Good evening!
So yeah, I remember reading a long time ago as I began my devious warpath of pain and destruction upon Azeroth..about the intricacies of monitoring trinket procs and how various procs gave average int and sp and all that nice dps-talk jazz.
I took in the info and thought "meh, if my trinket procs while I am doing something, good".
This all changed last patch with all our fancy active trinkets, and in particular I have grown quite fond of one trinket specifically: Wusholay's Final Choice!
Now, I *think* I have the 522 one, but all versions of them are good, and with 5.4, they made this baby proc more often and in return, it ticks down quicker. I've gotten really used to watching my buff bar for the special stacking lightning icon and timing it just right to fire off a couple of ultra powered Chaos Bolts.
And no I do not use any fancy addons to track my dots or buffs or whatever, I use my sense of timing, after a while your finger just knows when your dots are falling off, and after a while you get to adapt into your muscle memory the various permutations of dot combos, especially when playing demo/affliction, such as when you are approaching Meta, or exiting, or if you had to move 15 seconds ago, etc etc.
Anyways, this trinket made raiding extra fun cause ultimately most fights are snoozefests in regular. I've also liked timing Havoc to these trinket procs, and with the new glyph of havoc, this can result in some amazingly gigglicious crits that make you really bursty!
Imagine four chaos bolts all hitting for over a million as you time your trinket as it approaches 7-10 stacks. Bahahaha!
I also appreciate our very very simple yet intricately optimizable rotation, which allows us to even worry about this stuff.
Glyph of Havoc
Have I even talked about this before? Probably, but briefly.
So what does this glyph do and should you use it? I will not make any recommendations but its all up to your playstyle and how you currently utilize your havoc CDs.
This glyph makes our effective CD a 60 second CD (long if you got used to the 25 seconds), but it can give a total count of the following spells:
1. 4 x Chaos Bolts
2. 6 x Incinerate
3. 2 x Immolate, 4 x Incinerate
4. 6 x Fel Flame (WHY?)
5. 4-6 (Cutting it Close) x Shadowburn
And any other combo, you get the point.
From a PVE perspective this glyph is nice if you need burst and don't want to worry about having to actually use Havoc a lot. For burst, this glyph is great for opening on multiple bosses/councils, and for execution phase, if you pre-dot everything up and spam a rain of fire, you MIGHT be able to eek out five or six shadowburn. And if your group kills fast, within 25 seconds it would be worth to have burned more shadowburns than to have used two applications of havocs. Did that even make sense? Essentially three more embers you wouldn't have had to try to save up once a boss hits 25%, especially for close kills where you are trying to survive or manage adds and everywhere like such as.
I personally use this glyph because I also like to watch my Wusholay and try to optimize its use every minute, but sometimes this requires me to wait a couple extra seconds for the trinket to proc. It really depends on how fast your group tends to kill duplicate adds.
Other
Otherwise, I did this week's pet tournament, umm, did Celestials on everyone, and the only lucky toon was my DK, who now has his 2P T16 just for hanging around. Maybe I should actually play him.....
So everyone but my hunter has a 2P to play with, but yeah, I'm mainly just hanging around the timeless isle to stock up on the Magical Pet Biscuits! My pets HUNGER!
Truny the Hungry
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
Monday, November 4, 2013
SIege of Orgrimmar Tips: Wing 1 Vale of Eternal Sorrow
Hi Reader!
I guess I should apologize for my lack of LFR tips lately, considering that I've completely boycotted the great mess that is LFR.
With the addition of Flex raid, I greatly prefer experiencing new fights with people I know and trust, rather than potentially crazy people who apparently don't know where their Raid option panel is in game. This puts me on the verge of being a whiny elitist, but at the same time I came into 5.4 at a significantly higher ilvl than what the new LFR had to offer anyways.
And as I've said before, since Flex is the new easy, why would you do easier than easy? Is that even possible?
From what I hear, Blizzard has put in an excessive amount of mechanics into LFR where the intended audience of this great mess now has to push their game up to make sense of it all.
Anyways, I believe Immerseus is only probably hard on heroic and only if you are undergeared so here are some tips from what I've seen:
Immerseus
Tanks: Swap on each stack of the only one thing that he puts on you. Run out to the side to avoid getting hit if you've just been hit.
Heals: Focus on healing the blue slimes when the boss splits, you'll get a healing bonus after you heal one to full.
DPS: Kill boss and black slimes.
For the first boss, this is insanely boring for any class since it requires you to do your role for short bursts, and the wait for him to split and get back together is just zzzzzzzz.
Protectors
We gotta love council type fights, and I think this one does a good job in not overwhelming us too much, and also requiring co-ordination.
You essentially want to bring each protector down to 66% then 33% and deal with their abilities.
Tanks: One get Hook or Rook or whatever. The other one get the rogue one, the non-female one and turn around when he's about to "Gouge" you.
Heals: Dispel some magic thing.
Rook: Avoid his tornado kicks. When he does his special, depending on your group, either burst down misery to avoid stacking, or gloom to avoid the AOE. We like Misery so we don't have to stack.
Rogue One: If you have a blood DK, throw the add onto the blood DK and call it a day. Otherwise co-ordinate and make sure you've got CD's up.
Female One: Stack in the middle and kill adds.
Norushen
Now I have healed, tanked, and dps'd this one. Again depending on your group, assign high priority people to use the first couple orbs to cleanse themselves. We usually do 2 high dps or 1 high dps and 1 high heals (disc priest). This will help bring the boss down in time.
Kill adds ASAP. Tanks/heals co-ordinate picking up glowy balls that the big adds drop and dodge lasers of death.
Inside The Orb:
Tank: Survive. Dodge smashes and interrupt when possible.
Heals: Heal the 3 crazy pandas and yourself.
DPS: Kill a big add and 3 little adds with shields. Should be able to kill the first 3 within 5 seconds with a well timed havoc (warlocks)
Sha of Pride
This fight is interesting yet pretty easy. I always equip my Valany'r to heal this and try to beat my "Absorbs" record every week (as a resto druid).
Tank: Taunt off boss when other tank gets a thing. If you're non-active tank, try to help with little adds. Active tank gets the prison button closest to boss.
Heals: If you get the titan buff, you are dispelling. Otherwise just spam an AOE every few seconds and do whatever.
DPS: Kill boss, and little adds, and big add fast.
All: This fight is based on your Pride levels and different things happen depending on your pride level and when the Sha casts his 100 energy AOE:
1-24: Nothing
25-49: Before he casts, make sure to spread from the group and keep moving so you automatically run out of the big bad splotch.
50-74: You will now see a thing with an arrow anywhere 15 yards away from you. Move into it or it will AOE everyone.
75+: If you get more than 75 you should not be raiding.
He also always does little adds, which you have to move out from a floor effect, prison, then big add to kill/interrupt.
But yeah, that's about it. Any questions, let me know.
Truny
I guess I should apologize for my lack of LFR tips lately, considering that I've completely boycotted the great mess that is LFR.
With the addition of Flex raid, I greatly prefer experiencing new fights with people I know and trust, rather than potentially crazy people who apparently don't know where their Raid option panel is in game. This puts me on the verge of being a whiny elitist, but at the same time I came into 5.4 at a significantly higher ilvl than what the new LFR had to offer anyways.
And as I've said before, since Flex is the new easy, why would you do easier than easy? Is that even possible?
From what I hear, Blizzard has put in an excessive amount of mechanics into LFR where the intended audience of this great mess now has to push their game up to make sense of it all.
Anyways, I believe Immerseus is only probably hard on heroic and only if you are undergeared so here are some tips from what I've seen:
Immerseus
Tanks: Swap on each stack of the only one thing that he puts on you. Run out to the side to avoid getting hit if you've just been hit.
Heals: Focus on healing the blue slimes when the boss splits, you'll get a healing bonus after you heal one to full.
DPS: Kill boss and black slimes.
For the first boss, this is insanely boring for any class since it requires you to do your role for short bursts, and the wait for him to split and get back together is just zzzzzzzz.
Protectors
We gotta love council type fights, and I think this one does a good job in not overwhelming us too much, and also requiring co-ordination.
You essentially want to bring each protector down to 66% then 33% and deal with their abilities.
Tanks: One get Hook or Rook or whatever. The other one get the rogue one, the non-female one and turn around when he's about to "Gouge" you.
Heals: Dispel some magic thing.
Rook: Avoid his tornado kicks. When he does his special, depending on your group, either burst down misery to avoid stacking, or gloom to avoid the AOE. We like Misery so we don't have to stack.
Rogue One: If you have a blood DK, throw the add onto the blood DK and call it a day. Otherwise co-ordinate and make sure you've got CD's up.
Female One: Stack in the middle and kill adds.
Norushen
Now I have healed, tanked, and dps'd this one. Again depending on your group, assign high priority people to use the first couple orbs to cleanse themselves. We usually do 2 high dps or 1 high dps and 1 high heals (disc priest). This will help bring the boss down in time.
Kill adds ASAP. Tanks/heals co-ordinate picking up glowy balls that the big adds drop and dodge lasers of death.
Inside The Orb:
Tank: Survive. Dodge smashes and interrupt when possible.
Heals: Heal the 3 crazy pandas and yourself.
DPS: Kill a big add and 3 little adds with shields. Should be able to kill the first 3 within 5 seconds with a well timed havoc (warlocks)
Sha of Pride
This fight is interesting yet pretty easy. I always equip my Valany'r to heal this and try to beat my "Absorbs" record every week (as a resto druid).
Tank: Taunt off boss when other tank gets a thing. If you're non-active tank, try to help with little adds. Active tank gets the prison button closest to boss.
Heals: If you get the titan buff, you are dispelling. Otherwise just spam an AOE every few seconds and do whatever.
DPS: Kill boss, and little adds, and big add fast.
All: This fight is based on your Pride levels and different things happen depending on your pride level and when the Sha casts his 100 energy AOE:
1-24: Nothing
25-49: Before he casts, make sure to spread from the group and keep moving so you automatically run out of the big bad splotch.
50-74: You will now see a thing with an arrow anywhere 15 yards away from you. Move into it or it will AOE everyone.
75+: If you get more than 75 you should not be raiding.
He also always does little adds, which you have to move out from a floor effect, prison, then big add to kill/interrupt.
But yeah, that's about it. Any questions, let me know.
Truny
Sunday, November 3, 2013
Doing The Things
Wow it's been a month since my last update!
What have we been doing? Nothing really just putzing about SoO, and then doing our weekly celestial kills.
The Casual Isle has no appeal, running around doing nothing much. Then again running around doing nothing much with no commitments IS kinda nice. You get what you get.
But I'd like to revisit the 5.4 trailer. When Taran Zhu, regardless of how useless he is, says to Garrosh that he has fought alongside the Tauren, Trolls, and others..I remember getting a slight chill down my spine. Yes! We did fight alongside one another, and what Garrosh is doing is atrocious!
I think the world of Pandaria has been laid out so well, we started out as adventurers in a strange land, learning the ways of the Pandaren, making friends on the farm, getting to know the Golden Lotus and the Shado Pan, I think they did factions right this time around.
