since I felt the need to update this dusty old blog. Again I would like to thank you for sticking around. I know that I never take enough time or effort to edit my words to make them fluent and beautiful like so many other artists err bloggers out there, nor do these words ever have much substance.
Anyhow, what have I been up to you ask? Essentially, not much. Uh oh I feel one of those ugly lists that Truny loves so much approaching:
Turby: Turby is currently having "fun" trying to "achieve" the collection of 150 companion pets for the very awesome Celestial Dragon companion. He is currently at 142, and let me tell you it's no fun farming for world drops. He was also very lucky enough to win a shoulder token off of Momo Staghelm, giving him a very nice 4 piece bonus of free shots and kill commands. Turby also became a ranked player on some fights (As Beast Master), given not a lot of people play Beast Master he's somewhere in the mid hundreds. Not bad. (Actually it seems that if I play well as BM in any fight except Alysrazor I'll get ranked....)
Truny: Sadly I haven't touched my warlock in a long time, Demo just got too clunky for me, while the juggling of every single nuke and corruption and was interesting, it really isn't worth all the effort. She is currently in her Affliction spec, it is much more relaxed and fluid (well moreso than Demo), and perhaps she'll get to try it out in a proper raid. Probably not.
Turny: I really really miss my druid, like REALLY. The hots and utterly insane mobility make me feel right at home when healing on Turny. I was asked to heal our weekly FL on my druid, as we had priests a plenty that day and ...it just felt right. If only ToL form came back =(
Husbrus: Who the hell is Husbrus you ask? Uhh, well she is my priest, and officially my 2nd best "geared" toon after my hunter. How did this happen? Well, I've always had this priest in the background, doing the random Smite Healing, but that got boring and the fact that smiting had me targetting an enemy made my inner healer feel very uneasy, since if the tank takes damage I'd have to switch targets (oh no so much effort!). So I went Holy. Holy is interesting, it's kind of like being a resto druid but with tools up the hoo-ha! You get your pingping heal spell, an instant weak heal, TWO aoe heals, binding heal, free flash heals, your basic nourish (heal) and healing touch (greater heal), and this thing called Chakra which makes you shiny and pretty. I healed one of our previous FL on Husbrus and it was quite fun. I'm not sure why some guides mention only using flash heal or greater heals, wouldn't you run out of mana REALLY fast? I've trained myself to strictly use "Heal", the mana-neutral spell, just like Nourish (it bugs me when I see people only using Regrowth, same story). Then again, we've been in Firelands so many times it's pretty easy to predict when and what kind of damage is incoming where it's safe to conserve mana.
Now I have an idea for a more interesting post so goodbye!
Anyhow, what have I been up to you ask? Essentially, not much. Uh oh I feel one of those ugly lists that Truny loves so much approaching:
Turby: Turby is currently having "fun" trying to "achieve" the collection of 150 companion pets for the very awesome Celestial Dragon companion. He is currently at 142, and let me tell you it's no fun farming for world drops. He was also very lucky enough to win a shoulder token off of Momo Staghelm, giving him a very nice 4 piece bonus of free shots and kill commands. Turby also became a ranked player on some fights (As Beast Master), given not a lot of people play Beast Master he's somewhere in the mid hundreds. Not bad. (Actually it seems that if I play well as BM in any fight except Alysrazor I'll get ranked....)
Truny: Sadly I haven't touched my warlock in a long time, Demo just got too clunky for me, while the juggling of every single nuke and corruption and was interesting, it really isn't worth all the effort. She is currently in her Affliction spec, it is much more relaxed and fluid (well moreso than Demo), and perhaps she'll get to try it out in a proper raid. Probably not.
Turny: I really really miss my druid, like REALLY. The hots and utterly insane mobility make me feel right at home when healing on Turny. I was asked to heal our weekly FL on my druid, as we had priests a plenty that day and ...it just felt right. If only ToL form came back =(
Husbrus: Who the hell is Husbrus you ask? Uhh, well she is my priest, and officially my 2nd best "geared" toon after my hunter. How did this happen? Well, I've always had this priest in the background, doing the random Smite Healing, but that got boring and the fact that smiting had me targetting an enemy made my inner healer feel very uneasy, since if the tank takes damage I'd have to switch targets (oh no so much effort!). So I went Holy. Holy is interesting, it's kind of like being a resto druid but with tools up the hoo-ha! You get your pingping heal spell, an instant weak heal, TWO aoe heals, binding heal, free flash heals, your basic nourish (heal) and healing touch (greater heal), and this thing called Chakra which makes you shiny and pretty. I healed one of our previous FL on Husbrus and it was quite fun. I'm not sure why some guides mention only using flash heal or greater heals, wouldn't you run out of mana REALLY fast? I've trained myself to strictly use "Heal", the mana-neutral spell, just like Nourish (it bugs me when I see people only using Regrowth, same story). Then again, we've been in Firelands so many times it's pretty easy to predict when and what kind of damage is incoming where it's safe to conserve mana.
Now I have an idea for a more interesting post so goodbye!
Monday, September 26, 2011
SW:OT
Ehh, I know it's SW:OR but I read it as SWOT. You know, Star Wars Old Republic, but I've been reading it as SWOT. As in a method in which a business can utilize strategic analysis. Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.
What don't look at me like that! My exam is nearing....
What don't look at me like that! My exam is nearing....
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Warlock Revived
Huh, our little guild actually haven't stepped foot into Firelands despite it being out and about for about oh, three months no? Other than trash runs, I haven't really got to shoot my arrows into any bosses except for an accidental Shannox spawn this one time.
Anyways, we've recruited a lot of promising players and perhaps we shall set foot into Firelands this weekend! Though my dear one reader this may be old news for you as you have already downed Ragnaros many times right?
Our guild (Umbrella Corporation) finally unlocked the Dark Phoenix Mount this weekend as well, with a very quick Nefarion Kill. Reading about his encounter was actually more daunting than the actual doing of the encounter!
Turby's Molten Front adventures are about to come to an end, he's edging closer and closer to the final 125 mark to finally help "Fill the Moonwell". I assume there's some short conclusion quests afterwards, but other than that he's pretty much "done" the game.
So about my Firelands Action Plan 2. Instead of my Druid, I am going to play my beloved Warlock again!
BUT WHY? What about Fel Armor? Oh god not that again, I've completely forgotten about the Fel Armor health regen thingamajigger!
SO, I was bored and logged into my Warlock to process some herbs into inks and do the insciption daily and what-not and decided to queue for a random Zandalari while mucking about Azeroth. I forgot what led me to stay logged in for more than 20 minutes, but all of a sudden I see the "Enter Dungeon" thingy pop up and go "what the heck?", and go in anyways.
I decided for this run, since Demonology is so clunkity clunky I would go Destruction so I switched to my 2nd spec and started looking for my Imp on my action bar. No imp. Where's my imp? In place of where I usually keep my demon icon was a Felpuppy face. Huh? When did they make Felpuppy the "better" pet I wondered. Was it kind of like how succubus was the top pet for demo? What's going on? I was Affliction specced.
Say what? This is going to be embarassing! I quickly searched my mind on the proper technique to play an Aff Lock, and it from what I gather it was to keep Haunt on my target and keep my dots on 'em and spam shadow bolt. I also managed to remember to use Soul Drain when things were low on health for massive crits!
