Thursday (29 Oct) - JB's "Softer" Side

Thursday (29 Oct) - JB's "Softer" Side

Over the past few days JB has been re-working her gear set, moving away from her "trash mob" set (ie, a set that ignores +hit) and focusing more on her "soft hit cap" gear set for Heroics/raids, and a below cap set that still has considerable +hit for under level 80 dungeons. The reason for this is that when JB got around to reviewing her stats from the Nexus adventure with DER, she discovered something she hadn't expected. The gear set she wore was her "trash mob" set with high spell power, crit, and int for max damage dealing. There was only around +60 hit on that set, but JB didn't think she would need any more than that on the low 70s level elites. Yet her Recount log showed that she was indeed missing - not a lot of misses, but JB was not expecting to be missing at all.

A "soft hit cap" set is a raid viable set that ensures JB will consistently hit even the highest level bosses, provided there is a moonkin or shadow priest in the raid to make up the +hit difference. The soft hit cap is +289 hit for elemental shaman and with the latest changes JB's made, she is right at +289 hit.

The changes:

(1) JB achieved Honored rep with the Kirin'Tor faction, which got her access to high stamina head enchants.
(2) [Sash of Trumpted Pride] - and yes, that is spelled accurately (even though there is no such word as "trumpted"). JB bought this from the Argent Tournament vendor and used two gem slots to fill them with a total of +40 hit. JB is working to maximize the amount of +hit on single pieces of gear and minimize how many pieces of gear have +hit on them to give her flexibility on other stats.
(3) [Zom's Crackling Bulwark] - this ilevel 200 shield was so much better than what JB was currently wearing even Happy could find no excuse not to buy it. It's the first time I've ever seen it offered on the AH.
(4) [Ebonweave Gloves] - Yes, they're crafted cloth gloves, but they're also one of the very few quality +hit items JB has run across, and the price she paid was half of what they were worth. The +51 hit the gloves added allowed JB to swap out worse +hit gear in favor of other stats.

Bottom line is that out of 17 gear slots, JB now fills 11 of them with ilevel 200 gear.

JB did some quick testing of her SHC (soft hit cap) gear set on the Heroic/Raid level Dummy in Orgrimmar. Two full tests, firing on all cylinders until JB ran out of mana, showed the following:
(LB=Lightning Bolt, FS=Flame Shock, CL=Chain Lightning, LvB=Lava Burst)

Pass #1: 2050 DPS, LB- 2 misses out of 45 casts, FS- 1/11, LvB/CL no misses)
Pass #2: 2078 DPS, LB- 1/52, FS- 2/12, LvB- 1/15, CL- 1/34 (CL total overstated because it chains over to hit other nearby Dummies; number of casts is close to the LvB total of 15)

JB was averaging around 1900 DPS on the Heroic dummy before the latest changes, so there is definitely an improvement.

JB has been testing out an addon called Shock and Awe as I need a clear indicator showing JB when her Flame Shock DoT is about to expire. The DoT must be up at all times, but you don't want to waste time or mana refreshing it too soon. I was disappointed with the addon and will be looking at others.

As for her "softer" side, of course she meant the hit cap.

Ok, so she also is now looking a bit more feminine with her new Kirin Tor tabard, a robe courtesy of the fish people (who's name I forget), and her new blue shield to complement that wicked dagger. And anyone who questions the femininity of trolls - well, I'm sure JB would be happy to have you for dinner - drawn and quartered as the main course. ;-)

JB's "Softer" Side

Wednesday (28 Oct) - The Alt-10 Keeps Rolling

Wednesday (28 Oct) - The Alt-10 Keeps Rolling

Despite one of our two crucial tanks having a real life illness and unable to play, the Alt-10 managed to field a ten man raid of Ulduar. An death knight alt of one of our warlock mains agreed to off tank. We were still short a DPS, and another alt making his first appearance with the group also joined us. Later in the evening, when a hunter went offline with RL issues, the raid leader was able to bring in a pally tank friend from another guild to fill in, and the off tank dk was able to switch to DPS. For healing we had Wild, Mxpally, and Hpriest. P-Jo did make it in game, which Wild was happy to see, but not until after 6pm and we had already filled the raid. Wild also stayed in touch with the MM guild raid leader, who was also starting his raid at 6pm. Last week they hadn't decided what their second raid day would be, but he told Wild on Wednesday night that they were going to try running on Wed/Thursdays.

The Alt-10 raid had an uneven night, with some new faces and working with two new tanks, but despite some hiccups we still had an overall good night.

Bosses killed (in order and on our first try unless otherwise noted): Flame Leviathon, XT-002, Kologarn (4 tries), Cat Lady, and Iron Council (2 tries). We finally downed Kologarn on our 4th try with only nine raiders (when the hunter went offline). Wild's fascination with eyebeams remained intact as I was hit four straight times on that final attempt. The raid leader said that was a good thing - with a druid's HoTs, playing deadly tag with eyebeams still allowed Wild to keep healing. That's exactly what Wild was doing, although I really hadn't thought about it quite like that. Still, Wild plans to wear a "No To Eyebeams" T-shirt on next week's run. :P

In addition to our kills, between the Cat Lady and Iron Council fights we made three attempts on Thorim. Wild has only seen Thorim once before. This is the fight where the raid breaks up into two groups; a group of six which battles the arena-like event on the main floor of Thorim's chamber, and the other group of four which dive into a tunnel and fight mini-bosses that must be killed to force Thorim into the fight. Wild had had tunnel duty on his first exposure to the fight, so I talked my way into being on the arena team this time so I would understand both parts.

Before splitting into the two teams, we quickly killed the trash mobs that currently occupied the chamber. The tunnel team then entered the tunnel while the arena team drew up into a circle around the center of the chamber. In the arena various groups of mobs entered in a series of waves. Since they came from different directions, and entered the arena area with no aggro, anyone in the group could become initial targets. The tanks tried to grab them as they arrived, drawing them to the center where the AoE could kill them. Other raiders that got attacked were told to move through the center of the circle so the tanks and AoE could pick them up as we went through.

Unfortunately, we were not able to kill the incoming waves fast enough, and on every attempt the arena team was eventually overwhelmed and killed.