Heck, what am I even talking about, now that I think of it the Hour of Twilight trailer was utter garbage. Really what happened? I know I harp a lot about Cata but we have to ensure that this crap never ever ever happens again!
But anyways, other than doing the weekly celestial tournament (I've taken screenshots of all my pet combos now), there really isn't much else to do. Which is fine.
Truny the Fine
What have we been doing? Nothing really just putzing about SoO, and then doing our weekly celestial kills.
The Casual Isle has no appeal, running around doing nothing much. Then again running around doing nothing much with no commitments IS kinda nice. You get what you get.
But I'd like to revisit the 5.4 trailer. When Taran Zhu, regardless of how useless he is, says to Garrosh that he has fought alongside the Tauren, Trolls, and others..I remember getting a slight chill down my spine. Yes! We did fight alongside one another, and what Garrosh is doing is atrocious!
I think the world of Pandaria has been laid out so well, we started out as adventurers in a strange land, learning the ways of the Pandaren, making friends on the farm, getting to know the Golden Lotus and the Shado Pan, I think they did factions right this time around.
Heck, what am I even talking about, now that I think of it the Hour of Twilight trailer was utter garbage. Really what happened? I know I harp a lot about Cata but we have to ensure that this crap never ever ever happens again!
But anyways, other than doing the weekly celestial tournament (I've taken screenshots of all my pet combos now), there really isn't much else to do. Which is fine.
Truny the Fine
Monday, October 7, 2013
SoO Raid Updates
Oh hi,
Guess I've been silent again. Hmm, again haven't been doing much lately EXCEPT I finally put my big boy/girl pants on and took a stab at the Celestial Tournament! I mean, having almost 100 level 25 pets had to be of some use right?
When 5.4 released, I didn't bother doing the tourney, I tried but just didn't have the brain power or motivation to put effort in even creating strategies against the various trainers. SO I put it off until this past weekend. I levelled up my Gregarious Grell to face off against Yu'la, and also an extra snail (which I didn't even use) for Chi-Chi.
I found once you've found the right mix of pets for each trainer, and not needing them for the four celestials, the fights were pretty easy.
My composition are pretty close to what everyone uses:
Actually forget it, I don't even know the names of the people I fought nor the names of the pets I used, if you're curious you can ask me and I have screenshots of what I used to remind myself.
The biggest decision of all, was which pet to choose first?
I remember waaay back when questing in Kun'lai and happening upon Xuen's temple, there were these little baby Xuen cubs and I had made a wide statement "I MUST HAS ONE??".
It was a clear win right? Well, but then there's Zao, Calfing of Niuzao, a lightbulb glowy little cow. I stood in front of them for over an hour, went away for a shower and decided on my original choice, baby Xuen. (I'm sure half the population chose him first too?)
Raid Updates
Oh right, raid updates.
Well for flex we've gotten up to Dark Shamans, and for reg we've gotten up to Galakras and.....that Galakras fight is annoying. I hate trash.
The first four bosses are boringly easy, mainly moving out of shit and doing high dps to all the things.
I did heal regular yesterday with my under-geared druid, funny how at one point in time he was one of the highest geared resto druids and now he's just abandoned. Anyways I got a lot of upgrades, effectively raising his ilvl from 517 tp 523, except even with my 510 weapon I was top heals for some of those fights. Weird.
That's about it really, I've been levelling up my Monk finally! He's 24 and I am starting to enjoy being able to punch and kick while healing!
Truny the Slacker
Guess I've been silent again. Hmm, again haven't been doing much lately EXCEPT I finally put my big boy/girl pants on and took a stab at the Celestial Tournament! I mean, having almost 100 level 25 pets had to be of some use right?
When 5.4 released, I didn't bother doing the tourney, I tried but just didn't have the brain power or motivation to put effort in even creating strategies against the various trainers. SO I put it off until this past weekend. I levelled up my Gregarious Grell to face off against Yu'la, and also an extra snail (which I didn't even use) for Chi-Chi.
I found once you've found the right mix of pets for each trainer, and not needing them for the four celestials, the fights were pretty easy.
My composition are pretty close to what everyone uses:
Actually forget it, I don't even know the names of the people I fought nor the names of the pets I used, if you're curious you can ask me and I have screenshots of what I used to remind myself.
The biggest decision of all, was which pet to choose first?
I remember waaay back when questing in Kun'lai and happening upon Xuen's temple, there were these little baby Xuen cubs and I had made a wide statement "I MUST HAS ONE??".
It was a clear win right? Well, but then there's Zao, Calfing of Niuzao, a lightbulb glowy little cow. I stood in front of them for over an hour, went away for a shower and decided on my original choice, baby Xuen. (I'm sure half the population chose him first too?)
Raid Updates
Oh right, raid updates.
Well for flex we've gotten up to Dark Shamans, and for reg we've gotten up to Galakras and.....that Galakras fight is annoying. I hate trash.
The first four bosses are boringly easy, mainly moving out of shit and doing high dps to all the things.
I did heal regular yesterday with my under-geared druid, funny how at one point in time he was one of the highest geared resto druids and now he's just abandoned. Anyways I got a lot of upgrades, effectively raising his ilvl from 517 tp 523, except even with my 510 weapon I was top heals for some of those fights. Weird.
That's about it really, I've been levelling up my Monk finally! He's 24 and I am starting to enjoy being able to punch and kick while healing!
Truny the Slacker
Sunday, September 29, 2013
Brewfest Complete!
So I guess it takes an insurmountable effort of bitching, whining, and moaning to actually get anything done in this game. I've been complaining and complaining about not getting loot and mounts ALL week, and that ALL I needed was the Swift Brewfest Ram to drop so I wouldn't have any other reason to log in until raid, which by the way is going great.
I've really really been meaning to do the Celestial Pet Tourney for baby Xuen, but...levelling a second Chrominius/Anubisath/Snail is just....bah, I'd rather level and quest in Final Fantasy 14, which is where I've been hiding lately!
So lo and behold, as I am cycling toons with my friend in our Coren Direbrew slaughter, a Ram drops!
Done Brewfest forever!
Truny the Ramful
I've really really been meaning to do the Celestial Pet Tourney for baby Xuen, but...levelling a second Chrominius/Anubisath/Snail is just....bah, I'd rather level and quest in Final Fantasy 14, which is where I've been hiding lately!
So lo and behold, as I am cycling toons with my friend in our Coren Direbrew slaughter, a Ram drops!
Done Brewfest forever!
Monday, September 16, 2013
Thoughts on Flex Raid
Good Evening!
So we cleared Flex on Saturday. Whoopdeedoo useless content-level cleared up to date. Elitist snark aside, Flex is something that i've been looking forward to ever since our bored escapades during Cataclysm.
What? Yes. We would get together a small task group and run some old raids for achieves and what-not and it was casual and half-brainless FUN.
Wait what? Did you say FUN?
Then LFR gets released in Cata, and now we are stuck with running a dumbed down current content with 24 other assholes. Why? People are mean and bad and do mean bad things.
So we ask for a localized "things", scenarios, heroic scenarios popped up on stage. Things are looking promising. Now Flex hits, pure localized LFR with the illusion of being harder than LFR. I'm not sure about you but I'm not sure I want to categorize mindlessly easy into two categories. Anything easier than normal is just that, easy.
We blasted through and got some gear, a LOT of gear actually, more than I've ever seen in many many weeks of when I used to run LFR last year.
For a decent competent group, Flex provides the base acceptable level of challenge all while encompassing the long forgotten factor of "fun".
How do we define fun? Well clearing bosses is fun, without smashing our keyboards in. Leave that to the players who matter, the heroic raiders.
Anyways, luckily the servers completely crashed last night so my 2nd Flex run (with the other guild) was cut short. Thank goodness, cause I would rather level my Thaumaturge in FF than do Flex garbage twice a week.
Wait what? Garbage? I thought you liked Flex?
Well yes, but it's only fun the first time, now let's get moving on to doing the "real" thing. Except reg no longer matters anyways. Hmm....conflicted!
ANYWAYS, tonight we are heading into Regular SoO and from the looks of the mechanics build this new raid is tuned waaaay below how ToT and T13 started out. Easy gear? Probably.
Turny the Flexible Tree Who Didn't Even Do Flex With His Tree
So we cleared Flex on Saturday. Whoopdeedoo useless content-level cleared up to date. Elitist snark aside, Flex is something that i've been looking forward to ever since our bored escapades during Cataclysm.
What? Yes. We would get together a small task group and run some old raids for achieves and what-not and it was casual and half-brainless FUN.
Wait what? Did you say FUN?
Then LFR gets released in Cata, and now we are stuck with running a dumbed down current content with 24 other assholes. Why? People are mean and bad and do mean bad things.
So we ask for a localized "things", scenarios, heroic scenarios popped up on stage. Things are looking promising. Now Flex hits, pure localized LFR with the illusion of being harder than LFR. I'm not sure about you but I'm not sure I want to categorize mindlessly easy into two categories. Anything easier than normal is just that, easy.
We blasted through and got some gear, a LOT of gear actually, more than I've ever seen in many many weeks of when I used to run LFR last year.
For a decent competent group, Flex provides the base acceptable level of challenge all while encompassing the long forgotten factor of "fun".
How do we define fun? Well clearing bosses is fun, without smashing our keyboards in. Leave that to the players who matter, the heroic raiders.
Anyways, luckily the servers completely crashed last night so my 2nd Flex run (with the other guild) was cut short. Thank goodness, cause I would rather level my Thaumaturge in FF than do Flex garbage twice a week.
Wait what? Garbage? I thought you liked Flex?
Well yes, but it's only fun the first time, now let's get moving on to doing the "real" thing. Except reg no longer matters anyways. Hmm....conflicted!
ANYWAYS, tonight we are heading into Regular SoO and from the looks of the mechanics build this new raid is tuned waaaay below how ToT and T13 started out. Easy gear? Probably.
Turny the Flexible Tree Who Didn't Even Do Flex With His Tree
Thursday, September 12, 2013
More Thoughts on 5.4
Hello!
Timeless Isle
After spending a bit more time on the Timeless Isle stalking Celestials on my alts, i've become curious on two aspects, in game and as a player.
In game, what does Orodos, the god that the Yaungol worship have anything to do with this mysterious time-locked island?
As a player, is this patch for me? It seems ridiculously "casual", with all the rares and vanity items and 496 garbage. On a "casual" basis, this is great. Run around, tag some mobs get some coins, camp out Huolon for his mount occasionally. But in terms of "progression" it seems it's...go raid or shut up.
The only two activities worth doing weekly are the celestial(s), and Ordos. Except I appear to be the only player to have gotten a shitty 540 glove off Ordos while everyone walked away with TWO 559 war-forged. Go figure, now I have to push my incinerate button a bit harder to catch up to them.
I'm not sure what all the fuss is about with everyone running around. What is their motivation? Are they all fresh 90s? Who the hell would even want 496s? Alts to the level of being unplayed that's what. Like, my rogue and priest whom i've barely used, they could use a piece or two but that's about it.