I actually managed to pull 17-20k dps on most boss fights, wayyyy more than I could have done in Demo and with way less buttons to push. And really, Demo isn't all that strong in AOE anymore with all the nerfs and everyone getting geared as heck anyways. I feel there is much potential for my Warlock now, having stopped gearing her up at an average ilvl of 355, with a focus on haste.
Demo for questing and mucking about, and Aff for raiding. Sounds like a good plan! Wait....hasn't that always been the case? Anyways...
Speaking of alternate specs, deciding to see what all the RAGE was about Marksman huntering, I gave Turby's secondary spec a run and it's quite fun being completely OP. Let's start from the beginning. As a Beastmaster, you are optimally probably around a 10-12k DPS hunter ALONE, with an 8-10k dps pet. Well, I am anyways. As Marksman, you are a 18-20k DPS hunter ALONE, with a 1.8-2.5k dps (Turtle - Wolf) pet. Like they say, it's bring the player not the class, and I am speaking as one single player and I can see the potential of Marksman edging out Beastmaster EVEN in moderate movement fights, Beastmaster MAY have a slight advantage in fights where you have to be constantly moving (more than 10 seconds), and your pet can continue to Nom Nom away.
Though honestly I don't really care for min-maxing my damage as we aren't bleeding edge, but my natural accountant persona finds joy in optimizing numbers.
A single target low movement fight capitalizes on a Marksman's ability to use Aimed Shot as their focus dump rather than multiple Arcane Shots. A high movement fight can see a Beastmaster use their Bestial Wrath to initiate Arcane Shot machine gun mode, which does not require any standing still as you can use all your ability on the move for the 10 seconds. Of course, depending on the encounter any keen player will look for openings to stasnd still for a couple seconds to get off any short spells.
So from what I see right now in terms of Raiding Viability, it would be:
1. Bm/Marksman, doesn't really matter, as my long-term companion Puppy the Devilsaur likes to see new encounters. But I'd also like to take advantage of Careful Aim on mobs with MORE than 5 million health.
2. Affliction Warlockery. Soul Drain is bad-ass. I KIND of miss Life Tap. KIND of.
3. Bear Druiding, Druid Healing (My backup toon who has the most raid experience under his belt). Though both tanking and healing are quite boring, despite how hectic some encounters are.
4. Demo Warlockery. This spec so far for me is no good anymore. I will get back to you on this with further testing.
Ok I'm going to talk about something else now, bye!
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Firelands Action Plan: Step 2
So I've been looking at my older posts and WOW were they as bitter as a witch's tit dipped in tangerine juice. (Awkward moment)
I had said that I would "work" on my other toons once my hunter had received:
4/5 Upgrades. Let's count. 378 Bow and Weapon, 378 Gloves, Matoclaw's Ring, VP Bracers thanks to my friend who grinded the VP for me before quitting ;)
And today I will have enough marks FINALLY to unlock ONE of the Firelands Vendors, and I am going to choose the dude inside the tree as the agility trinket is pretty nice, and because of my Engineering I can make some money selling stuff!
Another requirement was to tame a new pet: Ban'thalos.
So now, who to play? It's a tossup between my druid and my warlock and I am edging towards my druid because he's pretty much been my main tank/heals forever and Warlocks are still KINDA clunky.
BUT the real question is: Do I want to do dailies on my Druid as well, with him eventually completing the Molten Front Shenannigans? Ehhh...... I dunno.....maybe at a REAAAAAAAAALLLLY slow pace. Maybe I'll do somewhere along the lines of one to two dailies a day and see how that goes. Though the entire round of dailies seem to only take 20 minutes on my hunter.....We. Shall. See.
Again it's the "what else can I do?" syndrom. Well, gather and stockpile mats, run weird guild groups where we only melee mobs, do old raids, etc etc etc.
I had said that I would "work" on my other toons once my hunter had received:
4/5 Upgrades. Let's count. 378 Bow and Weapon, 378 Gloves, Matoclaw's Ring, VP Bracers thanks to my friend who grinded the VP for me before quitting ;)
And today I will have enough marks FINALLY to unlock ONE of the Firelands Vendors, and I am going to choose the dude inside the tree as the agility trinket is pretty nice, and because of my Engineering I can make some money selling stuff!
Another requirement was to tame a new pet: Ban'thalos.
So now, who to play? It's a tossup between my druid and my warlock and I am edging towards my druid because he's pretty much been my main tank/heals forever and Warlocks are still KINDA clunky.
BUT the real question is: Do I want to do dailies on my Druid as well, with him eventually completing the Molten Front Shenannigans? Ehhh...... I dunno.....maybe at a REAAAAAAAAALLLLY slow pace. Maybe I'll do somewhere along the lines of one to two dailies a day and see how that goes. Though the entire round of dailies seem to only take 20 minutes on my hunter.....We. Shall. See.
Again it's the "what else can I do?" syndrom. Well, gather and stockpile mats, run weird guild groups where we only melee mobs, do old raids, etc etc etc.
Ban'thalos is Difficult to Photograph
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| The only "bird" whose Kill Command is highly effective! |
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Ban'thalos: The Flying Spirit Beast
So one night over the weekend I logged in exclusively to check for Ban'thalos the flying spirit beast. Turby had already been perched on the tree at the Sanctuary of Malorne with his buttons all lined up and ready. I was gladly met by a neutral yellow dot on my mini-map: Ban'thalos!
I looked around and there didn't seem to be any other hunters around, yet.
I waited for Ban'thalos to loop around on his flight path, then I flew straight up to be on the same z-axis as him and shot! Nothing. Autoshot is too short-ranged. I must have also shifted forward, and fell to my death! NO! I fly back and now there are other people gathering around, trying to get to land on the one pixel of the tree. GAH! Luckily they were failing. I land back on the tree, due to many weeks of experience, choosing that tree-tip as my log-out point each night. I set my trap, fly straight up and Serpent Sting him! Success! He attacks, I fall onto the tree and lose half my health, he gets frozen and I begin my tame. Oh crap someone is attacking him and he breaks out of the trap, 20% health, tame is almost complete, success!!
Great, now I have nothing to do.
I don't have any pics, I will post some tonight if I remember!
I looked around and there didn't seem to be any other hunters around, yet.
I waited for Ban'thalos to loop around on his flight path, then I flew straight up to be on the same z-axis as him and shot! Nothing. Autoshot is too short-ranged. I must have also shifted forward, and fell to my death! NO! I fly back and now there are other people gathering around, trying to get to land on the one pixel of the tree. GAH! Luckily they were failing. I land back on the tree, due to many weeks of experience, choosing that tree-tip as my log-out point each night. I set my trap, fly straight up and Serpent Sting him! Success! He attacks, I fall onto the tree and lose half my health, he gets frozen and I begin my tame. Oh crap someone is attacking him and he breaks out of the trap, 20% health, tame is almost complete, success!!
Great, now I have nothing to do.
I don't have any pics, I will post some tonight if I remember!
Monday, August 22, 2011
Patch 4.3: What ELSE Can We Do?
Hey I'm back my dear one reader! I've been very very busy lately, I think I mentioned this before but I don't remember where but I am still a-studyin' away for my super accounting exam in just under two months.
We downed Al'akir for the first time this weekend, and for the first time of me logging on for more than two consecutive hours. I healed, and I'd have to say after the nerf he's pretty easy.
That's about it for news. Raids are still fun, especially the dumbed down ones, which make them akin to mini-dungeons or skirmishes.