We wound up the evening just after 9pm. Wild did get loot, a nice helm. The leather helm is considered one of the best a druid caster can get at the ten man level. Wild tried to turn it down, considering that Wild already has the T8.5 helm, the only ilevel 226 piece I own (the Ulduar helm is ilevel 219). No one else could use it, though, and we didn't need the shard, so Wild kept it. Maybe I'll figure out a way to use it.

In other news JB is still banging out her Argent tournament dailies, and should reach the ten Champion Seals she needs to buy another piece of gear on Friday. By the way, through diligent practice JB has learned how to defeat the tougher npc City Champions to win her four jousts each day (which is one of the dailies). There is one daily that JB still can't do solo, so she could use some help - eyes DER. A level 77 can enter the tournament. Hint hint. ;-)

Tuesday (27 Oct) - Making Wild Jealous

Tuesday (27 Oct) - Making Wild Jealous

One of the things JB has found very entertaining is catching on with a group that is out to get Achievements for doing the pre-WotLK raids. JB has walked the halls of Karazahn already (or at least a portion of Kara). On Tuesday she had a chance to join a group that wanted to do Blackwing Lair (BWL). Unless there is a heavy guild presence behind groups like this, they tend to fragment and die before finishing, because there seems to be an expectation that a half dozen level 80s can walk in, show their epeen, wave their weapons around, and collect their achievement. The Kara run, for example, started out well, but at the first setback raiders started leaving, and the whole raid soon collapsed. JB was happy to have seen as much as she did, but got no achievement because we didn't finish.

So JB was justified in being a bit skeptical of the BWL group. BWL is a level 60 dungeon tuned to require forty raiders. The encounters are all unique and beating them requires understanding how each fight should be handled. A group of level 80s can muscle through a lot of level 60 elites, but someone needs to know when finesse is required, by knowing the fights. JB didn't know the raid leader organizing the run, nor his guild, and let the first few requests for raiders go by. The raid leader was persistent, though, and had gotten the tanks and healers he needed. Just a few more DPS, the raid leader pleaded.

JB's desire to see the inside of BWL got the better of her sensible nature, and she responded: "Need an elemental shaman?" The raid invite was immediate.

JB was the tenth player invited to the raid. The raid leader had specified that he would accept only level 80s. JB qualified, of course, although my guess is that she was the least geared of everyone present in the raid. The raid leader was also up front about letting us know that we could not enter BWL directly because entering that way (teleported via an Orb outside the entrance to LBRS (Lower Blackrock Spire) still requires each raider to have the BWL attunement. Odd that with Blizz dropping attunements for most everything else (such as Kara), it's still required to enter BWL through the Orb. We would have to go through LBRS to get into BWL.

Although JB was the tenth raider invited, she was the second to arrive at Blackrock Mountain and clamber down the massive chain which stretched across a boiling, molten lava lake far below, to the Summoning Stone. JB and the main tank Summoned of the rest of the raid, which had grown to 13 raiders.

Then came what might be the most challenging part of the whole event. Climbing up the chain in the other direction, jumping down into almost total darkness, feeling your way up a steeply sloping slab of rock, and gaining a foothold a long leap away from the ledge leading to LBRS. Wild has made entire posts about that Leap. The many, many nights when he missed that ledge over and over and over; the huge wash of relief when boots slammed down on the ledge and Wild practically fell into the balcony beyond the ledge; the nights when his first leap fell true; and later, when he could point and laugh at others struggling with that jump from his perch on the balcony, having finally become an expert at it.

JB climbed that chain, followed blindly up into the rocks behind a couple of other raiders in front of her, saw the top of the slope and the beckoning balcony ledge, and jumped - then feeling the breeze of her descent as she passed beyond the ledge and landed lightly on the balcony. Jealous yet, Wild? One jump. A perfect record of success.

Thirteen level 80s entered LBRS. We had two well geared tanks, a pally and a death knight. We had healers, but JB did not know who they were or how many. JB didn't care. JB was DPS, and that thought brought a fierce grin to her face.

The thirteen swept through LBRS like a tidal wave, level 60 elites going down in one or two shots so fast JB got better DPS with her dagger than with her spells. We reached a room with a barred grate the size of the door needed to contain King Kong. The great grate opened several times to admit bosses for slaughter, and we killed them with glee.

But the last boss failed to show. We waited. And waited. The room we were in had no exit except through that big grate, and it remained stubbornly closed. The raid leader finally had to admit that the encounter had bugged. Sometimes, if the bosses are killed too quickly, this has been known to happen. There was nothing we could do but hearth out, reassemble, and start all over.

Two raiders suddenly had pressing issues and had to leave. I felt a little sorry for the raid leader. All that work to get a raid together, and it was falling apart before we even got to BWL. Surprisingly, though, there were no further defections, and by the time everyone had been re-Summoned we'd even added back another raider. We were now twelve.

Twelve was a bad number for JB. Twelve turned out to be the number of times it took for JB to make that leap to the balcony the second time around. Ok, so it probably wasn't that many. But JB was the last to make it across, where she had been among the first the last time. Well, JB is glad that she did not have to make that leap every week like Wild had had to - for months.

We powered through LBRS again, and again faced the wave of bosses coming through the large gate. The raid leader threatened expulsion from the raid if anyone failed to follow directions. The tempo was slowed way down, allowing a lot more time between waves, and DPS was held in check to make sure bosses did not die too fast. The ploy worked, we got past that encounter, and then pushed easily through the rest of LBRS and into BWL.

The Stairs

The stairs leading to the first level and the first chamber are the first thing you see upon entering BWL. There were just 12 of us, but picture 40 raiders crowding those stairs. Razorgore is the first encounter, in a room full of dragon eggs. Wild's blood still stains the crevices of the stone floor from countless lost battles here, and no few victories, as well. JB had heard the stories. Razorgore is controlled through a mind control device on a platform, and forced to destroy the eggs while his minions flood the chamber and try to stop us. The mobs come in seemingly endless numbers, rushing from all four corners of the room. Positioning was critical in those early battles, and so it was now, although the strat was somewhat different. What was very encouraging was that there actually was a strategy laid out, rather than the "Let's get her!" Ghostbuster strategy so often used, and failing. Half the raid stayed on the platform to protect the controller, while the other half followed Razorgore, making sure he was not hindered in destroying the eggs. JB stayed on the platform, firing away at everything that came at them. Once we had enough eggs destroyed, the last of the mobs fled. We released Razorgore and engaged him directly. Even with level 80s, it took some time to batter him down, but Razorgore fell.