The timeless coins gets us a nice trinket, considering how lucky i've been with drop rates, when the time comes that i get 50,000 coins i will pick up that +9500 crit for 20 seconds trinket to replace the old haste one. But that's it.
I guess there are achievements to be got, but, I think i've stopped caring.
Proving Grounds
Who is THIS new thing targetted towards? Do I really have to prove myself? I've already ranked in several real dps fights, is this going to be hard? Is it like doing Kan'rethad Ebonlocke? I see mobs with 500k HP, will it just be like questing in the vale where destro locks can just gather up 45 mobs and Fire and Brimstone them down in 5 seconds?
Speaking of green fire, our Dreadsteeds now turn green if you have the tome's ability turned on!
Celestial Tournament
I think as I recover from my lack of sleep, my brain is slowly starting to accept the fact that I will actually have to use it to plan out "teams" for taking those drasted tournament fighters. Maybe this weekend maybe, I mean we didn't level 75 pets to level 25 for that stupid grasshopper for nothing right?
Truny the Lazy
Timeless Isle
After spending a bit more time on the Timeless Isle stalking Celestials on my alts, i've become curious on two aspects, in game and as a player.
In game, what does Orodos, the god that the Yaungol worship have anything to do with this mysterious time-locked island?
As a player, is this patch for me? It seems ridiculously "casual", with all the rares and vanity items and 496 garbage. On a "casual" basis, this is great. Run around, tag some mobs get some coins, camp out Huolon for his mount occasionally. But in terms of "progression" it seems it's...go raid or shut up.
The only two activities worth doing weekly are the celestial(s), and Ordos. Except I appear to be the only player to have gotten a shitty 540 glove off Ordos while everyone walked away with TWO 559 war-forged. Go figure, now I have to push my incinerate button a bit harder to catch up to them.
I'm not sure what all the fuss is about with everyone running around. What is their motivation? Are they all fresh 90s? Who the hell would even want 496s? Alts to the level of being unplayed that's what. Like, my rogue and priest whom i've barely used, they could use a piece or two but that's about it.
The timeless coins gets us a nice trinket, considering how lucky i've been with drop rates, when the time comes that i get 50,000 coins i will pick up that +9500 crit for 20 seconds trinket to replace the old haste one. But that's it.
I guess there are achievements to be got, but, I think i've stopped caring.
Proving Grounds
Who is THIS new thing targetted towards? Do I really have to prove myself? I've already ranked in several real dps fights, is this going to be hard? Is it like doing Kan'rethad Ebonlocke? I see mobs with 500k HP, will it just be like questing in the vale where destro locks can just gather up 45 mobs and Fire and Brimstone them down in 5 seconds?
Speaking of green fire, our Dreadsteeds now turn green if you have the tome's ability turned on!
Celestial Tournament
I think as I recover from my lack of sleep, my brain is slowly starting to accept the fact that I will actually have to use it to plan out "teams" for taking those drasted tournament fighters. Maybe this weekend maybe, I mean we didn't level 75 pets to level 25 for that stupid grasshopper for nothing right?
Truny the Lazy
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Warlock T-16 Bonuses
Timeless Isle
Ahh so yesterday was exciting wasn't it? The Timeless Isle aka Gong Show Island opened up and everyone and their mother and their dog were there kiling anything that moved and generally being very confused.
Well I was very confused. Why the shit would I waste time gathering garbage 496 or vanity items to waste my bag space? What's with these stupid coins used to buy stupid items? I wanted my tier.
It was very confusing, I flew to the Timeless Isle and I saw a poor giant shark being beaten upon. Poor shark. I joined in and immediately got some garbage item and 1,466 timeless coins. Well.
Then there was talk of Ordos. Ordos must be the new world boss something to do with legendary cape something to do with gear. Ok how the fuck do I get there? I need a cape? How? What quest? I aint got time for that.
Then I saw Niuzao fighting some people so I joined in and got tier gloves! Well now I don't have to log in until next week! This was also a direct upgrade from my T15 gloves since stupid freaking dark animus and twins would NOT drop a fourth piece for me all of last tier.
Warlock T-16 Bonuses
So down to business, let's talk tier bonuses, something that I haven't done in a very long time.
Please note my bias will be 90% towards Destro and 10% Demo and 5% Affliction (we always give it more than our all!)
Two piece: Conflagrate has a 20% chance to increase the critical strike chance of Immolate and Incinerate by 15%. Unstable Affliction critical hits have a 40% chance to increase all damaging effects of Malefic Grasp and Drain Soul by 30% for 10 sec. Soul Fire has a 20% chance to increase you and your pet's damage dealt by 20%.
Four piece: When a Burning Ember fills up, your critical strike chance is increased by 15% for 5 sec. Haunt has a 20% chance to refund its shard when expiring. Shadow Bolt and Touch of Chaos have a 20% chance to also cast Hand of Gul'dan at the targe
2P Comments: This is kind of boring kind of interesting but a not so bad passive. So say your crit is 25%, a fifth of a quarter of a time your nukes have a 40% chance of critting. So of course if that procs AND immolate is dropping off or is not up, then use it, otherwise incinerate. Whatever. As for Demo, casting Soulfire is now an extra little bonus to watch out for to maximize that little damage bonus.
4P Comments: Now this is interesting, so with the reduction of embers from RoF, we still occasionally fill up an extra ember while using DS and CB spam. So now we want to REALLY watch out for those extra embers filling up during DS, perhaps cycling conflag + incinerates to fish for double ember bits. I'll let you know if I ever manage to get a 4P. This set entices me to start stacking crit over not-so-much-crit, as to leave haste as it is. Perhaps haste shall be completely wiped off my gear. We will see.
Back to the Island
So other than getting tier, which is pretty much the only value of this new island, there are other weird activities which I have managed to actually SEE amongst the throes of a thousand curious players.
Lil Oondasta. Dang this guy hits like a truck and totally wiped out my Darkmoon Faire team. I switched to three mechanical pets: Robo Chicken, Clockwork Gnome, and Darkmoon Zeppelin and he died fairly easily. Easy 500 coins.
Celestial Tournament: I took a spin in here but didn't realize I couldn't heal so I wasted all my good pets on the first 3 fights. I currently don't have the patience or brain power to work out teams and can't be bothered to switch pets so I will check this out in a few weeks.
Shaohao: I have no fucking clue how to start getting rep with this guy. So then I logged out.
Truny the Quitter.
Ahh so yesterday was exciting wasn't it? The Timeless Isle aka Gong Show Island opened up and everyone and their mother and their dog were there kiling anything that moved and generally being very confused.
Well I was very confused. Why the shit would I waste time gathering garbage 496 or vanity items to waste my bag space? What's with these stupid coins used to buy stupid items? I wanted my tier.
It was very confusing, I flew to the Timeless Isle and I saw a poor giant shark being beaten upon. Poor shark. I joined in and immediately got some garbage item and 1,466 timeless coins. Well.
Then there was talk of Ordos. Ordos must be the new world boss something to do with legendary cape something to do with gear. Ok how the fuck do I get there? I need a cape? How? What quest? I aint got time for that.
Then I saw Niuzao fighting some people so I joined in and got tier gloves! Well now I don't have to log in until next week! This was also a direct upgrade from my T15 gloves since stupid freaking dark animus and twins would NOT drop a fourth piece for me all of last tier.
Warlock T-16 Bonuses
So down to business, let's talk tier bonuses, something that I haven't done in a very long time.
Please note my bias will be 90% towards Destro and 10% Demo and 5% Affliction (we always give it more than our all!)
Two piece: Conflagrate has a 20% chance to increase the critical strike chance of Immolate and Incinerate by 15%. Unstable Affliction critical hits have a 40% chance to increase all damaging effects of Malefic Grasp and Drain Soul by 30% for 10 sec. Soul Fire has a 20% chance to increase you and your pet's damage dealt by 20%.
Four piece: When a Burning Ember fills up, your critical strike chance is increased by 15% for 5 sec. Haunt has a 20% chance to refund its shard when expiring. Shadow Bolt and Touch of Chaos have a 20% chance to also cast Hand of Gul'dan at the targe
2P Comments: This is kind of boring kind of interesting but a not so bad passive. So say your crit is 25%, a fifth of a quarter of a time your nukes have a 40% chance of critting. So of course if that procs AND immolate is dropping off or is not up, then use it, otherwise incinerate. Whatever. As for Demo, casting Soulfire is now an extra little bonus to watch out for to maximize that little damage bonus.
4P Comments: Now this is interesting, so with the reduction of embers from RoF, we still occasionally fill up an extra ember while using DS and CB spam. So now we want to REALLY watch out for those extra embers filling up during DS, perhaps cycling conflag + incinerates to fish for double ember bits. I'll let you know if I ever manage to get a 4P. This set entices me to start stacking crit over not-so-much-crit, as to leave haste as it is. Perhaps haste shall be completely wiped off my gear. We will see.
Back to the Island
So other than getting tier, which is pretty much the only value of this new island, there are other weird activities which I have managed to actually SEE amongst the throes of a thousand curious players.
Lil Oondasta. Dang this guy hits like a truck and totally wiped out my Darkmoon Faire team. I switched to three mechanical pets: Robo Chicken, Clockwork Gnome, and Darkmoon Zeppelin and he died fairly easily. Easy 500 coins.
Celestial Tournament: I took a spin in here but didn't realize I couldn't heal so I wasted all my good pets on the first 3 fights. I currently don't have the patience or brain power to work out teams and can't be bothered to switch pets so I will check this out in a few weeks.
Shaohao: I have no fucking clue how to start getting rep with this guy. So then I logged out.
Truny the Quitter.
Monday, September 9, 2013
Saying Goodbye to the Vale
Bullshit drop-rate gear that never ever drops that's what!
No just kidding.
We just finished off our very last Lei Shen kill of the tier, and I'd have to say this last run through I am not going to miss any of the 12 bosses and their bullshit drop rates. Just joking again. Can you sense the bitterness?
I think it's officially time to say goodbye to the Vale. Goodbye to the days of farming for Alani's poop pieces, goodbye to lazily mining ghost iron, goodbye to dailies which we can now finish in 5 minutes by pulling every single mob in the zone and using Fire and Brimstone to mow them down like the scum that they are.
We will be busy next patch. Our "boss" Garrosh is up to no good and he must be stopped before he consumes all of Kalimdor, and soon, the whole of Azeroth. I just have to ask, where the fuck were we when he dug up the heart of Ysarrj? I know where, NOT logged in or busy taking down Lei Shen that's where! Why didn't Taran Zhu call us? Or text us?
I have no news of the patch that will hit tomorrow other than a brief idea of what I will be doing: Collecting the new pets, and first priority is finishing off my Val'anyr, Hammer of the Ancient Kings (separate post pending once we finish).
I also know what I will NOT be doing next patch:
1. LFR. No more LFR. It ruins the raiding experience in that my very first exposure to a new raid is now shared with 24 idiots rather than competent people whom I'd like to actually raid with.