Yes I always bring up LOTRO because I have been playing LOTRO more than WOW lately. There's so much stuff to do there! That and the non-existance of flying mounts gives the game an overall slower paced feel.
The one complaint I have with wow right now is that there isn't anything to do. Anything left that is worth doing anyways. Firelands dailies are there but.....blaaaaah please no more dailies. I just unlocked the Druids of the Talon, which means I can now GRIND 375 more emblems for each of the three new vendors by doing the dailies over and over and over and over again. Don't get me wrong the quests are interesting and varied but....in terms of current tier content that's IT. Do dailies. Raid Firelands. How do we acquire VP on our own? Run the SAAAAAAME dungeons over and over and over and over again!
Maybe we should have kept dungeons longer and a tad more difficult so that we won't get BORED of them so quickly by running them so often. We're all probably at a point (if you're still playing my dear reader) where we can list off the location and ability of every single trash mob and boss in all of the Cata heroics, and all of the trash and boss abilities in the T10 raids.
How about Scaleable dungeons? It's already been done why not do it for all dungeons? Level 85 Ragefire Downs oh god I've forgotten what it's called...you know...RFD! If you scale it to T11 you get 140 VP for finishing and only 70 for scaling it to T10 difficulty. It would add some much needed variation.
Steal LOTRO's Legendary Weapon system. Rather than have people gasm over new gear why not let them keep one "special" item in which they can level up and make even more powerful even at end game. So even if your character isn't levelling at least SOMETHING is making progress.
What about Pet Armour? Or Multiple Pets? Or Pet Combat Jets? Ok that's asking for too much haha!
Ok I'm done goodbye!
We downed Al'akir for the first time this weekend, and for the first time of me logging on for more than two consecutive hours. I healed, and I'd have to say after the nerf he's pretty easy.
That's about it for news. Raids are still fun, especially the dumbed down ones, which make them akin to mini-dungeons or skirmishes.
Yes I always bring up LOTRO because I have been playing LOTRO more than WOW lately. There's so much stuff to do there! That and the non-existance of flying mounts gives the game an overall slower paced feel.
The one complaint I have with wow right now is that there isn't anything to do. Anything left that is worth doing anyways. Firelands dailies are there but.....blaaaaah please no more dailies. I just unlocked the Druids of the Talon, which means I can now GRIND 375 more emblems for each of the three new vendors by doing the dailies over and over and over and over again. Don't get me wrong the quests are interesting and varied but....in terms of current tier content that's IT. Do dailies. Raid Firelands. How do we acquire VP on our own? Run the SAAAAAAME dungeons over and over and over and over again!
Maybe we should have kept dungeons longer and a tad more difficult so that we won't get BORED of them so quickly by running them so often. We're all probably at a point (if you're still playing my dear reader) where we can list off the location and ability of every single trash mob and boss in all of the Cata heroics, and all of the trash and boss abilities in the T10 raids.
How about Scaleable dungeons? It's already been done why not do it for all dungeons? Level 85 Ragefire Downs oh god I've forgotten what it's called...you know...RFD! If you scale it to T11 you get 140 VP for finishing and only 70 for scaling it to T10 difficulty. It would add some much needed variation.
Steal LOTRO's Legendary Weapon system. Rather than have people gasm over new gear why not let them keep one "special" item in which they can level up and make even more powerful even at end game. So even if your character isn't levelling at least SOMETHING is making progress.
What about Pet Armour? Or Multiple Pets? Or Pet Combat Jets? Ok that's asking for too much haha!
Ok I'm done goodbye!
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Dailies and Burnout
Speaaaaking of dailies...I haven't been doing the Firelands dailies for about a week now after unlocking the Wardens of Shadow with Turby's first 150 marks. I just....can't. This is the only line of progress in the game for me, I have most factions at exalted save for the obscure ones, have all the cool pets save for the new ones, which I've lost all interest in, and the "progress" that comes from these dailies is just increasing your mark count. There's no "real" progress in each 20-30 minute daily session. There's that age-old complaint: There's nothing to do! I haven't raided in many many moons now either, our Saturday raid times prove to be quite difficult to attend given real life human summer activities and the next 15 Saturdays will be filled with CMA courses (It's a Canadian Accounting designation thing for all you non-Canadians). I won't miss raiding, though that's the only other thing to do. I've run ZA and ZG so many times that my Turtle has pretty much emergency tanked 60% of all the bosses when we happen to run into a Failpug.
Perhaps it's time to raid with another group? But then what's the point I'd just get burntout from having to schedule in gaming time. I hated that from before.
My plans to obtain the new 365 gun seems to have fallen through. I've obtained all the mats to make three, but I really don't feel like gathering another 150 marks! I said I'd do them every other day but now it seems like it's once a week. Perhaps that's a nice new timeframe to use. I can't quit now, I still have to show everyone that Beast Masters are super viable, and it's not just MM or GTFO!
Anecdote Time: My hunter friend in training/apprentice was in a Zul'Gurub several weeks ago and upon seeing his spirit beast the healer suggested him to switch into MM spec as "Bm Sucks, bad". He ignored the request and in his 355 gear gave the full 359 set paladin a run for his money.
This is funny, in a lot of people's minds BM sucks. This is a valid response, as BM did suck once. When DPS values were at 5k, not 20k. See, our guild knows that BM is fine. I taught another friend about BM'ing who has a following of BM'ers in his guild as well.
We shall see.
Perhaps it's time to raid with another group? But then what's the point I'd just get burntout from having to schedule in gaming time. I hated that from before.
My plans to obtain the new 365 gun seems to have fallen through. I've obtained all the mats to make three, but I really don't feel like gathering another 150 marks! I said I'd do them every other day but now it seems like it's once a week. Perhaps that's a nice new timeframe to use. I can't quit now, I still have to show everyone that Beast Masters are super viable, and it's not just MM or GTFO!
Anecdote Time: My hunter friend in training/apprentice was in a Zul'Gurub several weeks ago and upon seeing his spirit beast the healer suggested him to switch into MM spec as "Bm Sucks, bad". He ignored the request and in his 355 gear gave the full 359 set paladin a run for his money.
This is funny, in a lot of people's minds BM sucks. This is a valid response, as BM did suck once. When DPS values were at 5k, not 20k. See, our guild knows that BM is fine. I taught another friend about BM'ing who has a following of BM'ers in his guild as well.
We shall see.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Truny's Occu'thar Tips
I've been feeling rather unhelpful as of late so here are some of my Mental Notes for the new Baradin Hold boss Occu'thar!
Upon entering the prison players will gladly find that the annoying pulse sentinels have been destroyed by some unknown creature and have been replaced by creepy floaty eyes. This trash is a bit more forgiving I think.
Mental Notes
Occu'thar is actually just as simple as Argaloth, though he does require lightning fast reflexes and fairly high AOE dps.
1. Both tanks stand on opposite sides of the boss. Preferrably with each tank's back facing the two far corners of the room as the boss has a Cone attack. Taunt when he does this.
2. Everyone else spread out and pew pew. When he Focus Fires a giant black laser on you, RUN AWAY INSTANTLY as it does 35k damage a SECOND and leaves a giant black pool on the ground.
3. The boss will then "summon eyes" that latch onto players, when you see him summon, everyone group up and go balls to the walls on the eyes. They do damage while they are latched on, but the thing is they explode if they are not killed within 10 seconds and their explosion damage does 20k to everyone in the raid, so you can see how having 3 or more eyes left is dangerous.