We tackled Vaelastraz next, waking and killing him without any need to take the special precautions so critical back in the day.

The Suppression room was next.


Things were going to get crazier from this point on, and JB asked in raid chat if someone was being soulstoned. We had a warlock with us, and a soulstone would allow a raider to rez (always someone who could rez others) after a fight so that we wouldn't all have to troop back in from the beginning. It's a long, long run from the graveyard into and through all of LBRS and then into BWL. Save it, said the raid leader. We won't need it, because we won't wipe.

We battered our way through the Suppression room (a name that brings nightmares to those old guard who fought in that hellish place) running in slow motion due to the Traps that blanketed the room. We did not bother to disable the traps, but mooooved ohhhhhhhhhhh soooooooooo sloooooooowly, killing in equally slow motion as we went. Broodlord stopped us for a short time, but only because we could deal death at only half speed.

Past Broodlord was Firemaw. We had left many mobs still standing in the room we had just left, but no matter, we were all about moving forward. Firemaw has an ability called Flame Buffet, which is an AoE that both stacks and doubles up the damage every second for up to twenty seconds. Level 60 raiders literally found somewhere to hide out of line of sight of Flame Buffet when it was cast, as death was quick otherwise. Firemaw also has a knockback.

We got the worst of all conditions against Firemaw. He was not turned away from the raid, and the raid ignored the blast furnace AoE from Flame Buffet, while a Wing Buffet knocked raiders back into the other room, aggroing a large army of mobs we had not bothered to kill. JB self-healed as fast as she could, but the combination of Flame Buffet and aggroing mobs brought her down. And not just her. The raid wiped.

All was not lost, though. JB had her reincarnate and could have rezzed, but the warlock had soulstoned a pally even though the raid leader had said no. The pally popped, and a level 61 elite mini-boss still milling about saw him. The pally took him on, and we cheered and jeered as the pally took forever to kill the mob, while the poor, frustrated mob was so ineffectual the pally never got below 99% health.

The wipe cost us two more raiders deciding to leave, including one of our tanks. We got everyone that was left rezzed and back to full health and mana, and got another raider to join us. We were now eleven.

We were careful with Firemaw the second time, and down the dragon went.

So the tank that left us then came back. Whatever. We were back to 12.

From that point, in quick succession, we brought down Ebonroc, Flamegor, and even the difficult Chromaggus with smooth efficiency.

That left just the final boss, Nefarian.

Wild has been there. Wild has fought Nefarian many times. Wild even soloed him once - at level 60 - unsuccessfully, of course. Wild was so obsessed with BWL that he made a video of him walking the deserted dungeon at the end of one of the raids. Here it is:

Well, here is where it was supposed to be, but the blogger site doesn't seem to be able to upload it. Too bad.

Anyway, Wild did not kill Nefarian that night, nor did Wild ever kill him back in his level 60 days.

Back to the present. JB and the rest of the raid entered Nafarian's chamber. He sits on his throne, untouchable until we start the fight. Raiders elbowed each other to sit on the throne with Nefarian, getting snapshots. A very long, complex strategy was narrowed down to a very simple approach. Everyone in the raid crowded behind the throne, and we let the army of spawning mobs come to us. And we killed them. And we killed them. And we killed them. And when there were no more mobs, we took on Nefarian. Nefarian made the fight look good, but he was really no match for 12 level 80 raiders. For the first time, JB got to experience the fall of Nefarian.

JB got her Achievement:


Even more importantly, JB got her Trophy pic:


Eat your heart out, Wild.

PS - Says Wildshard, you are forgetting something, JB. Wild may not have killed Nefarian as a level 60, but that doesn't mean he didn't get the Achievement. Wild did get to kill Nefarian, a not so long ago four months or so. So there.

Monday (26 Oct) - Three For One

Monday (26 Oct) - Three For One

DER and JB hit a few WoW hotspots on Monday night. The two started in the level 71-73 dungeon called The Nexus. Located in Coldarra, a subarea of Northrend's Borean Tundra, it features four bosses and represents the entry level dungeon to level 70's who have started their progression to level 80. Both JB and DER figured this should be fairly easy to two-man for a level 80 and a level 76. Well, yes and no. As far as the trash mobs went, none of which were higher than level 72 elites, it was fairly easy, even against 3-4 at a time. Now and then a group of mobs got the better of the two, generally due to Silences or other special abilities that took one of us out of action for a period of time. But the two explorers worked steadily through the mobs, following whatever route struck our fancy. That eventually brought the two to Anomalus, a level 72 elite elemental boss.

Not expecting any problems, JB powered up her totems and DER waded in to tank. Things went smoothly until Anomolus opened his first Chaotic Rift, and began summoning wraiths through it. Except that at the time, neither of the two knew what the rift was or what to do about it. JB blasted everything that came out of the rift, not realizing the chaotic rift was itself an elite mob and that killing it was the only way to stop the wraiths. The "kill everything" strategy eventually worked, at least until Anomolus opened a Charged Rift, which dumped out wraiths at an even faster pace and also hit back with an energy burst AoE. JB and DER managed to wipe.

On the second attempt we started having targeting issues. Anomalus, the rifts, and the wraiths are all a shimmering blue-white, and together create a haze of activity that makes it a challenge to distinguish between targets. It was a little easier for JB, who was standing away from the center of the action, but DER was having a much rougher time of it, standing smack dab in the middle of it all. After a second wipe we decided to move on to other pickings.

The two cleared another lane through the mobs and located Grand Magus Telestra. Telestra was vulnerable to the "kill everything" strategy. Despite a number of abilities, including an irritating gravity well that yanked both players around the room, Telestra was pounded down to 50% health. At that point she split into three mobs, and after those were killed she returned in single form for the final slugfest. She died.