Oh wait, remember what happened in this expansion? LFR is pretty much the only "content" we have so....well...that's the 1 thing I am not doing. Perhaps I will take a leisurely stroll through this new "Timeless Isle" people are talking about. We will see we will see.
In other news, game cameo: Does anyone else play a mobile game called Defender of Texel? It's a little RPG i've been playing, you know...your typical collect 9 pixel fighters, place them onto a 3 x 3 grid, swipe them for glory type of thing. Here's a little gif I made of one of the legendary fighters, Nanaya, the Legendary Cannon Crab.
 |
| "I'm a crab with a cannon on my head. Your argument is invalid" |
Saturday, August 31, 2013
Glyph of the Sprouting Mushroom?
Ok readers, I am in need of your help!
I've kind of stopped caring about what future our games has for us. The same thing happens. Patch is released. The top guilds clear heroic raid within 15 minutes and the rest of us "normal" people get to bitch and complain about things that will never make a difference.
ANYWAYS...so coming in patch 5.4 is a glyph for resto druids called "Glyph of the Sprouting Mushroom". And the tooltip reads:
'Your Wild Mushroom spell can now be placed on the ground instead of underneath a target."
What the FUCK is the difference from what it is now? Don't we currently place mushrooms in 3 locations of our choosing? What do you mean underneath a target? Where on the ground? Don't we place it on the ground now? Isn't the ground underneath our "target" anyways? I'm so confused??
Turny the Confused Mushroom Planter
I've kind of stopped caring about what future our games has for us. The same thing happens. Patch is released. The top guilds clear heroic raid within 15 minutes and the rest of us "normal" people get to bitch and complain about things that will never make a difference.
ANYWAYS...so coming in patch 5.4 is a glyph for resto druids called "Glyph of the Sprouting Mushroom". And the tooltip reads:
'Your Wild Mushroom spell can now be placed on the ground instead of underneath a target."
What the FUCK is the difference from what it is now? Don't we currently place mushrooms in 3 locations of our choosing? What do you mean underneath a target? Where on the ground? Don't we place it on the ground now? Isn't the ground underneath our "target" anyways? I'm so confused??
Turny the Confused Mushroom Planter
Friday, August 16, 2013
Garrosh Must Fall
Hello reader!
You still there?
Woooow, go check out the patch 5.4 trailer right now.
I've only been logging on to do two specific things lately for the past month or two: Raid, and herb.
I have no need for VP or charms or anything and I have no intention of playing my crappy ilvl 515 alts.
We've been in a slump, but this trailer has reminded me just how awesome our cinematics can be (compare this to the crap that was the deathwing trailer (LOOOLWHAT)!
Garrosh must fall! It's time to set aside our petty quarrels and bring down this tyrant who would satiate his craving for power by laying waste to the entirety of Azeroth!
Also, I think Taran Zhu needs to bring along his healer bitch for his fights.
Goodbye!
You still there?
Woooow, go check out the patch 5.4 trailer right now.
I've only been logging on to do two specific things lately for the past month or two: Raid, and herb.
I have no need for VP or charms or anything and I have no intention of playing my crappy ilvl 515 alts.
We've been in a slump, but this trailer has reminded me just how awesome our cinematics can be (compare this to the crap that was the deathwing trailer (LOOOLWHAT)!
Garrosh must fall! It's time to set aside our petty quarrels and bring down this tyrant who would satiate his craving for power by laying waste to the entirety of Azeroth!
Also, I think Taran Zhu needs to bring along his healer bitch for his fights.
Goodbye!
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
Flametalon Acquired
Hello reader!
Yeah yeah I've been slacking lately. I want to talk about mounts today. That is a savory topic as well as any other.
Specifically, I'd like to talk about rare-drop raid/dungeon mounts.
Even more specifically (OK I know, it's in the title but shhh), I'd like to talk about the fiery bird that gets pooped out of Alysrazor's dead butt-hole in Firelands. The Flametalon of Alysrazor.
Throughout our raiding adventures during those months, our raid group had never seen a single one of these mounts drop. I can probably estimate our kills to have been around 20. So 20 weeks and no mount. Fair enough.
We have heard of friends of friends winning the mount, so we know that it exists somewhere and it is a beautiful bird.
Now according to the 12 embers that I have in my bag, I assume that around 12 weeks ago I came up with this crazy idea to go and solo Alysrazor every week since we are now so OP and there's really nothing left to do.
The first time through I thought it was kinda silly that a sole hero could just stroll straight up to Alysrazor and bypass ALL her mechanics and kill her before her tornado phase. Silly.
I called upon my significant other to join me in such frivolities and there we went, each week we took down the bird and by week 10, nothing. We started to use our alts, anyone who was 90 and was capable seemed to work so I'd say in the past five weeks or so we started running Firelands four times a week.
Two weeks ago, one of them fiery fiends dropped and just last week, a second one drop, thus giving us no reason whatsoever to ever walk into Firelands ever again!
I'd say that our total kills would probably be around 50. This would put us at 50 equivalent weeks of raiding Firelands. That sounds about right?
And because I'm not feeling creative with the screenshots I'll just stick them in the middle here like this:
Yeah yeah I've been slacking lately. I want to talk about mounts today. That is a savory topic as well as any other.
Specifically, I'd like to talk about rare-drop raid/dungeon mounts.
Even more specifically (OK I know, it's in the title but shhh), I'd like to talk about the fiery bird that gets pooped out of Alysrazor's dead butt-hole in Firelands. The Flametalon of Alysrazor.
Throughout our raiding adventures during those months, our raid group had never seen a single one of these mounts drop. I can probably estimate our kills to have been around 20. So 20 weeks and no mount. Fair enough.
We have heard of friends of friends winning the mount, so we know that it exists somewhere and it is a beautiful bird.
Now according to the 12 embers that I have in my bag, I assume that around 12 weeks ago I came up with this crazy idea to go and solo Alysrazor every week since we are now so OP and there's really nothing left to do.
The first time through I thought it was kinda silly that a sole hero could just stroll straight up to Alysrazor and bypass ALL her mechanics and kill her before her tornado phase. Silly.
I called upon my significant other to join me in such frivolities and there we went, each week we took down the bird and by week 10, nothing. We started to use our alts, anyone who was 90 and was capable seemed to work so I'd say in the past five weeks or so we started running Firelands four times a week.
Two weeks ago, one of them fiery fiends dropped and just last week, a second one drop, thus giving us no reason whatsoever to ever walk into Firelands ever again!
I'd say that our total kills would probably be around 50. This would put us at 50 equivalent weeks of raiding Firelands. That sounds about right?
And because I'm not feeling creative with the screenshots I'll just stick them in the middle here like this:
Thursday, July 4, 2013
75% Complete
Oh hello reader,
As of last week, our raiding progression is officially that of what the good players were in the first two hours of the initial release of patch 5.3. Dark Animus was a fun fight, in the fact that I got to be useful!
Normally my job is to do oodles and doodles of damages, but because our comp consists of three pet classes, we used all our pets to hold onto the little animus things.
The last time my voidwalker was useful was when he helped us do the weekly quest in ICC for Lady Deathwhisper, something Darnald or Arnald?
Anyways that's it. We've locked our progression going forward to Iron Qon now with the sight of downing Lei Shen real soon!
Truny the Lazy
As of last week, our raiding progression is officially that of what the good players were in the first two hours of the initial release of patch 5.3. Dark Animus was a fun fight, in the fact that I got to be useful!
Normally my job is to do oodles and doodles of damages, but because our comp consists of three pet classes, we used all our pets to hold onto the little animus things.
The last time my voidwalker was useful was when he helped us do the weekly quest in ICC for Lady Deathwhisper, something Darnald or Arnald?
Anyways that's it. We've locked our progression going forward to Iron Qon now with the sight of downing Lei Shen real soon!
Truny the Lazy
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Progression Update
Hello Again,
Not that anyone gives a Borean Marmot's ass about my raiding progression, I think I skipped last week so here we go.
Durumu is dead. Oh wait and Primordius got one shot. God why would boss #8 be so easy?
We've now officially locked ourselves to Dark Animus and onwards for the sake of progession and the feat of strength.
I am also officially 100% done with LFR (a very awkward and eyebrow raising statement for the devs). With the last secret of the empire, I went and facerolled my way to the ilvl 600 cape. This cape I believe, helped me rank on both Jinrokh and uhh who else was it....oh Tortos (gimmick fight with lots of bats).
So I've officially only ranked on 3 bosses, and was looking forward to doing Primordius BUT we accidentally face-pulled him and he died before I could re-spec so...whatever!
Actually now that I think of it I guess I don't have that much to update, peace out!
Truny the Capeful
Not that anyone gives a Borean Marmot's ass about my raiding progression, I think I skipped last week so here we go.
Durumu is dead. Oh wait and Primordius got one shot. God why would boss #8 be so easy?
We've now officially locked ourselves to Dark Animus and onwards for the sake of progession and the feat of strength.
I am also officially 100% done with LFR (a very awkward and eyebrow raising statement for the devs). With the last secret of the empire, I went and facerolled my way to the ilvl 600 cape. This cape I believe, helped me rank on both Jinrokh and uhh who else was it....oh Tortos (gimmick fight with lots of bats).
So I've officially only ranked on 3 bosses, and was looking forward to doing Primordius BUT we accidentally face-pulled him and he died before I could re-spec so...whatever!
Actually now that I think of it I guess I don't have that much to update, peace out!
Truny the Capeful
A Legendary Find
Hello Dear Reader,
Wow, it's been a long time since I've last updated and ..that's okay actually. You know with all the buzz about 5.3, despite the dreadfully boring new weekly quest and getting to fight the Korkron head on, there isn't really much to do but run your daily heroic scenario then log off. And that's fine.
Now let's backtrack to BC, there was a raid called Sunwell and within this raid there resides a legendary bow, a bow which required no arrows. When you think of it now, it's silly. No one uses arrows, no longer do we have to carry stacks of up to date arrows in our bags.
Anyways I guess you know where this is leading. It was a grumpy week for me and I decided to jump into Sunwell just to see if all the bad karma would reverse in my favor. Well, it did.
Thori'dal, the Stars' Fury is mine!
Now being that my hunter was my original character, Thori'dal holds a special place within my dark black heart in that as a noob browsing Thottbot, this bow was the "best" bow out there and I had no freaking clue how to get it nor would I ever think that one day we would be so strong that we can go and solo old raids.
With everything so accessible now, there a sense of everything being cheapened. You can't go a single day now without seeing the once rare Ashes of A'lar. But that's not the point. My point is that we are so "epic" now that a Legendary is just the natural next step.
But with Thori'dal, in my noob days, even obtaining an epic was difficult. I farmed and played the AH constantly so I can always afford the next best rare, or even epic BOE bow (Hurricane). I can tell you now, the moment I managed to save up that THREE HUNDRED gold to buy Hurricane, it felt like such an accomplishment. I was stronger, and the mobs in Ungoro where I was questing had to fear me. I think gearing up has long lost this magic. The feeling of slow but sure progression, the non-existance of entitlement.