4. RIGHT after the eyes are dead everyone SPREAD because he will immediately do a focus fire which WILL wipe your ENTIRE group the first time you do this.
Shorter Notes
Tank corners, taunt. Everyone spread, run from beam. Group of AOE eyes, spread again.
I believe the boss uses his abilities in this order from the start of the fight.
I am leaving out his cone attack as only tanks should worry about this and seriously...if yo usee it just taunt.
Focus Fire
Eyes
Focus Fire
Focus Fire
Eyes
Focus Fire
Focus Fire
Eyes
So only upon the start of the encounter will he only do one bad ass laser.
Upon defeat he drops T12 shit and 120 VP!
Happy Occu'thar Hunting!
Upon entering the prison players will gladly find that the annoying pulse sentinels have been destroyed by some unknown creature and have been replaced by creepy floaty eyes. This trash is a bit more forgiving I think.
Mental Notes
Occu'thar is actually just as simple as Argaloth, though he does require lightning fast reflexes and fairly high AOE dps.
1. Both tanks stand on opposite sides of the boss. Preferrably with each tank's back facing the two far corners of the room as the boss has a Cone attack. Taunt when he does this.
2. Everyone else spread out and pew pew. When he Focus Fires a giant black laser on you, RUN AWAY INSTANTLY as it does 35k damage a SECOND and leaves a giant black pool on the ground.
3. The boss will then "summon eyes" that latch onto players, when you see him summon, everyone group up and go balls to the walls on the eyes. They do damage while they are latched on, but the thing is they explode if they are not killed within 10 seconds and their explosion damage does 20k to everyone in the raid, so you can see how having 3 or more eyes left is dangerous.
4. RIGHT after the eyes are dead everyone SPREAD because he will immediately do a focus fire which WILL wipe your ENTIRE group the first time you do this.
Shorter Notes
Tank corners, taunt. Everyone spread, run from beam. Group of AOE eyes, spread again.
I believe the boss uses his abilities in this order from the start of the fight.
I am leaving out his cone attack as only tanks should worry about this and seriously...if yo usee it just taunt.
Focus Fire
Eyes
Focus Fire
Focus Fire
Eyes
Focus Fire
Focus Fire
Eyes
So only upon the start of the encounter will he only do one bad ass laser.
Upon defeat he drops T12 shit and 120 VP!
Happy Occu'thar Hunting!
Friday, July 8, 2011
Turby's Guide to the Fireland Dailies
Well not really a guide. More like an odd narration of the various dailies I"ve seen up to Phase 2. We can see that there is a bit more variety to the new dailies than say....the Argent Tournament? /shiver
I apologize for even bringing that up. Come, bring your minds back to 2011.
Alright, in no particular order or completion:
Wolf Howling: This quest requres us to "howl" at the corpses of our enemies in the new questing areas. It turns you into a wolf momentarily but I'd really like to see us be able to "AOE Howl" down multiple corpses as howling ten individual times wastes about 30 minutes of our day.
Collect 100 Scales: Kill those scarly fire things and they can drop from what looks like 5-25 scales. Interesting.
Bird Herd: Fly around and "holla" at the various birds, the more you gather the faster you fly and once you hit 65 stacks you get an achievement (I realized this after the fact).
Kill 6 Things in Sethria's Roost: This quest is okay as there are usually tons of people doing the same quest and you can "tag"/share kills with anyone.
Punt Turtles: Forget punting these little guys I'd like to TAME one!
Heal 8 Wounded Druids: Is it just me, or is it rather horrible for us to wait around for our allies to spawn, and waiting for them to die so we can heal them back up? And is it even more cruel for us to think "hurry up and fall down now"?
Kill 8 Molten Front Things: This one's the generic filler quest for "while you're out there.."
Kill Flame Druids/Fire Hounds/Seal Up Portals: Here we have our "variety" to the initial Molten Front areas. It's an invasion, and there are various enemies invading and here we go.
Get Hit by Moose: I think this quest encourages poor driving habits. Running into Moose on purpose!
Quests I Have Now Randomly Invented
These are DAILY quests, and hence they must take all DAY to finish right?
Diluting the Firelands: The quests that we currently have are tailored to be completed rather quickly and lazily. We need some "epic" oomph. What better way than to have the player run around the world, gathering ten samples of Moonwell Water from various moonwells across Azeroth and dumping them into ten various spots within the Firelands to "cool it down"? This shall award 1 mark only.
Aid of the Elements: The elemental forces are awry, yet there is a special group of elementals with a steady head still in existence: within the Throne of Elemends in Nagrand! You must journey there and complete a single quest for each of the four elements, and in return they provide you with part of their essence in which you must return to the Firelands to unleash it upon the Fiery Enemies. Awards 1 mark only.
Essence of the Tidehunter: After Neptulon got pwnd by a Naga and got hit in the face by a Kraken, he didn't get as much awesome screen-time as we'd like. Why couldn't he have empowered the whole naval force when the Kraken was attacking before? He empowers a group of 5 players to fight back the Kraken where one is even a healer! Anyways, for this quest you must travel to the deepest part of Vash'jir and "drain" any of the Tidehunter's leftover essence from the surrounding environment and "infuse" them into the Firelands. 25 Shards of Whatever shall suffice. Awards 1 mark only.
Lieutenants of the Inferno: You thought the Sethria's roost mobs were tough, well you are now sent to dispose of Ragnaros' more powerful minions. Though I am not sure if these will occur in stage 4 (after recruiting the two druid thing factions). They will have oh let's say 8M HP and you must traverse through the Molten Front through a large gauntlet of mobs. You MUST group up and kill three of these lieutenants. Awards 2 marks.
So the "Elites" don't whine (Turby goes out of control):
All of the current quests that award 2 marks have been combined, and they only award 1 mark (four times less) and the ones that award 1 mark have been removed. How d'ya like THAT elitists? All kill and gather quests have had their requirements increaed five times. Instead of killing 6 Fiery Lords, we now must kill 30. Oh and all mark requirements have been tripled. And there are no longer special vendors that sell Epic items and recipes to you casual people at each stage. You only get ONE ilvl 365 ring at the end of this entire chain which will take about 4 months to complete (if you did all the dailies everyday). The Firelands raid REQUIRES a min ilvl of 378 to enter and all mobs and bosses have had HP and Damage increased by 50%. You must now complete the Molten Front quests before even being allowed to start the attunement to enter the Firelands raid. All BOE Epics have been removed from the game and all bosses only have a 0.5% chance to drop a Fiery Crystal, which will be used to upgrade your gear to 378...which you should already have. Most items will require 75-100 shards. And the very last barrier to entry is that character must SOLO the Deathwing at their log-in screen before they are able to log-in to their characters.
Turby is it's the Weekend!
I apologize for even bringing that up. Come, bring your minds back to 2011.
Alright, in no particular order or completion:
Wolf Howling: This quest requres us to "howl" at the corpses of our enemies in the new questing areas. It turns you into a wolf momentarily but I'd really like to see us be able to "AOE Howl" down multiple corpses as howling ten individual times wastes about 30 minutes of our day.
Collect 100 Scales: Kill those scarly fire things and they can drop from what looks like 5-25 scales. Interesting.
Bird Herd: Fly around and "holla" at the various birds, the more you gather the faster you fly and once you hit 65 stacks you get an achievement (I realized this after the fact).
Kill 6 Things in Sethria's Roost: This quest is okay as there are usually tons of people doing the same quest and you can "tag"/share kills with anyone.