Without much ado the two beat their way to the third boss, Omorok, an ice giant with a couple of abilities it would have been nice if we'd known about ahead of time. The two plowed into Omorok, beating him down satisfactorily, at least until he let fly with crystal spikes. These lines of ice crystals hit for considerable damage if you stood in them, which initially JB did until she realized what was happening and that the damage was too high to heal through. Stupidly, it would take two rounds of spikes for JB to realize she needed to MOVE when those spikes lanced out. DER was also taking considerable damage, but had JB not been as pre-occupied with saving herself from herself, DER might have survived. Down her went, though. JB ratcheted up the DPS on Omorok, and he was close to going down. JB's health was wavering as Omorok had also sped up his attack (at 25% health he enrages) and she was getting very low on mana. She was out-DPSing the giant, though, and like a race car driver judging whether his tires will stand up for one more circuit of the track, JB decided she could finish the job without taking up time to heal. JB didn't know Omorok had a spell reflection ability, and a dose of Lava Burst followed by Chain Lightning were both reflected back to JB, and she killed herself. Much annoyed, JB reincarnated on the spot, managed to build up some health despite Omorok re-engaging, but she just couldn't get her mana up fast enough to finish the job. JB went down a second time, leaving Omorok standing with a pitiful 20k health left, 3-4 good hits away from being dead.

We could have come back and killed Omorok, but JB and DER had other plans, which were starting to come together - the Headless Horseman (HH).

This is the second and final week of Hallow's End, the halloween themed event for which HH is the centerpiece. The main prize for beating HH is a very rare mount, but there is also other ilevel 200 gear that drops, including a +hit ring that JB would really like to have. DER got himself and JB invited to join a group who were doing multiple runs of HH.

HH must be Summoned to start the fight, and players can get a summon to use through a quest that is available once per day. However, since a group can have up to five players, if they all have a "summons" quest, they can do HH five times (once for each player with a summons). The group DER and JB were joining already had four players, and were accepting one player at a time into their group, provided that player had a summons. In that way players who couldn't get into a group could join a pre-existing group, and that group got to run HH multiple times by bringing those players into their group. Note that healers and tanks were ALWAYS being asked for and were in short supply - DPS players were the ones having trouble getting into HH.

DER and JB were both fortunate. They both won rings from their one trip into HH. JB got a nice caster ring, an upgrade to her current gear, so she couldn't complain. But JB really wanted the +hit ring, and may try to get into HH a few more times before the event is over.

Prior to either Nexus or HH, DER and JB had planned to go to Wintergrasp, the pvp zone JB recently tried for the first time. The timing of WG was such, however, that when JB was in game DER had not yet arrived, so that window was missed. JB went offline for awhile before returning at our usual start time. DER then got into the new WG that was starting, but JB managed to miss it. DER said he had a lot of fun, though, and I think we'll try to coordinate more trips to WG. DER also decided to give Strand of the Ancients and try, which is another pvp zone, but JB called it an evening.

One final note on dungeon adventures. I think the team of DER and JB is learning that even level 70s type dungeons can't be raced through without a little preparation. Knowing the abilities of the bosses in advance would have made those fights a lot easier. Using aids like focus target by JB would also have made it easier to see what DER was hitting, which would avoid the two banging on different mobs. Communication strictly through typing things in chat also caused some confusion, such as when DER didn't realize JB needed to sit and drink to regain mana. DER mentioned that vent had it's good points (ie, being able to talk to each other). Neither of us have our own vent server, but Blizz does have it's own kind of vent, which I've never tried, but it might be something we could explore.

Bypassing all the strats and just going exploring, learning as we go, is fun and can be both terrifying and exhilarating at the same time. It has it's own own rewards whether we clear the dungeon or just make a few bosses nervous. Nexus was fun for sure. And there were certainly nervous bosses in Nexus, and we may yet go back and finish the job.

Friday Night (23 Oct) - Alt-10 Raiding Takes the Next Step

Friday Night (23 Oct) - Alt-10 Raiding Takes the Next Step

We had no trouble filling the Alt-10 raid Friday night, and in fact we had 12 guildies interested. There could have been more, as we had a larger than usual bunch of guildies in game than we have been seeing lately on Friday nights, and many of them did not know the guild was running a ten man on Wed/Fri. I just don't understand why guild leadership had not put anything up on the guild website about the raid situation by now. So I posted my own on Saturday morning, as follows, titled Alt-10 Raiding Schedule and Sign Ups:

"Perhaps it's not my place to make this post, but I've gotten a number of questions lately about what is going on with guild raids.

The short answer is that guild 25 man raids have been discontinued for now as we have been having difficulty getting enough raiders to fill the raid.

In it's place the guild started running a third ten man raid. This raid is called the Alt-10. Unlike the other two guild ten mans, there are no regulars for the Alt-10, and anyone that wishes to participate is welcome and will get opportunities to raid. Alt-10 has been focused primarily on Ulduar, but has also gone to Onyxia and will schedule other instances as raid makeup and interest dictates. Mains not locked into another raid are a primary focus in helping get those mains better gear and more experience, but alts are also welcome and encouraged to come.

The Alt-10 raids on Wed/Fri with invites starting at 6pm.

Ultimately, the guild wants to get back to 25 man raids. Growing the participation in the Alt-10 raid and expanding on it is one way the guild is working to get back there. So sign up!

If you want to add your name to the invite list, please contact [the two raid leaders]."

Ok, back to the raid itself. Healing, always Wild's first interest, was set with three - Wild, Hpriest, and Mg, another druid. I hope everything is ok with P-Jo, as I haven't seen her around recently and this makes the second raid night in a row she's missed. And we miss her.

We had our two alt tanks, and a good mix of DPS. The question at the start was, where do we go first? With both Wild and Mg healing, Ignis did not seem a good place to start without a moonkin druid to do the construct killing. That started a discussion about who else might be able to tank, freeing up the alt-druid tank to take that role. The Alt-10 keeps hoping to engage more tanking mains to join in instead of alts so that we have additional experienced tanks to choose from, but so far we have not had any. There was a lot of interest in going after the harder bosses in the Keepers of Ulduar area (such as Thorim or Freya), but the raid leaders wanted to start on something a little more familiar to begin the evening. We decided to go after the Iron Council, which we had attempted but came up short on Wednesday.

We changed up the strategy again for IC. Steelbreaker would be tanked at his usual spot, and Molgeim would be pulled to the back as usual. However, Brundir, usually pulled to the back as well, was pulled to the side, with a DK assigned to tank him. The DK did not have tank gear, nor was he speced to tank, but Brundir did fairly light damage (with one exception called Overload, which can be avoided), so we felt it would work.

Wild assigned the other druid to main tank heal for Steelbreaker, Wild took the off tanks on Molgeim and Brundir, and the priest was assigned "raid healing and keeping the rest of us alive." The priest not only had to raid heal but needed to be flexible in aiding Mg and Wild in keeping the three tanks alive.