I was what you could say a "casual" player back then and I can also say that perhaps the Great Loot Rain of T9 really did throw a corrupted dart into the already ruined heart of the community.
Anyways, this is just the first of many updates this week since I've been SLACKING!
Turby the Bowlicious
Wow, it's been a long time since I've last updated and ..that's okay actually. You know with all the buzz about 5.3, despite the dreadfully boring new weekly quest and getting to fight the Korkron head on, there isn't really much to do but run your daily heroic scenario then log off. And that's fine.
Now let's backtrack to BC, there was a raid called Sunwell and within this raid there resides a legendary bow, a bow which required no arrows. When you think of it now, it's silly. No one uses arrows, no longer do we have to carry stacks of up to date arrows in our bags.
Anyways I guess you know where this is leading. It was a grumpy week for me and I decided to jump into Sunwell just to see if all the bad karma would reverse in my favor. Well, it did.
Thori'dal, the Stars' Fury is mine!
 |
| Meet Kulumtum the Core-Hound! |
With everything so accessible now, there a sense of everything being cheapened. You can't go a single day now without seeing the once rare Ashes of A'lar. But that's not the point. My point is that we are so "epic" now that a Legendary is just the natural next step.
But with Thori'dal, in my noob days, even obtaining an epic was difficult. I farmed and played the AH constantly so I can always afford the next best rare, or even epic BOE bow (Hurricane). I can tell you now, the moment I managed to save up that THREE HUNDRED gold to buy Hurricane, it felt like such an accomplishment. I was stronger, and the mobs in Ungoro where I was questing had to fear me. I think gearing up has long lost this magic. The feeling of slow but sure progression, the non-existance of entitlement.
I was what you could say a "casual" player back then and I can also say that perhaps the Great Loot Rain of T9 really did throw a corrupted dart into the already ruined heart of the community.
Anyways, this is just the first of many updates this week since I've been SLACKING!
Turby the Bowlicious
Monday, June 3, 2013
Battle Pets for Warlocks: 2nd Installment
Evening,
Raiding With Leashes 2 gives us malefic pet collectors access to some very warlocky pets, pets that you know at one point you had wanted to summon/control for your very own evil use.
Let me introduce the first pet, the Netherspace Abyssal. This delicious abyssal drops off of the last boss of Karazhan, which means you must go and solo the chess event in order to obtain it.
The chess event is not TOO difficult depending on your luck with the game "cheating". What I always do is free up my doomguards so they can AOE mobs, then immediately free my King just before Medivh cheats and then focus fire down his king.
Anyways, the Abyssal casts hellfire occasionally when left alone, and this could actually cause some chaos in your raid group as you see people try to move out of fire. I found myself moving out of its fire once then thinking "wait, this encounter has no fire...". I wonder if they will add in a green abyssal once the Black Temple pets are released.
The next awesome pet is the Lesser Voidcaller,which drops off of Astromancer Solarian in Tempest Keep. This pet took me the longest, two weeks worth of cycling every character in there, with the damned thing finally dropping for my level 86 shadow priest.
This guy is awesome, I have always wanted the void-lord-with-lanterns model to follow us, or even to fight for us and our plea has been answered!
That's about it, I have work to do. Goodbye.
Truny the Petted
Raiding With Leashes 2 gives us malefic pet collectors access to some very warlocky pets, pets that you know at one point you had wanted to summon/control for your very own evil use.
Let me introduce the first pet, the Netherspace Abyssal. This delicious abyssal drops off of the last boss of Karazhan, which means you must go and solo the chess event in order to obtain it.
 |
| As I try to re-enact the Warlock from the Vanilla WoW Trailer. |
Anyways, the Abyssal casts hellfire occasionally when left alone, and this could actually cause some chaos in your raid group as you see people try to move out of fire. I found myself moving out of its fire once then thinking "wait, this encounter has no fire...". I wonder if they will add in a green abyssal once the Black Temple pets are released. |
| "I can has lanterns LOL" |
This guy is awesome, I have always wanted the void-lord-with-lanterns model to follow us, or even to fight for us and our plea has been answered!
That's about it, I have work to do. Goodbye.
Truny the Petted
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Fire and Brimstone Change for 5.3
Good evening,
For the last few patches, Warlocks pretty much remained untouched since we pretty much stayed awesome since the release of MoP.
I remember when I first hopped into Beta and discovered a new spell for destruction called Fire and Brimstone, I got confused. I tried it out. It felt weak. It was weak at level 85. I found as my stat-pool went up, this spell really shone like...fire.
The Old
As we know, Fire and Brimstone (FaB) is one of the core components of our AOE damage and essentially duplicates our incinerate, immolate, and conflagrate to all mobs within a small radius. Previously, we would have to trigger FaB for each cast, and sometimes if you trigger FaB too fast the effect won't register and you essentially end up casting a single target version of whatever you were casting.
The New
The new FaB essentially gives us what I like to think of as our AOE Stance. As long as we have an ember, all our duplicatable spells cast will remain FaB'd. I found that this small change increased my AOE dps by a LOT. Not that AOE dps really matters for what we are doing with the exception of perhaps being able to be really OP for Tortos' bats.
The new FaB just lets us set and forget, and for fights with more than 10 mobs we are officially stronger than a hunter's ridiculously overpowered Improved Serpent Sting, and even frost mages. Yes, frost mages, the single most over-powered class ever to set foot in PVE and PVP can not even hold a candle to FaB (unless they are 20 ilvl higher than you).Oh, you did 350,000 dps on those slimes, well I did 800,000. Almost a million. TO the point where the tank couldn't keep aggro. And you know that if within our current system where a tank, who merely needs to exist can not keep aggro, you are probably powerful.
The new FaB lets us perform our single target rotation on all mobs, no more casting FaB after each cast, you just let it roll. Make sure to cast rain of fire first as this spell still does not know to hit multiple mobs on a fresh pull.(Also, be mindful of our havoc/shadowburn opportunities, and keep up rain of fire. Remember to always maximize every moment of dps as a practise of good habit).
That's all I wanted to say today. An interesting observation. We are pretty good for single target, we shine for multi-target, but before there would always be a stray hunter who would do massive dps on 10+ mobs. But not anymore.
Truny of the Fire and Brimstone
For the last few patches, Warlocks pretty much remained untouched since we pretty much stayed awesome since the release of MoP.
I remember when I first hopped into Beta and discovered a new spell for destruction called Fire and Brimstone, I got confused. I tried it out. It felt weak. It was weak at level 85. I found as my stat-pool went up, this spell really shone like...fire.
The Old
As we know, Fire and Brimstone (FaB) is one of the core components of our AOE damage and essentially duplicates our incinerate, immolate, and conflagrate to all mobs within a small radius. Previously, we would have to trigger FaB for each cast, and sometimes if you trigger FaB too fast the effect won't register and you essentially end up casting a single target version of whatever you were casting.
The New
The new FaB essentially gives us what I like to think of as our AOE Stance. As long as we have an ember, all our duplicatable spells cast will remain FaB'd. I found that this small change increased my AOE dps by a LOT. Not that AOE dps really matters for what we are doing with the exception of perhaps being able to be really OP for Tortos' bats.
The new FaB just lets us set and forget, and for fights with more than 10 mobs we are officially stronger than a hunter's ridiculously overpowered Improved Serpent Sting, and even frost mages. Yes, frost mages, the single most over-powered class ever to set foot in PVE and PVP can not even hold a candle to FaB (unless they are 20 ilvl higher than you).Oh, you did 350,000 dps on those slimes, well I did 800,000. Almost a million. TO the point where the tank couldn't keep aggro. And you know that if within our current system where a tank, who merely needs to exist can not keep aggro, you are probably powerful.
The new FaB lets us perform our single target rotation on all mobs, no more casting FaB after each cast, you just let it roll. Make sure to cast rain of fire first as this spell still does not know to hit multiple mobs on a fresh pull.(Also, be mindful of our havoc/shadowburn opportunities, and keep up rain of fire. Remember to always maximize every moment of dps as a practise of good habit).
That's all I wanted to say today. An interesting observation. We are pretty good for single target, we shine for multi-target, but before there would always be a stray hunter who would do massive dps on 10+ mobs. But not anymore.
Truny of the Fire and Brimstone
Monday, May 27, 2013
Raiding With Leashes 2
Good evening,
I was never a hard-core companion pet collector on the get-go of my epic journey across Azeroth. It wasn't until the Celestial Dragon had been implemented that I strived to up my pet count and "achieve" that astral little bugger.
Raiding with leashes (1) was a great idea, it gets newer folks a reason other than transmogging into older raids, and gives creates free "content".
On the inception of the first Raiding With Leashes, I got really excited for Raiding With Leashes 2, since I had really really wanted an Abyssal pet ever since fighting the trainer in Felwood. So on Tuesday, the first thing I did was ignore Lorewalker Cho and his problems, and headed straight to Karazhan. I was quite lucky, I got every pet but the Big Bad Wolf, then had zero luck in Tempest Keep and zero luck in Serpent Shrine Caverns.
No worries, I have 11 toons who can run this shit. I run them all through, hoping to sell off or give away duplicates. Two duplicates in Kara, one pet in Serpent Shrine Cavern, and 2 stupid Dragonhawks in Tempest Keep. Astromancer Solarian and the Fel Reaver hate me apparently.
It appears the drop rate is extremely low for content that is so trivial. A mechanic to keep us coming back? Now the drop rates seem totally fine if you for a moment pretend that all these raids were "current" again and that these pets are truly "rare". In our pride of thinking ourselves powerful and entitled, we forget that some things are truly "rare" and that we actually have a shot of running Tempest Keep 11 times a week is a blessing (of sorts).
So now, I look forward to the server reset, I have no more useful characters who can clear Astromancer effectively (the 2nd pet I really really want is the Voidlord).
Oh, another note regarding the Unborn Valkyr, I spent a lot of time ignoring Loremaster Cho's stuff and just flew around like a crazy person all over Northrend. Surprisingly there were more people camping the "spawns" listed among various places of the internet than flying around like a crazy person. I do believe the spawn is truly random and I will make a new post on how I actually found mine all alone in Dragonblight. (With pics, I've been slacking with pics).
Anyways, be patient, and engage your guildies to collect and trade, because you know once that achievement pops, the halls of Karazhan will once again grow dark, its longing thirst for your attention will be muffled by the noise of all the other stuff you have to do.
Truny the Raids With Leashes
I was never a hard-core companion pet collector on the get-go of my epic journey across Azeroth. It wasn't until the Celestial Dragon had been implemented that I strived to up my pet count and "achieve" that astral little bugger.
Raiding with leashes (1) was a great idea, it gets newer folks a reason other than transmogging into older raids, and gives creates free "content".
On the inception of the first Raiding With Leashes, I got really excited for Raiding With Leashes 2, since I had really really wanted an Abyssal pet ever since fighting the trainer in Felwood. So on Tuesday, the first thing I did was ignore Lorewalker Cho and his problems, and headed straight to Karazhan. I was quite lucky, I got every pet but the Big Bad Wolf, then had zero luck in Tempest Keep and zero luck in Serpent Shrine Caverns.