Punt Turtles: Forget punting these little guys I'd like to TAME one!
Heal 8 Wounded Druids: Is it just me, or is it rather horrible for us to wait around for our allies to spawn, and waiting for them to die so we can heal them back up? And is it even more cruel for us to think "hurry up and fall down now"?
Kill 8 Molten Front Things: This one's the generic filler quest for "while you're out there.."
Kill Flame Druids/Fire Hounds/Seal Up Portals: Here we have our "variety" to the initial Molten Front areas. It's an invasion, and there are various enemies invading and here we go.
Get Hit by Moose: I think this quest encourages poor driving habits. Running into Moose on purpose!
Quests I Have Now Randomly Invented
These are DAILY quests, and hence they must take all DAY to finish right?
Diluting the Firelands: The quests that we currently have are tailored to be completed rather quickly and lazily. We need some "epic" oomph. What better way than to have the player run around the world, gathering ten samples of Moonwell Water from various moonwells across Azeroth and dumping them into ten various spots within the Firelands to "cool it down"? This shall award 1 mark only.
Aid of the Elements: The elemental forces are awry, yet there is a special group of elementals with a steady head still in existence: within the Throne of Elemends in Nagrand! You must journey there and complete a single quest for each of the four elements, and in return they provide you with part of their essence in which you must return to the Firelands to unleash it upon the Fiery Enemies. Awards 1 mark only.
Essence of the Tidehunter: After Neptulon got pwnd by a Naga and got hit in the face by a Kraken, he didn't get as much awesome screen-time as we'd like. Why couldn't he have empowered the whole naval force when the Kraken was attacking before? He empowers a group of 5 players to fight back the Kraken where one is even a healer! Anyways, for this quest you must travel to the deepest part of Vash'jir and "drain" any of the Tidehunter's leftover essence from the surrounding environment and "infuse" them into the Firelands. 25 Shards of Whatever shall suffice. Awards 1 mark only.
Lieutenants of the Inferno: You thought the Sethria's roost mobs were tough, well you are now sent to dispose of Ragnaros' more powerful minions. Though I am not sure if these will occur in stage 4 (after recruiting the two druid thing factions). They will have oh let's say 8M HP and you must traverse through the Molten Front through a large gauntlet of mobs. You MUST group up and kill three of these lieutenants. Awards 2 marks.
So the "Elites" don't whine (Turby goes out of control):
All of the current quests that award 2 marks have been combined, and they only award 1 mark (four times less) and the ones that award 1 mark have been removed. How d'ya like THAT elitists? All kill and gather quests have had their requirements increaed five times. Instead of killing 6 Fiery Lords, we now must kill 30. Oh and all mark requirements have been tripled. And there are no longer special vendors that sell Epic items and recipes to you casual people at each stage. You only get ONE ilvl 365 ring at the end of this entire chain which will take about 4 months to complete (if you did all the dailies everyday). The Firelands raid REQUIRES a min ilvl of 378 to enter and all mobs and bosses have had HP and Damage increased by 50%. You must now complete the Molten Front quests before even being allowed to start the attunement to enter the Firelands raid. All BOE Epics have been removed from the game and all bosses only have a 0.5% chance to drop a Fiery Crystal, which will be used to upgrade your gear to 378...which you should already have. Most items will require 75-100 shards. And the very last barrier to entry is that character must SOLO the Deathwing at their log-in screen before they are able to log-in to their characters.
Turby is it's the Weekend!
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
The Pets of 4.2: Turby's Take
I hope everyone is having fun grinding the various dailies of the Firelands, be it trying to get run over by stray moose or slinging along a rag-tag gang of wayward druids to fight off the minions of the Firelord, we can definitely say that this artificual slowing down of content is..interesting no?
What do you think? Would you rather be able to grind grind grind and get to the end in three days, equip all your purchaseable epics and never look at Firelands again, or do you prefer this slower method? This phased approach shows us that there's really nothing to "rush" about. You are going help with the battle in the Firelands anyways, and you know that once you are done with the Avengers of Hyjal you are probably going to get bored, start complaining, and bitch and moan about 4.3 and how it'll make some drastic changes to your 4.2 experience right?
So why not take things in stride and enjoy (what little so far) has been offered?
Luckily for us hunters, we have much more to do than all those "other" folk. We have ten new beasts to tame, and as most of us have realized by now, most of these pets are heavily camped.
The Spiders - All Hunter Specs
Oh it's a cruel world after all! Five awesome molten-glowy-rock spider pets have been added for you PVP hunters, however there is a twist: you must engage in pve-esque kiting (which is also a very PVP "skill") or mechanics to tame them. I'm not going to list them here and describe them there are other much helpful and useful sites out there for that purpose. For all purposes and intent, Turby does not require a spider or any cunning pet at that. Solo PVE is fairly simple, and tougher mobs are "tanked" by a Tenacity pet and the Shale Spiders already have web-wrab to boot. They are definitely pretty so if I find a way to free up an extra slot in my stables (Olm the Wise might have to go home) I may attempt to tame one of the challenge spiders in the future. I currently have a red cinderweb whatever running with me as a filler pet. She's pretty (weak).
The Gem Pets - All Hunter Specs
Two gem pets have been added, a cat more famously known as the Black Gem Cat of Storm Peaks and a black gemmed CRAB. Come on another special crab? I think the Ghostcrawler spirit beast should have been the one and only "special" crab. Then again, Tenacity pets got some loving for those of us who are getting bored with Terrorpene and want to whip out something else with an awesome new texture on it! Though I do have to ask, why are there two random gem "beasts" at Fireplume Peak and how come there aren't other similar creatures nearby? And how do they even spawn on floating rocks? This goes against simple evolutionary and biological rules no?
The Spirit Beasts - BM Only
Three new spirit beasts have been added! I actually wanted to see more "other" Exotic beasts such as a new Corehound or a new Devilsaur. Perhaps in future patches when the designers decide to be a BIT more unique in their visuals. Of the three new spirit beasts, two are essentially Gondria but recolored. Whoopdeedoo, now you can collect Gondria's siblings. Or parents. Or whoever they are. Of course these two spirit cats are also "challenge" tames where you must take off all your armor or they one shot you. That's the excuse, it still doesn't make up for the fact that they are Gondria clones. Long Live Gondria! Ok fine, perhaps those of you who don't like Gondria's purple shade would enjoy this "diversity". Last but not least is the very first "Flying" spirit beast Ban'thalos. I am not sure if I should feel excited or disappointed as this is pretty much a reskin of Olm the Wise, with a bit of graphical flair for the wing-tips. So for those of us who would prefer to run with a flying Ferocity pet that isn't an ugly Vulture or a Wasp then this pet is for you, regardless of its unoriginality!
So to sum it all up, the new spiders are nice but would you ever bring them to a dungeon or raid? No. Sorry for dismissing PVP so harshly but..yeah you're dismissed. The gemmed beasts have no real context for where they are located and the crab (Karkin) feels like the they are shoving the idea of crab down our throats just a bit, but we do finally get a shot at taming a gemmed cat, despite it's non-exotic status. As for the spirit cats, well....if you never got lucky at finding Gondria perhaps with the addition of two new clones you'll finally be able to fight alongside a spirit sabre. Ban'thalos is neat, though we only wish that it had a more original skin, but I guess it's flying status makes up for it (damn you guys are crafty!)