On our first attempt things started well. Wild was main healing two tanks, positioning to be able to reach both, as well as trying to HoT the tank on Steelbreaker. That worked well for awhile, but damage to the off tank on Molgeim got away from Wild, and the tank died. A loose boss is not something we could recover from, and we wiped.

We again got off to a good start on our second attempt, but this time it was the main tank on Steelbreaker who went down. The deadliest attack Steelbreaker does is called Fusion Punch. One hit knocks the tank's health down to about 20%, but it also comes with a very nasty DoT. The pally tank can purge that DoT, but he has to do it instantly, or die. He didn't get it purged in time, and no amount of healing could save him. We wiped again.

On our third try we killed all three bosses. The chest of goodies held a very nice caster ring, but the warlock won it, I believe.

Where to now? Her name is Freya. Once a beneficial god and protector of all living things, her beautiful gardens, called the Conservatory, are now full of deadly creatures bent to the will of the Old Gods. Wild has never seen Freya, nor her gardens. There are a lot of trash mobs to get through, we were advised. Once we got in there, and started working through the mobs, I wondered if we would ever see the end of them.

The Conservatory

Freya in the Conservatory

First there were the flowers. Pretty little things, petals bouncing as they moved. They travelled in bunches, and always with a larger flower nearby. One tank took the big flower, and the other the bunch of little ones. DPS focused on the large flower first, and once we'd killed it everyone crowded up to the other flowers and they were DPSed down.

Very nice, the raid leader commented after flowers went down. But we are a long way from finished.

Close by was another group of 4-5 mobs. This group included humanoids, dragonoids, an elemental, and probably a beast (I think), all with differing abilities. Two had to be crowd controlled. The warlock was assigned to Banish the elemental. The dragonoid could be Hibernated by a druid, and Wild volunteered for that duty while the other druid healed. The kills went smoothly. We cleared a couple more groups of mobs of each type, and then we came upon Elder Brightleaf. The Elders are mini-bosses. Left alive (which would be hard mode) they add additional abilities to Freya. Since this was the first time our group would be facing Freya, we wanted to kill the Elders first. There are three Elders, each with their own abilities. The raid leader explained the fight against Elder brightleaf, we engaged, and the Elder died. Those who had fought the Elders before on their mains said that despite being mini-bosses, they were pretty tough, so we were off to a good start.

More trash mobs, more crowd controlling and killing and snuffing out the pretty flowers. Another Elder went down. And then there was more trash. And then a third Elder went down. It took us the better part of an hour to clear all the trash and take down the three Elders.

And then there was only Freya.

Freya is another giant woman, like the Cat Lady. WoW developers must have loved the movie "Attack of the 50 Foot Woman" because there seem to be enough of them scattered about Azeroth to field a football team.

There are a lot of moving parts to this encounter, and it took a very long time for the raid leaders to explain the mechanics of the fight. By the time our heads were stuffed with a thousand details, I think we were all chomping at the bit - let's kill something!

We took off after Freya, who tends to wander about in her Conservatory. The pally tank grabbed aggro and the first wave of adds spawned. They were flowers, but a special kind of flower, the kind that when they die explode quite spectacularly. We rushed to get in a circle around Freya, close enough that all of the flowers (which attacked raiders at random and could not be tanked) were in AoE range. The DPS tried to burn them down to around 20% health. Flowers were running around everywhere, though, and not all were hit with the AoEs. Then they started exploding as they died. Raid leaders called out for the raid to widen the circle so that fewer raiders would be hit when the flowers exploded. Raiders were already dying, and flowers were still about, when the next wave arrived.

Three elementals spawned in the middle of the chaos. Raiders assigned to tank the elementals went after them. While all that was going on Wild was hit with a Sunbeam from Freya. Wild scrambled away from the beam, which does damage in a eight yard circle. Even with all of the adds, you couldn't forget about Freya, either. Freya still had to be tanked, although during the waves of mobs she heals so fast it is useless to attack her directly. Things fell apart pretty rapidly, and we wiped.

Not a bad first try, we were told. This is a very complex fight. No kidding.

On our second attempt the first wave consisted of one mob, an Ancient Conservator. the Conservator is the third type of mob that can spawn. The waves are random, the only condition being that the same type of wave never spawns twice in a row. When the Conservator appeared, mushrooms began sprouting around the area. Wild did some more scrambling, getting under a mushroom as I continued to frantically heal. The Conservator Silences any raider that is not under a mushroom, stopping both caster DPS and healing for 8 seconds. Another raider had taken refuge under the same mushroom as Wild, and a skull popped up over his head. He'd been infected with Nature's Fury, which does AoE to any nearby. Recognizing the danger, the infected raider raced away, looking for an unoccupied mushroom to get under.

We managed to kill the Conservator just before a wave of flowers spawned. We did better with the flowers, clearing them before the third wave, which was another Conservator. Pre-occupied with healing those hit with the exploding flowers, Wild was late getting under a mushroom and had to wait through the 8 second Silence before I could heal again. We barely got through that phase before the three elementals spawned. Each elemental has different abilities, and like certain other encounters, all three must be killed within a couple of seconds of each other or they will simply respawn again when killed. Managing the tanking and DPS for the three elementals was giving us all kinds of trouble and we wiped again. And that was only three waves. We had to get through six waves.

We wiped a third time. And a fourth. And a fifth. But we were learning. We had the flowers and the Conservators down pat, and Freya was being handled well while we worked through the waves.

We've got this, a raid leader said. On our sixth attempt we got through four waves and then wiped again. Dang! It was five minutes short of 9pm, when are raid would end.

Ok, want to go one more time? we were asked. Let's see if we can get through the waves. I'd at least like to take some shots at Freya. The big Beitch has been laughing at us all night.

We agreed, and went at her a seventh time. And we got through all six waves. Wild's charge, though, the off tank, took some horrific damage and Wild and his fellow healers just couldn't keep him alive. Battle rezzes had already been used by then and all he could do was watch as we entered the second phase, the battle with Freya herself. Freya fussed, and she stomped, and she cast sunbeams, and she dropped nature bombs all around her, the tank keeping her moving so we could avoid them.

And then, just like that, Freya died. Woot! Alt-10's first kill of Freya.