No worries, I have 11 toons who can run this shit. I run them all through, hoping to sell off or give away duplicates. Two duplicates in Kara, one pet in Serpent Shrine Cavern, and 2 stupid Dragonhawks in Tempest Keep. Astromancer Solarian and the Fel Reaver hate me apparently.
It appears the drop rate is extremely low for content that is so trivial. A mechanic to keep us coming back? Now the drop rates seem totally fine if you for a moment pretend that all these raids were "current" again and that these pets are truly "rare". In our pride of thinking ourselves powerful and entitled, we forget that some things are truly "rare" and that we actually have a shot of running Tempest Keep 11 times a week is a blessing (of sorts).
So now, I look forward to the server reset, I have no more useful characters who can clear Astromancer effectively (the 2nd pet I really really want is the Voidlord).
Oh, another note regarding the Unborn Valkyr, I spent a lot of time ignoring Loremaster Cho's stuff and just flew around like a crazy person all over Northrend. Surprisingly there were more people camping the "spawns" listed among various places of the internet than flying around like a crazy person. I do believe the spawn is truly random and I will make a new post on how I actually found mine all alone in Dragonblight. (With pics, I've been slacking with pics).
Anyways, be patient, and engage your guildies to collect and trade, because you know once that achievement pops, the halls of Karazhan will once again grow dark, its longing thirst for your attention will be muffled by the noise of all the other stuff you have to do.
Truny the Raids With Leashes
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Megaera's Slumber
Rest in peace you multi-headed beast of frost, bile, and flame. We downed her, er..it last night and we've been getting lots of Thunderforged gear. I won two pieces of Thunderforged in a single run. Unbelievable right?
We're taking a break this week but will promptly start attempts at kicking Ji-Kun's feathery ass. This should be made a bit easier with the VP upgrades coming back this week.
On the LFR side, I have been having horrible "luck", but then again I think I've filled almost every slot from doing regular raiding. Well I'll be damned.
I also found that one thing I haven't been talking much about is what spurred this blog to begin with: raiding as a warlock.
Over the past couple of years a lot of great resource sites with beautiful graphics and layouts and accurate info popped up and I just didn't feel the need to talk about encounters or mechanics as they pretty much lay everything out. What I can still do is humanize the experience as I have been attempting to do with my LFR guides. What you will see and what to expect.
I am by no means a "good" player, as only those in the top 10 guilds in the world qualify for this prestige. Most of us are just "average".
On Demonology
Ah my once favourite and exclusive spec. I went Demo for one of our Megaera pulls and I actually managed to pull the same numbers as if I were destro. I find this amusing since the last time I was Demo seriously was waaaay back in early Cata.
There's just a few points about the spec that just doesn't "feel" right.
I know I have mentioned this many many times before but I found that I enjoy seeing a small amount of large numbers, rather than a large amount of small numbers. It makes internal mental calculations that much easier. For example, I know my Shadowburn hits on average for 250k and crits anywhere from 400k to 650k. If I havoc this, I can then forecast the amount of damage I will do, or can do. It's easy, two numbers.
Now with Demo or even Affliction, how am I supposed to calculate all my potential dot ticks/crits and also my demon damage? It's not efficient, and in turn it becomes not fun (I'm weird right?)
With Demo, rather than bursting high numbers, it's a steady stream of medium numbers.
Then there's the "Demon" aspect. Metamorphosis is great with the new mechanic, depending on how many fury resources you have generating, you may be able to stay in demon form for a very long time. The only thing is...Touch of Chaos doesn't look very interesting.
I've always been compelled at becoming very adept at the demonic fury dancing and juggling, managing my dots while juggling Meta uptime while my Dark Soul is on cooldown, but Touch of Chaos, while being an instant cast spell is just...boring.
What am I doing? Throwing a shadowy yo-yo at the enemy? How about changing the animation to a black/green shadowy chain lightning type animation. Something more malefic. Something with more oomph.
Visual feedback is a very important component to game design and where some spells lack any effect (think lightning bolt for shamans, which looks like a weak limp ribbon), some are pretty awesome (think chain lightning, where each crackle and impact is felt, or chaos bolt).
This has actually been bugging me since Beta and deserves a separate section that I just must get out of my system once and for all.
What's Wrong with Touch of Chaos
Ok, so the current animation for Touch of Chaos...it is like a purple beam that lashes from you to the opponent. Well, it kind of bounces. Well, it just sort of returns to you. Where's the impact? What am I touching? (Their no-no parts obviously)
Am I draining something from them? It doesn't look very drain-y. Why does it come back? Is it a lash? A whip? Whips crack, with great impact and I don't see a crack (except in their no-no parts). Why is there no sound? This is my great cooldown, and within this cooldown we are....spamming this weird purple yo-yo?
What I expect is something along the lines of the elemental shaman. I actually have a secret level 90 elemental shaman I never talk about. He is only whispered about.
Anyways, think of an elemental shaman's "Ascendance" cooldown. You turn into an elemental and you get to spam Lava Burst. Ok so what? Well, Lava Burst has a really awesome visual. It's a giant surge of lava that always crits, and with its clever animation, it looks like it slowly (for a fraction of a second) surges out of you then propels forward at great speed.
Now let's look at Touch of Chaos. You just spam it until your fury bar disappears and you are left feeling empty, disappointed. You are subconsciously discouraged from even wanting to enter Meta, since you know your core ability is kind of boring. (This also applies to the shaman's new lightning bolt, you know...the limp ribbon).
There could be many ways to improve this simple skill. Perhaps give it a demonic slash animation that tears at the enemy with a glowing purple cross, with a simple slashing sound, or maybe a fel whip, or perhaps a dark pulse of demonic energy. Something impactful.
I've travelled the entirety of Azeroth, and solicited many groups for "Felguard Transmog" to equip my Blagroon with beautiful 2-hander weapons, but perhaps this visual enhancement has been eclipse by a far greater one; of how Touch of Chaos looks sucky.
So there you go. How would you redesign Touch of Chaos?
And Peace Out!
Truny the Touching No No Bits
We're taking a break this week but will promptly start attempts at kicking Ji-Kun's feathery ass. This should be made a bit easier with the VP upgrades coming back this week.
On the LFR side, I have been having horrible "luck", but then again I think I've filled almost every slot from doing regular raiding. Well I'll be damned.
I also found that one thing I haven't been talking much about is what spurred this blog to begin with: raiding as a warlock.
Over the past couple of years a lot of great resource sites with beautiful graphics and layouts and accurate info popped up and I just didn't feel the need to talk about encounters or mechanics as they pretty much lay everything out. What I can still do is humanize the experience as I have been attempting to do with my LFR guides. What you will see and what to expect.
I am by no means a "good" player, as only those in the top 10 guilds in the world qualify for this prestige. Most of us are just "average".
On Demonology
Ah my once favourite and exclusive spec. I went Demo for one of our Megaera pulls and I actually managed to pull the same numbers as if I were destro. I find this amusing since the last time I was Demo seriously was waaaay back in early Cata.
There's just a few points about the spec that just doesn't "feel" right.
I know I have mentioned this many many times before but I found that I enjoy seeing a small amount of large numbers, rather than a large amount of small numbers. It makes internal mental calculations that much easier. For example, I know my Shadowburn hits on average for 250k and crits anywhere from 400k to 650k. If I havoc this, I can then forecast the amount of damage I will do, or can do. It's easy, two numbers.
Now with Demo or even Affliction, how am I supposed to calculate all my potential dot ticks/crits and also my demon damage? It's not efficient, and in turn it becomes not fun (I'm weird right?)
With Demo, rather than bursting high numbers, it's a steady stream of medium numbers.
Then there's the "Demon" aspect. Metamorphosis is great with the new mechanic, depending on how many fury resources you have generating, you may be able to stay in demon form for a very long time. The only thing is...Touch of Chaos doesn't look very interesting.
I've always been compelled at becoming very adept at the demonic fury dancing and juggling, managing my dots while juggling Meta uptime while my Dark Soul is on cooldown, but Touch of Chaos, while being an instant cast spell is just...boring.
What am I doing? Throwing a shadowy yo-yo at the enemy? How about changing the animation to a black/green shadowy chain lightning type animation. Something more malefic. Something with more oomph.
Visual feedback is a very important component to game design and where some spells lack any effect (think lightning bolt for shamans, which looks like a weak limp ribbon), some are pretty awesome (think chain lightning, where each crackle and impact is felt, or chaos bolt).
This has actually been bugging me since Beta and deserves a separate section that I just must get out of my system once and for all.
What's Wrong with Touch of Chaos
Ok, so the current animation for Touch of Chaos...it is like a purple beam that lashes from you to the opponent. Well, it kind of bounces. Well, it just sort of returns to you. Where's the impact? What am I touching? (Their no-no parts obviously)
Am I draining something from them? It doesn't look very drain-y. Why does it come back? Is it a lash? A whip? Whips crack, with great impact and I don't see a crack (except in their no-no parts). Why is there no sound? This is my great cooldown, and within this cooldown we are....spamming this weird purple yo-yo?
What I expect is something along the lines of the elemental shaman. I actually have a secret level 90 elemental shaman I never talk about. He is only whispered about.
Anyways, think of an elemental shaman's "Ascendance" cooldown. You turn into an elemental and you get to spam Lava Burst. Ok so what? Well, Lava Burst has a really awesome visual. It's a giant surge of lava that always crits, and with its clever animation, it looks like it slowly (for a fraction of a second) surges out of you then propels forward at great speed.
Now let's look at Touch of Chaos. You just spam it until your fury bar disappears and you are left feeling empty, disappointed. You are subconsciously discouraged from even wanting to enter Meta, since you know your core ability is kind of boring. (This also applies to the shaman's new lightning bolt, you know...the limp ribbon).
There could be many ways to improve this simple skill. Perhaps give it a demonic slash animation that tears at the enemy with a glowing purple cross, with a simple slashing sound, or maybe a fel whip, or perhaps a dark pulse of demonic energy. Something impactful.
I've travelled the entirety of Azeroth, and solicited many groups for "Felguard Transmog" to equip my Blagroon with beautiful 2-hander weapons, but perhaps this visual enhancement has been eclipse by a far greater one; of how Touch of Chaos looks sucky.
So there you go. How would you redesign Touch of Chaos?
And Peace Out!
Truny the Touching No No Bits
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Deadly Cycle of LFR
Evening!
I made a realization last night after coming out of another LFR set empty-handed: There is actually nothing left "to do" but LFR for end-game. And we just have to accept that this is what we have for "content".
Ok wait, we do raid. But other than raiding, there's nothing else but LFR. This actually makes sense. Otherwise, there's really nothing left "to do" but log in for raiding.
So I've taken a look at what I call the Deadly Cycle (of content consumption) and applied it out to LFR. We view LFR as a waste of time, a time sink to keep us playing. The devs see it as supplemental entertainment, keep the masses satiated because they hunger for content.
Ok let's use a concrete example: The Wrathion Legendary quest chain.