Turby the Hunter
What do you think? Would you rather be able to grind grind grind and get to the end in three days, equip all your purchaseable epics and never look at Firelands again, or do you prefer this slower method? This phased approach shows us that there's really nothing to "rush" about. You are going help with the battle in the Firelands anyways, and you know that once you are done with the Avengers of Hyjal you are probably going to get bored, start complaining, and bitch and moan about 4.3 and how it'll make some drastic changes to your 4.2 experience right?
So why not take things in stride and enjoy (what little so far) has been offered?
Luckily for us hunters, we have much more to do than all those "other" folk. We have ten new beasts to tame, and as most of us have realized by now, most of these pets are heavily camped.
The Spiders - All Hunter Specs
Oh it's a cruel world after all! Five awesome molten-glowy-rock spider pets have been added for you PVP hunters, however there is a twist: you must engage in pve-esque kiting (which is also a very PVP "skill") or mechanics to tame them. I'm not going to list them here and describe them there are other much helpful and useful sites out there for that purpose. For all purposes and intent, Turby does not require a spider or any cunning pet at that. Solo PVE is fairly simple, and tougher mobs are "tanked" by a Tenacity pet and the Shale Spiders already have web-wrab to boot. They are definitely pretty so if I find a way to free up an extra slot in my stables (Olm the Wise might have to go home) I may attempt to tame one of the challenge spiders in the future. I currently have a red cinderweb whatever running with me as a filler pet. She's pretty (weak).
The Gem Pets - All Hunter Specs
Two gem pets have been added, a cat more famously known as the Black Gem Cat of Storm Peaks and a black gemmed CRAB. Come on another special crab? I think the Ghostcrawler spirit beast should have been the one and only "special" crab. Then again, Tenacity pets got some loving for those of us who are getting bored with Terrorpene and want to whip out something else with an awesome new texture on it! Though I do have to ask, why are there two random gem "beasts" at Fireplume Peak and how come there aren't other similar creatures nearby? And how do they even spawn on floating rocks? This goes against simple evolutionary and biological rules no?
The Spirit Beasts - BM Only
Three new spirit beasts have been added! I actually wanted to see more "other" Exotic beasts such as a new Corehound or a new Devilsaur. Perhaps in future patches when the designers decide to be a BIT more unique in their visuals. Of the three new spirit beasts, two are essentially Gondria but recolored. Whoopdeedoo, now you can collect Gondria's siblings. Or parents. Or whoever they are. Of course these two spirit cats are also "challenge" tames where you must take off all your armor or they one shot you. That's the excuse, it still doesn't make up for the fact that they are Gondria clones. Long Live Gondria! Ok fine, perhaps those of you who don't like Gondria's purple shade would enjoy this "diversity". Last but not least is the very first "Flying" spirit beast Ban'thalos. I am not sure if I should feel excited or disappointed as this is pretty much a reskin of Olm the Wise, with a bit of graphical flair for the wing-tips. So for those of us who would prefer to run with a flying Ferocity pet that isn't an ugly Vulture or a Wasp then this pet is for you, regardless of its unoriginality!
So to sum it all up, the new spiders are nice but would you ever bring them to a dungeon or raid? No. Sorry for dismissing PVP so harshly but..yeah you're dismissed. The gemmed beasts have no real context for where they are located and the crab (Karkin) feels like the they are shoving the idea of crab down our throats just a bit, but we do finally get a shot at taming a gemmed cat, despite it's non-exotic status. As for the spirit cats, well....if you never got lucky at finding Gondria perhaps with the addition of two new clones you'll finally be able to fight alongside a spirit sabre. Ban'thalos is neat, though we only wish that it had a more original skin, but I guess it's flying status makes up for it (damn you guys are crafty!)
Turby the Hunter
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Firelands: Action Plan
Good Day!
So I have decided that I am -not- going to be touching any of my other toons until my Hunter has:
1. Earned/grinded/found/bought at least 4/5 pieces of upgrades.
2. Tamed a new rare pet.
I guess I will get my Warlock and Druid started into the firelands daily quests but....we all know interesting dailies are right?
So I have decided that I am -not- going to be touching any of my other toons until my Hunter has:
1. Earned/grinded/found/bought at least 4/5 pieces of upgrades.
2. Tamed a new rare pet.
I guess I will get my Warlock and Druid started into the firelands daily quests but....we all know interesting dailies are right?
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Turby's Guide to 4.2
So it looks like 4.2 has hit today and here I am with my VERY useful tips on how to get the most of this patch so that you'll be bored as quickly as possible and anticipate every little detail of patch 4.3 as quickly as you can!
1. Log in and lag.
2. Probably pick up a quest in your main town, and fly on over to Hyjal/Firelands.
3. Rage at all the people in your way.
4. Grind all the little emblems so you can proceed.
5. Repeat for a week until you reach the next stage.
6. Repeat step 4 at this next stage until step 5.
7. Get loots and try out the new raid.
8. OMG so guess what happens in 4.3???
Bonus Hunter Tips:
1. Be the first to tame Deth'tilac, then stand AFK in front of the Auction House to show off your penis!
......
1. Log in and lag.
2. Probably pick up a quest in your main town, and fly on over to Hyjal/Firelands.
3. Rage at all the people in your way.
4. Grind all the little emblems so you can proceed.
5. Repeat for a week until you reach the next stage.
6. Repeat step 4 at this next stage until step 5.
7. Get loots and try out the new raid.
8. OMG so guess what happens in 4.3???
Bonus Hunter Tips:
1. Be the first to tame Deth'tilac, then stand AFK in front of the Auction House to show off your penis!
......
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Turby the Turtle
This was a couple weeks back, and of course, I never did take the effort to actually fly to a fishing node to even make my attempt. However tonight, being super duper bored I decided to fish at a "completely random" node, the Twilight Highland nodes. Three algaefin rockfish nodes later, I notice a blue item had been fished up. The Turtle. Ugh. Now what am I supposed to do to pass the time? Well, I could sit idle and wait for the Time Lost type drakes, the Storm Peaks one AND the Deepholm one, but that's boring.
But anyways, I'm quite happy with this turtle and it shall be aptly named Turby!
Turby the Turtle Hunter
Friday, June 3, 2011
Measley!
So my WARLOCK got a shot at Omnotron yesterday. The caster hood dropped and I LOST the roll by one point! Grrr, it's okay I don't intend on playing my Warlock again anyways.
Why? BUT WHY? Now I did manage to produce the most damage output for that fight, but at a measley 14.5k DPS. Sure there are lots of target changes and movement, but that's unacceptable!
We headed on to Chimaeron, he's a pretty simple fight, we didn't kill him but he's a pretty simple fight. Spread out, stack when he's feuding, kite when he's all berserko-murderous. I then got bored with my Warlock's disgraceful performance and switched in my hunter.
Instantly he was doing a consistent 20K dps, the new standard. Consistency is key, I didn't look further into recount, but the reason is that my pet dino gives a constant 9-10k DPS regardless of what the heck I'm doing out in the battlefield as long as I push my Kill Command at every cooldown!
Oh wait! I know what I forgot! I forgot to put in Corruption for raiding! I even said it in an older post, to save Corruption for raiding and forget about it in 5 mans! GAH! Oh well, I doubt Corruption would have given me an extra 6k dps anyways...we're just AOE machines anyways...
Now let's talk buttons.
Warlocks have a hellalotta buttons to push!