Freya drops the T8/8.5 gloves, which on this drop was intended for warriors, hunters, and shaman. The gloves went to a very happy hunter, who happened to be the only hunter in the raid with no warriors or shaman.

We only killed two bosses (or five, if we counted the three mini-bosses), but it was a great night and capped a great week of raiding.

Friday (23 Oct) - Wintergrasp

Friday (23 Oct) - Wintergrasp

Wintergrasp is a full pvp zone in Northrend. All I really know about it is that the faction (horde or alliance) that controls the fortress defends against the faction that attacks and tries to take it back. Once one side wins, that faction has control of the fortress until the next battle starts. Battles begin every two hours. Also note that only the fortress area is under faction control; the other areas of Wintergrasp are still open pvp zones. Wild figured that out some time ago when an alliance player took me out while I was fishing in Wintergrasp for the daily fishing quest.

JB is slowly gaining an appreciation for pvp vicariously through her young sister, Ezuh, as well as through the one on one jousting she's had to do. JB became intensely interested in Wintergrasp during her research of +hit gear - Wintergrasp gear, which can be purchased with special Stone Keeper's shards earned in WG, are loaded with +hit. But that hope was dashed when she discovered that all of that gear came from VoA, the 10/25 raid inside Wintergrasp, and can't be bought with the shards. Very little useful gear can be had from the shards. Sigh.

Despite that, JB remained interested enough to go find out what Wintergrasp was all about.

JB had the daily fishing quest that required fishing for "terrorfish" in Wintergrasp. The next WG battle was scheduled to start in the next thirty minutes. The only places Wild has ever been in WG is where he goes fishing, and the fortress itself. Well, the fortress was out because it was currently controlled by the Alliance. So JB went fishing. When she entered the zone she JB got a message asking if she wanted to join the queue. JB accepted, and went back to fishing. And what do you know, she was soon attacked by an allie. JB lost that fight and was killed.

The good news was that she discovered where the WG graveyard was. Then, on her way back to the river where her corpse was, she discovered the horde flight path. Now that was a great find, and she only saw it because she'd picked up a starter quest for WG and saw the "?" to complete that quest as she flew back.

The small horde camp sat next to a tributary of the main river, and while waiting for the battle to start JB finished up her fishing quest. I had no idea what to do or where to go. I figured I'd have to find a vehicle somehow in order to participate. There were a dozen or so players hanging around the camp, so JB decided she'd just follow them when the battle started. Later, I would figure out that the good players would already be assembling near the main objectives of the battle, engaging in a little pre-battle pvp with the defending alliance, and organizing the raid. Most of those at the horde camp were likely as new at this as JB. So it was kind of like the blind leading the blind when the battle officially started. Once the battle starts, everyone that queued is automatically assigned to a raid of up to forty. I'm not sure what the max number of players can be, but I think we had at least two raids going, so there were more than forty of us.

Flying is allowed in WG now, but everyone at the camp jumped on their ground mounts and charged off - in more than one direction. JB followed the largest group and soon found herself outside the walls of the fortress, where a massive pvp battle was in progress between allies and horde mostly on foot. JB joined in, targeting distant allies and blasting away. JB also found herself targeted, and even got some heals from other horde, but she was mostly on her own. Being a ranged DPS, and in a crowded battle like this, it was a blast tearing down alliance who couldn't really tell where all that firepower was coming from. JB's Lava Burst looks like a burning comet about the size of a basketball with a flaming tail, and seeing that coming at you . . . JB was having fun.

The vehicles began showing up, some used to attack the walls of the fortress to open breeches, others dropping plague bombs on the battlements to force defenders back, and more vehicles with a gunner to attack other vehicles and those on foot. Still on foot, JB targeted vehicles as well, and some of them were lightly armored enough that if they stayed in range JB was able to destroy them.

Of course JB died - many times, rezzing sometimes at the graveyard, sometimes at other areas as the horde forced the alliance back and took objectives. There are several structures where vehicles are built, and it's these areas we fought over, because ultimately whoever could put the most vehicles into the field were likely to win the battle. JB followed a small group from the graveyard to one of the vehicle factories. The two horde players got siege engines. JB couldn't get one of those behemoths because there is a ranking system based on enemy kills that determined which vehicles you can have. Although JB couldn't get a siege engine, she did get a catapult, a light, fast vehicle with it's main payload being those plague bombs. Catapults don't have a second seat for a gunner, so JB had to drive, target, and fire the catapult, which made for some crazy out of control driving at times, particularly when she started taking fire. Catapults don't last long, JB quickly learned, but she did manage to get some plague bombs onto the defending battlements before her catapult was destroyed and she was back on foot.

In the end the horde retook the fortress, winning the battle. JB got 20 stone keeper's shards (most of them from one time only starter quests, so that number was unusually high). The only item that JB cares about that can be bought with shards is the heirloom shoulder, which can be shared with other players in an account (listen up, Ezuh :-) ). It takes 200 shards to buy it, though, so no one hold your breath.

JB now has 93 lifetime honor kills (HKs) - she got 79 of those kills in that WG battle.

Wintergrasp is a level 80 area, but you don't have to be level 80 to join in the fun. You should give it a try, sometime, erik, with DER.

From WG, JB headed over to the Argent tournament grounds to continue her training. She decided to represent the city of Thunder Bluff, and made that official. Now she has a new set of three dailies to do if she wants to continue to advance and collect seals to buy goodies with. Two of the three quests require a higher level of skill in jousting that will again try JB's patience and skill.

A final note on the Argent tournament: With the coming of patch 3.3, it appears that the Argent Tournament will end. The tournament grounds will still be there, but with the coming of Icecrown Citadel in 3.3, the "games" will be over and the real battle will begin. The grounds will become a staging area to launch attacks directly on the Citadel. Whatever JB (and DER?) need to get out of the Argent tournament had best be done before the release of patch 3.3, which is already active on the test realm. Even Wild might want to complete up to JB's current level - that +43 hit necklace would be nice around Wild's feathery moonkin neck.

Thursday (22 Oct) - A Champion of Sen'jin?

Thursday (22 Oct) - A Champion of Sen'jin?

JB rolled in game on Thursday and immediately headed to the Argent tournament grounds to pick up the three daily quests that would get her to 25 valiant seals. She intentionally avoided thinking about what would follow the turn in of those seals. Just get there, she told herself. Worry about the rest later. "Enemy at the Gates" is one of the three, and the only one that required mounted combat against the enemy knights and their foot soldiers. JB arrived and mounted up, and then went looking for trouble.