Unless you are in a top guild, I am going to bet that you've maximized your LFR use to first finish off your RNG based sigils, then used LFR for the Sha, and LFR for secrets, and also runestones. I sure have, as our group is probably looking at our first Megaera kill this week and aren't even close to the 3rd wing yet.
So how do the players react to feeling "forced" into LFR to do stuff? How many times have you personally said to yourself "Just let X drop, or let X quest be finished so I never have to do this again".
This is quite distressing for developers, I understand. Whoa, so they just want everything immediately and will completely stop doing whatever it is we gave them and want more? Timing and cost constraints anyone?
Players: Why are you forcing me into redundant LFR with a bunch of not-so optimal players where I am rewarded with nothing for my efforts? Rewarding based on luck is bull-shit, that afk paladin won his full tier whereas all I got was gold and I was top dps for every fight! Those like me should be rewarded for additional effort and never have to do this again! The only other way to progress is just to do this bull-shit all over again next week cause of the crappy drop rates.
Devs: So we design you this raid and you only want to do it once ever?
Players: Yes. Give me all my sigils, secrets, runestones on the get-go. 100% drop rate.
Devs: Then what are you going to do? Go back to your farm in the valley?
Players: Uh...no?
Devs: It's RNG, try again next week.
Players: But LFR is not even enjoyable. I end up doing 12% of the damage or 35% of the total heals every week and get rewarded with what? Gold.
Devs: The system doesn't care how much you contributed, you are just an over-achiever. Go afk or hold back, then you won't feel so entitled.
Players: Ahh I see...
And thus, this player now just auto-follows the tank during trash and puts in minimal effort on boss fights, which triggers the decline of overall LFR quality, as if it could get any lower. And to finish off the cycle, once they are done, they find they actually have nothing to do, level and ALT and complain about the same thing all over again.
Conclusion:
Despite how you were raised, this is what I have taught myself, that you will not be rewarded for performance in LFR. Or WILL WE? (Dramatic to be continued)
Truny the Underperformer
I made a realization last night after coming out of another LFR set empty-handed: There is actually nothing left "to do" but LFR for end-game. And we just have to accept that this is what we have for "content".
Ok wait, we do raid. But other than raiding, there's nothing else but LFR. This actually makes sense. Otherwise, there's really nothing left "to do" but log in for raiding.
So I've taken a look at what I call the Deadly Cycle (of content consumption) and applied it out to LFR. We view LFR as a waste of time, a time sink to keep us playing. The devs see it as supplemental entertainment, keep the masses satiated because they hunger for content.
Ok let's use a concrete example: The Wrathion Legendary quest chain.
Unless you are in a top guild, I am going to bet that you've maximized your LFR use to first finish off your RNG based sigils, then used LFR for the Sha, and LFR for secrets, and also runestones. I sure have, as our group is probably looking at our first Megaera kill this week and aren't even close to the 3rd wing yet.
So how do the players react to feeling "forced" into LFR to do stuff? How many times have you personally said to yourself "Just let X drop, or let X quest be finished so I never have to do this again".
This is quite distressing for developers, I understand. Whoa, so they just want everything immediately and will completely stop doing whatever it is we gave them and want more? Timing and cost constraints anyone?
Players: Why are you forcing me into redundant LFR with a bunch of not-so optimal players where I am rewarded with nothing for my efforts? Rewarding based on luck is bull-shit, that afk paladin won his full tier whereas all I got was gold and I was top dps for every fight! Those like me should be rewarded for additional effort and never have to do this again! The only other way to progress is just to do this bull-shit all over again next week cause of the crappy drop rates.
Devs: So we design you this raid and you only want to do it once ever?
Players: Yes. Give me all my sigils, secrets, runestones on the get-go. 100% drop rate.
Devs: Then what are you going to do? Go back to your farm in the valley?
Players: Uh...no?
Devs: It's RNG, try again next week.
Players: But LFR is not even enjoyable. I end up doing 12% of the damage or 35% of the total heals every week and get rewarded with what? Gold.
Devs: The system doesn't care how much you contributed, you are just an over-achiever. Go afk or hold back, then you won't feel so entitled.
Players: Ahh I see...
And thus, this player now just auto-follows the tank during trash and puts in minimal effort on boss fights, which triggers the decline of overall LFR quality, as if it could get any lower. And to finish off the cycle, once they are done, they find they actually have nothing to do, level and ALT and complain about the same thing all over again.
Conclusion:
Despite how you were raised, this is what I have taught myself, that you will not be rewarded for performance in LFR. Or WILL WE? (Dramatic to be continued)
Truny the Underperformer
Thursday, May 9, 2013
May Update
Oh hello,
I'd just like to say that my middle exam for my accounting program has finally passed! This means that I am FREE until mid-September! And thus, I shall promise that henceforth all my posts (except this one) will be accompanied with pictures! (This probably means I won't make anymore posts cause I'm still lazy).
Anyways. We've been downing Tortos consistently and are once again "working" on Megara, trying to get our heads in order. Otherwise, despite only having downed FOUR measley bosses apparently we're still 39th on the server? That's...kinda weird and scary and re-assuring. I mean, we only really get in 4.5 effective hours of raiding per week. That's just...interesting.
Well, I don't have much to say except ..oh! can I bitch about RNG raid drops?
Alright.
So last week I was left with 19/20 secrets of the empire. So shitty. I do all my LFRs early in the week so by the time we raid on Sunday and Monday I really have very little incentive to do anything except rack up my kill counts on regular. I'm usually VP capped, have nothing to spend VP on and oh nevermind.
So this week I managed to get my last secret on Horridon and got the hell out of that LFR, vowing to never do LFR on my warlock ever again.
Guess what Wrathion wants me to do next?
That's right. Get random drops off the last six bosses. Well, since we're not there yet on regular, this is a task for LFR. Now, if the legendary chain won't begin again until 5.4, I technically have all of 5.3 to finish this. Maybe we'll be working on the last half by then and I won't have to use LFR. But then again I'd like to get this out of the way and NOT do LFR. Bah!
The 3rd part is easy enough, as long as 10 people are alive you can carry the dead folk through Durumu but trying to get a FRESH queue for the 4th wing is near impossible. There's just no time. And Lei Shen's drops suck! Why? Why are you sending us back into LFR when it's quite obvious that not a lot of ...oh wait.
Then in due time will we finish this. Honestly we've been over-geared for the first few wings probably since launch. We don't really need upgrades, right? Do I, as a destro warlock really need a mini bloodlust that sometimes brings my incinerate down to a 0.70 second cast time? That's just silly.
Anyways, more pictures! I need to put up a guide on Serving Souls.
Truny the Soul Server
I'd just like to say that my middle exam for my accounting program has finally passed! This means that I am FREE until mid-September! And thus, I shall promise that henceforth all my posts (except this one) will be accompanied with pictures! (This probably means I won't make anymore posts cause I'm still lazy).
Anyways. We've been downing Tortos consistently and are once again "working" on Megara, trying to get our heads in order. Otherwise, despite only having downed FOUR measley bosses apparently we're still 39th on the server? That's...kinda weird and scary and re-assuring. I mean, we only really get in 4.5 effective hours of raiding per week. That's just...interesting.
Well, I don't have much to say except ..oh! can I bitch about RNG raid drops?
Alright.
So last week I was left with 19/20 secrets of the empire. So shitty. I do all my LFRs early in the week so by the time we raid on Sunday and Monday I really have very little incentive to do anything except rack up my kill counts on regular. I'm usually VP capped, have nothing to spend VP on and oh nevermind.
So this week I managed to get my last secret on Horridon and got the hell out of that LFR, vowing to never do LFR on my warlock ever again.
Guess what Wrathion wants me to do next?
That's right. Get random drops off the last six bosses. Well, since we're not there yet on regular, this is a task for LFR. Now, if the legendary chain won't begin again until 5.4, I technically have all of 5.3 to finish this. Maybe we'll be working on the last half by then and I won't have to use LFR. But then again I'd like to get this out of the way and NOT do LFR. Bah!
The 3rd part is easy enough, as long as 10 people are alive you can carry the dead folk through Durumu but trying to get a FRESH queue for the 4th wing is near impossible. There's just no time. And Lei Shen's drops suck! Why? Why are you sending us back into LFR when it's quite obvious that not a lot of ...oh wait.
Then in due time will we finish this. Honestly we've been over-geared for the first few wings probably since launch. We don't really need upgrades, right? Do I, as a destro warlock really need a mini bloodlust that sometimes brings my incinerate down to a 0.70 second cast time? That's just silly.
Anyways, more pictures! I need to put up a guide on Serving Souls.
Truny the Soul Server
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Tree With a Buzzsaw
I used to run around on Turny, exploring old dungeons and collected a myriad of strange and wonderful weapons in which I would equip randomly to heal heroics back in Wrath. Transmogging before it was cool. Having picked up my druid once again, I managed to win this said fist weapon and immediately opened up my Mogit to find some cool transmogs. One of the most easily obtainable fist weapon was [Calamity's Grasp], which drops off 25M Kel'thuzad. A spinning buzz-saw...as a healer, and a tree? AWESOME! I am not going to be running Nightbane in Karazhan for a nice flamethrower offhand!
Weekly Progression
This week's progression update actually has progression within it! We downed Tortos! We put in several attempts last week at the end of raid and our healers just kept dying. Having re-thought our bat acquisition methods and allocated our turtle kicking appropriately, we finally downed this turtle-a-hole and I can reasonably say that we can do this again fairly easily.
In retrospect, I think next week I can manage my embers a bit better, perhaps saving one to F&B an immolate on all the bats, and also to keep my uptime of ROF on them a bit higher. But...I'll worry about that this weekend.
EAT CRAP TORTOS!
Random Notes
Now that the entire set of TOT LFR is out, I find that I don't have enough time to do them all on two characters. I am now picking and choosing which has the prettiest upgrades, then weighed based on which wing is the easiest.
Last week it took about six or seven queues of trying for the Pinnacle of Storms just to get into FRESH queue. I somehow managed to maintain top heals, EVEN when I was exclusively the one going in connecting the star-dots for the celestials. WTF?
It's an odd feeling not doing everything for once. My warlock did not even touch the 4th wing. Time and time again I'd get into a failed Lei Shen run. Seriously who wipes to Lei Shen LFR more than 5 times? What mechanic is still not getting through or not being communicated it boggles my mind.
Anyways. Missed out on some rep and possible Secrets of the Empire, but then again I do not yet have a qualifying helm (still using a 483 of all things) to put the new shiny meta in anyways.
The sucky part is, Iron Qon and Twin Consorts are so easy, coupled by the fact that they drop the two more awesome tier pieces, shoulder and helm. For druids, this helm is the only model and I believe is not imitated by any other off-set.
I believe the phenomenon happening now is that once Twin Consorts dies, HALF the raid is "peace out", because we sure did when we finally managed to get into a fresh queue.
Frustrating indeed, perhaps this will get better in the next couple of weeks. STOP QUEUING US TO LEI SHEN! And let's end off with a cool picture!
Turny the Buzzsaw Healer
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
MoP LFR Tips: Throne of Thunder - Lei Shen
Oh hello!