We need to keep track of our big Bane of Agony every minute. We need to refresh our Corruptions (which I had failed to even USE), we hit Hand of Gul'dan at every cooldown. We watch for THREE Nukes, Incinerate, and Soulfire when applicable, and we trigger our pet's special ability. Then we have our two cooldowns which can be used in conjunction with one another, and another special ability only available while in cooldown form. That's like six billion buttons!
A BM Hunter on the other hand, marks their target, has one cooldown, a dot that lasts forever (Serpent Sting), and three attacks, Cobra Shot, Arcane Shot, Kill Command. We have a "mini" buff "thing" known as Focus Fire which increases our ranged attack speed, which we press every 15 seconds and is a no-brainer (except during Bestial Wrath). That's it. All that's left is focus-management to maximize every point of focus at any given time.
Now let's look at Arcane mages. Two buttons right? Arcane Blast then Arcane Barrage, and use Missiles? Ok fine that's 3. My mage is only level 17 so I can't report much but I'll figure it out one day, judging from the mastery stat of Arcane it looks like a fine balance of maximizing the most damage you can produce with the mana that you currently have. So either spamming Arcane Blast, or using only a couple Arcane Blasts followed with those other Arcane spells? Sounds interesting.
So in conclusion, how about we give Demo the same little "nudge" that made BM so OP?
Also two little things really bugged me from yesterday. I usually put my Dark Intent on a healer with HOTs, so a Resto Shammy, since their chain heals and dots can all leave dots that can crit. But someone suggested: DI Locks - Locks. What? With another Demo lock? We have ONE consistent DOT, and that's Immolate....that's it. Our other dot is one that ticks once every 15 seconds.
Also, when I switched in my Hunter, I was "recommended" to switch to Survival because "it did more damage", shut the fuck up, 20k as BM is *FINE*.
Sorry for the rage, it's Friday!
Why? BUT WHY? Now I did manage to produce the most damage output for that fight, but at a measley 14.5k DPS. Sure there are lots of target changes and movement, but that's unacceptable!
We headed on to Chimaeron, he's a pretty simple fight, we didn't kill him but he's a pretty simple fight. Spread out, stack when he's feuding, kite when he's all berserko-murderous. I then got bored with my Warlock's disgraceful performance and switched in my hunter.
Instantly he was doing a consistent 20K dps, the new standard. Consistency is key, I didn't look further into recount, but the reason is that my pet dino gives a constant 9-10k DPS regardless of what the heck I'm doing out in the battlefield as long as I push my Kill Command at every cooldown!
Oh wait! I know what I forgot! I forgot to put in Corruption for raiding! I even said it in an older post, to save Corruption for raiding and forget about it in 5 mans! GAH! Oh well, I doubt Corruption would have given me an extra 6k dps anyways...we're just AOE machines anyways...
Now let's talk buttons.
Warlocks have a hellalotta buttons to push!
We need to keep track of our big Bane of Agony every minute. We need to refresh our Corruptions (which I had failed to even USE), we hit Hand of Gul'dan at every cooldown. We watch for THREE Nukes, Incinerate, and Soulfire when applicable, and we trigger our pet's special ability. Then we have our two cooldowns which can be used in conjunction with one another, and another special ability only available while in cooldown form. That's like six billion buttons!
A BM Hunter on the other hand, marks their target, has one cooldown, a dot that lasts forever (Serpent Sting), and three attacks, Cobra Shot, Arcane Shot, Kill Command. We have a "mini" buff "thing" known as Focus Fire which increases our ranged attack speed, which we press every 15 seconds and is a no-brainer (except during Bestial Wrath). That's it. All that's left is focus-management to maximize every point of focus at any given time.
Now let's look at Arcane mages. Two buttons right? Arcane Blast then Arcane Barrage, and use Missiles? Ok fine that's 3. My mage is only level 17 so I can't report much but I'll figure it out one day, judging from the mastery stat of Arcane it looks like a fine balance of maximizing the most damage you can produce with the mana that you currently have. So either spamming Arcane Blast, or using only a couple Arcane Blasts followed with those other Arcane spells? Sounds interesting.
So in conclusion, how about we give Demo the same little "nudge" that made BM so OP?
Also two little things really bugged me from yesterday. I usually put my Dark Intent on a healer with HOTs, so a Resto Shammy, since their chain heals and dots can all leave dots that can crit. But someone suggested: DI Locks - Locks. What? With another Demo lock? We have ONE consistent DOT, and that's Immolate....that's it. Our other dot is one that ticks once every 15 seconds.
Also, when I switched in my Hunter, I was "recommended" to switch to Survival because "it did more damage", shut the fuck up, 20k as BM is *FINE*.
Sorry for the rage, it's Friday!
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
A Very Real Update
As I have nothing much to say I'm just going to do the old How The Toons Are Thing again....
Turby: I have realized that having "nothing" to do meant that Archaeology would be the next "thing" to do and yes my hunter is the only toon (and only) with 525 Archaeology skill. He had been on several missions, to reach exalted with the Skyguards (done), Netherwing (done), and obtain a Mr. Pinchy Pet (finally done). So now that he's "done", I'm not sure what else there is to do that's...doable.
Truny: I've been getting more sleep these past few months and hence my random chaotic skilling spree mode hit again and this means that I have been playing my Warlock a bit more...like...four times! Sure our single target *kinda* sucks without our cooldowns but with add-fights...tada!
Turny: Druids + Herbalism = OP. What's with all this dismounting nonsense on other classes? Once you go uhh druid + herbalism you can't go back! Turny is also racking up all of the raid experience for my toons, with 5/12 under his belt in terms of boss kills or is it 13? Well, 12. Here I'll list 'em. Magmaw, Omnomtron, Maloriak, Conclave, Valiona. I've killed Halfus, but on other toons. Wow so for "myself", I'm at 6/12, not bad for one day a week raid which I only make 75% of!
I *might* raid this Saturday but I'm in dire need of a massive shopping spree, I haven't "shopped" for new clothes in almost over a year and my regular cycle of work clothes are getting rather ..boring! See, even one day a week raids are a bit too overwhelming for me...geez, why can't Blizzard just text me the raids and I'll like....reply them when I want to and that would count as a boss kill????
Klupty: My DK! With the magic of having accumulated tons of gold on my three "major" toons, Klupty purchased several gear-raising items and ran his first Zandalari dungeon a week ago and managed to eek out 12k dps in half tank half poor-man's gemmed and non-enchanted gear. Having seen this, NO ONE should have their asses carried with their 9K DPS and Cheater PVP items. I also DID cheat by purchasing TWO pvp items to get my DK into regular heroics but his 10-12k DPS pretty much covered up that little lie. Though I did stop wasting my time logging into my DK as his button "Rotations" got really really boring. I might as well roll an arcane mage to save myself one button press.
So yeah, NO EXCUSES!
All my other toons practically remained untouched.
Truby: The pally that I got so excited about...well now that our self heals is on a TWENTY second cooldown......ugh....
Husbrus: I have good intentions with my priest. She dinged 83 and will probably stay 83 for another year or two. I log into her and try to queue. She'll get okay 15 minute healer queues but I have absolutely nothing I want to do while logged in. Do I want to switch specs and use Shadow to quest? No way I'm not a fool! If I wanted. I like having fairly self-sufficient characters and I can't see my priest solo Karazhan comfortably. I probably could, but not comfortably.
Rogue: Still 71. Whatever melee.