She found it up one of the rough hewn stone lanes between the snowy fields away from the base camp. The mounted knight had only a single shield showing and a small handful of soldiers around him. JB galloped in, Charging the knight and then leading the small group away from other knight groups. JB then trampled the soldiers to death, refreshed her brace of three shields, closed with the enemy knight, and used Thrust over and over until he died. It wasn't pretty or elegant, but it got the job done. JB did that two more times, then did the easier ten kills of the flyers that flapped around all over the area, and she was done.

Feeling a little more confident at the swift completion of the quest, JB returned to the Argent grounds, turned in her quests, and had her 25 seals. The main quest giver in the Sunreaver Pavilion congratulated JB and asked if she was ready for the next challenge. JB received the quest "The Valiant's Challenge" and was sent to speak with Squire Danny at the Valiant's Ring. Oh boy, here we go. A one on one joust with an npc much tougher than those JB had already failed against. She held on to the spark of confidence she got from the earlier quest despite knowing in her gut that she hadn't practiced enough to be taking on this challenge.

JB didn't hesitate, though. She mounted up, holding her lance proudly, and trotted into the Ring. It took a moment to find Squire Danny, but once spotted she rode up to him and told him she was ready. As JB began getting her three shields up, her opponent cantered onto the field, his three shields already in place. JB targeted the knight, but first he had to speak a few pompous words. Lulled by the interlude, JB did not get off her shield-breaker in time once the battle started and the knight Charged her, breaking her shield and doing considerable damage at the start of the fight.

Rather than worry about winning the match at this point, JB practiced her movement and attacks against the live competition. The knight eventually beat JB, but JB wasn't discouraged. JB got herself another mount and Squire Danny got her another opponent.

This time, JB immediately closed with the knight, and we fought at melee range with thrusts. Since we both had three shields up the damage was minimal, but the health bars of us both edged downward nonetheless. The knight turned and moved to get range on JB. One maneuver JB had learned was to toss her shield-breaker the instant the knight got far enough away to cast it, but still too close to swing around and Charge. JB did not wait for the arc of the shield-breaker to strike the knight, but urged her mount forward, closing again to melee range but now with a shield advantage, JB's three shields to the knight's two. Of course, the knight restored his third shield, but not before taking a little extra damage.

JB still had trouble with the reins, and she could not get the mount to go where she wanted it to all the time. JB also didn't trust her ability to Charge without ending up taking more damage than she doled out. So she stayed grimly on the knight, busting his shield every time he moved away and then closing to melee again.

The joust went on a long time. JB made one mistake, getting turned around and not closing fast enough with the knight. The knight got off a Charge, and JB's health dropped an unhealthy amount.

Now there was no room for error. The two health bars were virtually indistinguishable from each other. JB resumed her stalking and shield-breaking, certain that if the knight got in another Charge she was done for. After another exchange of thrusts, JB got a "low health" message. JB's mount was nearly done for. But then so was the knight's mount. Thrust, move, shield-break, close, and thrust again. Don't make any more mistakes.

Another thrust, and the knight's mount folded under him, dumping him to the hard packed earth of the Ring floor. JB had won.

JB had earned the title of Champion of Sen'jin. Even though it was not one of those vanity titles that appear over your head in your name plate, it was a title JB could be proud of.

JB was sent over to the Argent Pavilion and a visit with Justicar Mariel Trueheart. Truehart assigned JB an Argent Squire, or, as they are called by the horde, an Argent Gruntling.

JBs Gruntling

The immediate benefit for JB was that she earned ten Champion Seals for completing this phase of the competition. Ten Champion seals just happen to be what it costs to buy [Necklace of Stolen Skulls], an ilevel 200 caster item that also has +43 hit on it, more than any other single piece of gear JB owns, even her mace (+30 hit). This one piece of gear was the whole reason for going through this.

With the new necklace (and using some pretty sad green quest gear that happens to have +hit on it) JB can now say she has a hit capped set of gear. For raids with a shadow priest or moonkin, JB needs to have +289 hit. She can get to +291. Without raid buffs, JB theoretically needs +368 hit, but that goal is for another day. For another ten seals per piece, JB can supplement that gear with tournament gear for boots and belt that will replace poorer +hit gear. Time to start working toward that.

There is much more to the tournament. JB needs to pick a major city to champion and continue her progression. JB is not sure whether to go with Orgrimmar (home of the orcs) or Thunder Bluff (home of the tauren). Silvermoon City (blood elves) and the Undercity (undead) are also choices. Trolls don't really have a home city.

By the way, I learned the reason for jumping into the air and turning 180 degrees during jousts. I don't know if this is specific to joust mounts, but mounts turn in a wide arc that is slow enough for the opponent knight to hit you with a shield-break. Jump and turn is much faster, and players can either charge or close before the opponent can cast shield-break. That's the secret to winning the matches. If only JB could actually do it without falling off her horse. :-)

Wednesday (21 Oct) - At Last, A Raid

Wednesday (21 Oct) - At Last, A Raid

Wild perched on the edge of a tall, flat topped section of an Ulduar pillar, the talons of his flying form gripping the ancient stone, wings flapping lazily in the light winter breeze. For too many nights recently the evening wait for a raid had ended in disappointment with not enough fellow raiders available. On this Wednesday night, Wild waited to see what the turn out would be for two raids, the guild run that has been dubbed the Alt-10, and the MM raid which had voted to start their raid on Wednesday nights as well. Wild had received invites from both raids.

The Alt-10 raid was looking very promising with six of the eight raiders that had signed up already in game ten minutes before start time. Given the still troublesome lag and difficulty in getting logged in, this was good news. Wild also got a whisper from the MM raid leader. Wild had declined the MM raid invitation, but with the uncertainty each raid night on whether the Alt-10 would field a raid, they were ready to add Wild to their group if Wild became available.

Invites to the Alt-10 raid were made right at 6pm, and our number quickly grew to 8, with the last two just having to push their way through the lag and logon obstacles. Excited that we were really going to raid, Wild swooped down from his perch and entered Ulduar with the rest of the raid. Inside Ulduar, there were some peculiar problems related to the lag. One of the raiders was passing out food buffs, and the simple transaction via the trade window was taking more than a minute to complete. We would also discover that looting took many seconds longer than it should, but neither of those things were more than just an irritant. The battle against the denizens of Ulduar, fortunately, proceeded without any significant problems. Wild and the MM raid leader wished each other good luck (he had also filled his raid).