The fourth and final quarter of the Throne of Thunder has been released in LFR as of yesterday and I am sure many people have questions or want to have a quick brief understanding of the Lei Shen fight in order to facilitate a smooth kill.
I am skipping over Iron Qon and Twin Consorts momentarily as they are fairly insignificant. Let's get straight to Lei Shen.
Lei Shen
Organization
First off, you will want to assign your raid to cover the four different quadrants of the platform. I'll tell you why later. Mark each corner and split people up making sure there's at least one healer in each group. Also make sure people are paying attention and make sure they know what group they are in.
Lei Shen's general mechanic throughout the first phase is that he needs to be tanked near one of the four lightning conduits around the room. By doing this, he will charge the conduit instead of doing an AOE to everyone in the raid.
Dangerous Ability: Occasionally Lei Shen casts Thunderstruck, denoted by a bright blue lightning circle on the ground. Get out of this circle!
Tanks: I believe you taunt off each other after each "Decapitate".
Overall Strategy
The Lei Shen fight boils down to handling each mechanic at each different conduit located on each corner of the platform, and also splitting up into groups to handle ALL of those mechanics at once in each corner. Now I will explain what to do at each conduit:
You will probably tank him starting at the north conduit, and once this conduit is charged once, you will move to the east, then south, then west and so on. As he is moving he will do his AOE since he is not near a conduit, but it won't last long as long as tanks move quickly. Heal through it.
The Conduits
Each conduit, which will be denoted by the cardinal points of the compass, N, E, S, W, each have a different mechanic tied to them when Lei Shen is near them.
North: If you get targeted by an arrow, stack with everyone as this will do HUGE damage that needs to be split.
East: Spread out, as he casts a chain lightning that spawns adds when anyone gets hit. Kill the adds ASAP.
South: Someone will get targeted by a lightning ring that will explode after 3 seconds, stunning anyone caught in it. As a healer I found this platform to be moot as there are no adds. Or perhaps it was because I was healing it.
West: Occasionally you will see pale blue circley pools on the ground. STAND IN THEM to soak lightning balls. If you do not, an add shows up and adds a lot of unnecessary damage. Don't confuse these with Thunderstruck, which is really bright.
Hopefully by the time you've seen all the conduits he's at 65%....
Phase 2: Once Lei Shen hits 65% and 30% he will teleport to the middle of the room and this is where the assigned groups go to their assigned corners. You will need to handle the stun, kill adds, and soak damage all at once in your smaller groups. Once this phase ends, kill off any additional adds and continue to kill the boss. Most importantly, someone will get targeted by the north conduit ability and must split this damage between the group.
Post Phase 2 & Phase 3: After the Lei Shen teleports to the middle (65%) he will gain lightning whip, which is a huge cone to dodge, which leaves lightning streaks on the ground. You can jump over these streaks. And after the 30% phase he gains a wind ability which is moot. Keep moving to stay on the platform, continue to mind the mechanics in phase 1 and dodge his whip.
Additional Info (Probably not necessary for LFR purposes):
One of the conduits in the room will become inactive if they have the highest charge during the two intermission phases, I believe no adds/mechanics happen in that quadrant and you only have to deal with 3. Also, each conduit gains power the more you charge them. For example, the northern conduit will begin to target additional players, requiring smaller groups to stack up to split damage.
That should cover the brunt of the fight hopefully I did not miss anything but I must go eat lunch now, goodbye and have fun.
Turny the Helpful Tree
The fourth and final quarter of the Throne of Thunder has been released in LFR as of yesterday and I am sure many people have questions or want to have a quick brief understanding of the Lei Shen fight in order to facilitate a smooth kill.
I am skipping over Iron Qon and Twin Consorts momentarily as they are fairly insignificant. Let's get straight to Lei Shen.
Lei Shen
Organization
First off, you will want to assign your raid to cover the four different quadrants of the platform. I'll tell you why later. Mark each corner and split people up making sure there's at least one healer in each group. Also make sure people are paying attention and make sure they know what group they are in.
Lei Shen's general mechanic throughout the first phase is that he needs to be tanked near one of the four lightning conduits around the room. By doing this, he will charge the conduit instead of doing an AOE to everyone in the raid.
Dangerous Ability: Occasionally Lei Shen casts Thunderstruck, denoted by a bright blue lightning circle on the ground. Get out of this circle!
Tanks: I believe you taunt off each other after each "Decapitate".
Overall Strategy
The Lei Shen fight boils down to handling each mechanic at each different conduit located on each corner of the platform, and also splitting up into groups to handle ALL of those mechanics at once in each corner. Now I will explain what to do at each conduit:
You will probably tank him starting at the north conduit, and once this conduit is charged once, you will move to the east, then south, then west and so on. As he is moving he will do his AOE since he is not near a conduit, but it won't last long as long as tanks move quickly. Heal through it.
The Conduits
Each conduit, which will be denoted by the cardinal points of the compass, N, E, S, W, each have a different mechanic tied to them when Lei Shen is near them.
North: If you get targeted by an arrow, stack with everyone as this will do HUGE damage that needs to be split.
East: Spread out, as he casts a chain lightning that spawns adds when anyone gets hit. Kill the adds ASAP.
South: Someone will get targeted by a lightning ring that will explode after 3 seconds, stunning anyone caught in it. As a healer I found this platform to be moot as there are no adds. Or perhaps it was because I was healing it.
West: Occasionally you will see pale blue circley pools on the ground. STAND IN THEM to soak lightning balls. If you do not, an add shows up and adds a lot of unnecessary damage. Don't confuse these with Thunderstruck, which is really bright.
Hopefully by the time you've seen all the conduits he's at 65%....
Phase 2: Once Lei Shen hits 65% and 30% he will teleport to the middle of the room and this is where the assigned groups go to their assigned corners. You will need to handle the stun, kill adds, and soak damage all at once in your smaller groups. Once this phase ends, kill off any additional adds and continue to kill the boss. Most importantly, someone will get targeted by the north conduit ability and must split this damage between the group.
Post Phase 2 & Phase 3: After the Lei Shen teleports to the middle (65%) he will gain lightning whip, which is a huge cone to dodge, which leaves lightning streaks on the ground. You can jump over these streaks. And after the 30% phase he gains a wind ability which is moot. Keep moving to stay on the platform, continue to mind the mechanics in phase 1 and dodge his whip.
Additional Info (Probably not necessary for LFR purposes):
One of the conduits in the room will become inactive if they have the highest charge during the two intermission phases, I believe no adds/mechanics happen in that quadrant and you only have to deal with 3. Also, each conduit gains power the more you charge them. For example, the northern conduit will begin to target additional players, requiring smaller groups to stack up to split damage.
That should cover the brunt of the fight hopefully I did not miss anything but I must go eat lunch now, goodbye and have fun.
Turny the Helpful Tree
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
The People of LFR
Good evening,
Hey reader, are you proud of me or are you proud of me? I have not moaned nor groaned about LFR woes for a very very long time. I've been trying to co-ordinate or take up leadership (what little of it there is) or at least voice my most objective recommendations on how to clear most of my LFR runs.
Because seriously, just do this shit right so I can get my 90 VP and complain about not getting loot as quick as possible.
As of T15, Durumu has been the sore point and honestly as long as two healers, two tanks and some DPS are alive...get ready to carry the rest of your raid as their writing corpses receive upgrades while all you get for thanks is a steaming bag of gold, and to add insult to injury, your fail bag doesn't even have anything else in it. This is what I mean when I complain about reward vs effort. There is none and don't expect it. /bitter
Anyways this post is about the various types of people I've observed going through the various LFRs and here it is:
The Unhelpful Elitist: This elitist will first off state passive aggressively that they have cleared this on regular/heroic but will not provide any valuable advice. They will scoff and scorn the lesser folk for wasting their time and that's "why I don't do LFR". Well fuck you. If you've done the fight in a more complicated manner, why don't you pull some tips out of your almighty fat-ass and help the group out? No one gives a fuck that you've cleared this on reg, let's just get this over with.
The Bitch: Yeah there's always one. All they do is complain about how the group sucks or that everyone is mentally challenged, and yet again they do not provide any useful recommendations for improvement. They will say "this shit is easy just do it". Well, HOW? This is usually when I pipe in with the how as their underdeveloped brains are probably incapable of communicating their thoughts further.
The Pro Tank: This tank knows all the fights and lays out the perfect plan, co-ordinates with their off-tank and the raid follows and executes. This person is my dream tank as it saves me from having to type anything at all.
The-Anyone-Doing-Less-Than-50k dps: The min i-lvl is 480. Act like you are 480+. (I changed the threshold from 80k as that would make me an elitist, but it really should be 80k)
The Helpful Elitist: This is me. I'll give you the tips and tricks to look out for, without boggling you with spell details and perhaps giving class tips and that's it. Behind the screen I am wondering how the FUCK did you wipe twice to LFR Tortos?
So, in your respective roles, what have you observed?
Turny the Observant Tree
Hey reader, are you proud of me or are you proud of me? I have not moaned nor groaned about LFR woes for a very very long time. I've been trying to co-ordinate or take up leadership (what little of it there is) or at least voice my most objective recommendations on how to clear most of my LFR runs.
Because seriously, just do this shit right so I can get my 90 VP and complain about not getting loot as quick as possible.
As of T15, Durumu has been the sore point and honestly as long as two healers, two tanks and some DPS are alive...get ready to carry the rest of your raid as their writing corpses receive upgrades while all you get for thanks is a steaming bag of gold, and to add insult to injury, your fail bag doesn't even have anything else in it. This is what I mean when I complain about reward vs effort. There is none and don't expect it. /bitter
Anyways this post is about the various types of people I've observed going through the various LFRs and here it is:
The Unhelpful Elitist: This elitist will first off state passive aggressively that they have cleared this on regular/heroic but will not provide any valuable advice. They will scoff and scorn the lesser folk for wasting their time and that's "why I don't do LFR". Well fuck you. If you've done the fight in a more complicated manner, why don't you pull some tips out of your almighty fat-ass and help the group out? No one gives a fuck that you've cleared this on reg, let's just get this over with.
The Bitch: Yeah there's always one. All they do is complain about how the group sucks or that everyone is mentally challenged, and yet again they do not provide any useful recommendations for improvement. They will say "this shit is easy just do it". Well, HOW? This is usually when I pipe in with the how as their underdeveloped brains are probably incapable of communicating their thoughts further.
The Pro Tank: This tank knows all the fights and lays out the perfect plan, co-ordinates with their off-tank and the raid follows and executes. This person is my dream tank as it saves me from having to type anything at all.
The-Anyone-Doing-Less-Than-50k dps: The min i-lvl is 480. Act like you are 480+. (I changed the threshold from 80k as that would make me an elitist, but it really should be 80k)
The Helpful Elitist: This is me. I'll give you the tips and tricks to look out for, without boggling you with spell details and perhaps giving class tips and that's it. Behind the screen I am wondering how the FUCK did you wipe twice to LFR Tortos?
So, in your respective roles, what have you observed?
Turny the Observant Tree
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