Shaman: Sat at 65 for the longest time, got her up to 66 and got bored again. Shaman Healing = Listening to a Toilet Flush. I can see Elemental being really fun, but at this point in the game, all mobs die within 1 second anyways so in most cases I am not even able to get off a single spell cast save for Flame Shock before all the mobs in the instance are dead. I still plan on logging in and healing once a month.
Warrior: With the magic of RAF, my friend got my Warrior up to level 60, as he was the ONLY toon at that point still under 60. No intentions here, he's the new owner of the Kluptomania guild and the keeper of the vault of hoarded items but otherwise I have no intention of playing a THIRD melee class.
Mage: I've been making and deleting mages over the years and I had deleted the Dwarf Female I made for whatever that one festival that just passed where we go around raping females of level 18 or over (totally inappropriate achievement) without their consent. My 10th character slot is once again a mage, fire specced. THIS TIME I will level it high enough so that at least I can check out if Flame Orb is cool or not.
Is that 10? Did I miss anyone let me go count.
Yes, all accounted for!
tl;dr: I refuse to request on any other toons just to "gear" 'em up.
Turby: I have realized that having "nothing" to do meant that Archaeology would be the next "thing" to do and yes my hunter is the only toon (and only) with 525 Archaeology skill. He had been on several missions, to reach exalted with the Skyguards (done), Netherwing (done), and obtain a Mr. Pinchy Pet (finally done). So now that he's "done", I'm not sure what else there is to do that's...doable.
Truny: I've been getting more sleep these past few months and hence my random chaotic skilling spree mode hit again and this means that I have been playing my Warlock a bit more...like...four times! Sure our single target *kinda* sucks without our cooldowns but with add-fights...tada!
Turny: Druids + Herbalism = OP. What's with all this dismounting nonsense on other classes? Once you go uhh druid + herbalism you can't go back! Turny is also racking up all of the raid experience for my toons, with 5/12 under his belt in terms of boss kills or is it 13? Well, 12. Here I'll list 'em. Magmaw, Omnomtron, Maloriak, Conclave, Valiona. I've killed Halfus, but on other toons. Wow so for "myself", I'm at 6/12, not bad for one day a week raid which I only make 75% of!
I *might* raid this Saturday but I'm in dire need of a massive shopping spree, I haven't "shopped" for new clothes in almost over a year and my regular cycle of work clothes are getting rather ..boring! See, even one day a week raids are a bit too overwhelming for me...geez, why can't Blizzard just text me the raids and I'll like....reply them when I want to and that would count as a boss kill????
Klupty: My DK! With the magic of having accumulated tons of gold on my three "major" toons, Klupty purchased several gear-raising items and ran his first Zandalari dungeon a week ago and managed to eek out 12k dps in half tank half poor-man's gemmed and non-enchanted gear. Having seen this, NO ONE should have their asses carried with their 9K DPS and Cheater PVP items. I also DID cheat by purchasing TWO pvp items to get my DK into regular heroics but his 10-12k DPS pretty much covered up that little lie. Though I did stop wasting my time logging into my DK as his button "Rotations" got really really boring. I might as well roll an arcane mage to save myself one button press.
So yeah, NO EXCUSES!
All my other toons practically remained untouched.
Truby: The pally that I got so excited about...well now that our self heals is on a TWENTY second cooldown......ugh....
Husbrus: I have good intentions with my priest. She dinged 83 and will probably stay 83 for another year or two. I log into her and try to queue. She'll get okay 15 minute healer queues but I have absolutely nothing I want to do while logged in. Do I want to switch specs and use Shadow to quest? No way I'm not a fool! If I wanted. I like having fairly self-sufficient characters and I can't see my priest solo Karazhan comfortably. I probably could, but not comfortably.
Rogue: Still 71. Whatever melee.
Shaman: Sat at 65 for the longest time, got her up to 66 and got bored again. Shaman Healing = Listening to a Toilet Flush. I can see Elemental being really fun, but at this point in the game, all mobs die within 1 second anyways so in most cases I am not even able to get off a single spell cast save for Flame Shock before all the mobs in the instance are dead. I still plan on logging in and healing once a month.
Warrior: With the magic of RAF, my friend got my Warrior up to level 60, as he was the ONLY toon at that point still under 60. No intentions here, he's the new owner of the Kluptomania guild and the keeper of the vault of hoarded items but otherwise I have no intention of playing a THIRD melee class.
Mage: I've been making and deleting mages over the years and I had deleted the Dwarf Female I made for whatever that one festival that just passed where we go around raping females of level 18 or over (totally inappropriate achievement) without their consent. My 10th character slot is once again a mage, fire specced. THIS TIME I will level it high enough so that at least I can check out if Flame Orb is cool or not.
Is that 10? Did I miss anyone let me go count.
Yes, all accounted for!
tl;dr: I refuse to request on any other toons just to "gear" 'em up.
Enough of 4.4 Let's Talk Patch 4.6.0!
Since we're all tired of hearing about how 4.5's Outland revamp and the redesigned 5-mans, let's talk Patch 4.6: Extinguishing the Deathbringer!
We've already been spoiled as to how "Deathly" difficulty the Deathwing encounter will be, by this time the game would have reverted back to its original culture of less than 1% of the population seeing the end end game encounters, yes despite the efforts of the Great Gearing up in 4.5 and ilvl 412s you will not even be able to get INTO the Deathwing Raid portal without exquisite raid co-ordination and communication!
Bah I'm already bored of all this talk of Deathwing let's talk about the 2nd expansion to World of Warcraft 2: Legend of the Ashbringer. As we all know from the old Warcraft, the Ashbringer was part of the oldest of old Naxx raids and had tied into the history and timeline of Azeroth up until the Fall of the Lich King.
Had the resurrected Medivh not merged Outlands with Azeroth today and attempted to wake all of the Legendary Foes of Azeroth, the heroes of today would have no need of the fabled Ashbringer. A group of Expeditionary Excavators, descendants to the great Archaeologists of the past have discovered a hidden region now known as The Ashen Glades, laying in a parallel existence to Tirisfal Glades, it is rumored that the powers of the long lost Ashbringer (it gets lost somewhere in a quest-chain from the old Warcraft's patch 4.5) have been infusing this mysterios forest with powers of the Light. Yet still we are uncertain of so called power and I shall end spoilers now.
We've already been spoiled as to how "Deathly" difficulty the Deathwing encounter will be, by this time the game would have reverted back to its original culture of less than 1% of the population seeing the end end game encounters, yes despite the efforts of the Great Gearing up in 4.5 and ilvl 412s you will not even be able to get INTO the Deathwing Raid portal without exquisite raid co-ordination and communication!
Bah I'm already bored of all this talk of Deathwing let's talk about the 2nd expansion to World of Warcraft 2: Legend of the Ashbringer. As we all know from the old Warcraft, the Ashbringer was part of the oldest of old Naxx raids and had tied into the history and timeline of Azeroth up until the Fall of the Lich King.
Had the resurrected Medivh not merged Outlands with Azeroth today and attempted to wake all of the Legendary Foes of Azeroth, the heroes of today would have no need of the fabled Ashbringer. A group of Expeditionary Excavators, descendants to the great Archaeologists of the past have discovered a hidden region now known as The Ashen Glades, laying in a parallel existence to Tirisfal Glades, it is rumored that the powers of the long lost Ashbringer (it gets lost somewhere in a quest-chain from the old Warcraft's patch 4.5) have been infusing this mysterios forest with powers of the Light. Yet still we are uncertain of so called power and I shall end spoilers now.
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