The Alt-10 has a core of about 6-7 raiders that typically make every raid night, and this night's raid was no different. We had our two tanks, and three of our four healers (P-Jo got tangled in the logon mess and was never able to extricate herself). DPS included two hunters, two warlocks, and our rogue. We were a little light on melee, but the rogue typically leads all DPS and so Wild counts him twice :-) .

We all pretty much knew what vehicles we should grab a seat in. Wild and the priest grabbed our choppers, the rest got into the driver or gunner seats of the demolishers and siege engines, and we were off. Flame Leviathon never knew what hit him as we set our best time in killing him and without losing a raider. Very smooth.

Levi dropped [Eye of the Broodmother] a very nice trinket that had also dropped in the last Levi fight. Wild didn't win it the last time, but this time he did. Wild now has two excellent trinkets with very odd conditional stats. The Eye's primary stat is that it stacks spell power bonuses with every hit or heal, up to an almost continuous +125 spell power throughout a fight. The other trinket, which Wild already has [Spark of Hope], reduces the mana cost of every spell cast by 42, which in effect allows Wild to cast a lot more spells for the same amount of mana.

We moved on to Razorscale. We had trouble with the dragon on our first attempt. The raider assigned to the catapult had not done that job before. The fight requires timing, keeping Razor in the air until the spawning mobs on the ground are killed, then bringing him down with the catapult. Halfway through the battle the catapult fired early, and we had an angry dragon in our midst while other mobs were still chewing on us.

We got through that, but we had further troubles with what was described as too many DoTs (damage of over time). We don't usually have two warlocks, who have a lot of DoT spells, so that was the likely source, but I never clearly understood what the issue was, other than the DoTs might have held the dragon on the ground too long, where Razor does a lot more damage than when airborne. We wiped.

The Alt-10 raid is not just so alts can have some fun and get some loot, it is also a learning raid. I like it that the time is taken to discuss and adjust when something doesn't go as planned, and that is what we did with the problems on our first attempt. On the second attempt everything went smoothly and Razor died.

We didn't have a good raid makeup for Ignis, so we skipped him and went directly to XT. As usual Wild handled the healing assignments for the raid. Wild is actually getting used to the idea of being the healing leader for the raid. When we set up for Razorscale, I assigned three healers, even though in earlier raids the raid leader had wanted only two for that fight. I'd seen how three healers worked in the MM raid from last week, and liked how that worked without taking too much away from the DPS. I gave the raid leader the opportunity to change that, but the assignments stayed. XT went so smoothly Wild had time and mana enough to DPS XT's heart during those phases, doing my usual 0.1% damage for the raid. :-)

Kologarn followed XT. You all know how Wild feels about Kologarn and those eyebeams. Well, I think Wild exorcised all of his anxieties for good on this fight. Wild had assigned the pally healer to the main tank, and the priest to raid healing and healing those in Kologarn's Grip. Wild was backing up the pally healer with HoTs and supplemental healing while also raid healing. On the very first eyebeam, Wild was the target. I dashed to the right side of the room as I was supposed to, healing through the damage and keeping away from the other raiders. No sooner did Wild get back in position I was again targeted with an eyebeam. Wild somehow kept all his Hots on the main tank while dancing across the room keeping his own health from dropping too low. Wild didn't get halfway across the room on the way back to his position when he was hit again.

Well, you know the old method of teaching someone to swim? No? You just throw them in the water. Learn or drown. Survival is a great training tool. The whole eyebeam thing started to get pretty funny. Wild was hit again and again. "There he goes again," someone said in vent, the umpteenth time I was hit. Wild never died, did not kill anyone else, and Kologarn fell. Afterward, Wild was laughingly applauded for absorbing every eyebeam Kologarn threw at the raid, allowing everyone else to go easy mode. I think Wild is over his anxiety about this fight.

From Kologarn we rolled right into Auriaya, the Cat Lady. Wild got "spark duty" again against the trash mobs, and once they were down we tackled miss kitty herself. We were really on a roll. It's not that she was an easy fight - she never is - but that we all stayed with the strategy and handled our assignments. With no mistakes to take us off track, Auriaya died. Hearing her blood curdling scream as she died is a lot more music to the ears than her snarl of wrath at the start.

There was some debate over where to head next, but after a short discussion and a break we moved on to Hodir. Three weeks ago Wild had never seen Hodir. Now he was already like a well known friend. There is a lot to deal with in this fight, but Wild likes it. We took almost too long, with the enrage timer looming over us, but we kept up our steady, no mistakes pace and we had just enough time to kill him.

We were nearly out of time, and decided to go back to the iron Council, which we had bypassed. Our makeup wasn't optimal for that fight, and when the raid leader described the healing he wanted Wild joked with him that he didn't have that many raiders, much less healers. I spread things out the best way I could, with Wild being the middle man (uh, middle cow) to move back and forth healing both the Steelbreaker tank group and the group tanking the other two bosses.

It was a tough fight. Wild was able to keep his movements down, but being between the two pockets of combat made Wild a regular target and I was having to heal through that mostly on my own. Most of Wild's focus had to be on assisting the tank healer on Steelbreaker, as the damage was high and unpredictable. Despite a dedicated healer for the off tank on the other two bosses and Wild's Hots, we lost our off tank. Losing a tank on this fight is really not something we can recover from, and we wiped.

We were very pleased with the effort despite the wipe. Our group has struggled with this fight, particularly in getting everyone into the right position at the start of the fight, which was critical. Our setup had been perfect, and that was progress.

On our second attempt Wild made a point to get extra healing to the off tank and the priest healing the off tank made his own adjustments. We were doing very well when the main tank on Steelbreaker took not one, but two of those unpredictable damage spikes. Wild got off an instant Healing Touch, but nothing could overcome the double whammy, and the tank died. It was another wipe. The double whammy was a Fusion Punch, which can inflict more than 20k damage, coupled with a Rune of Power forming under the tank at the same time, which increased the Fusion Punch damage by another 50%.

We chalked it up to bad luck, which is always a factor, bidding it's time at the periphery of every raid.

We were out of time, but the names of the dead were many on this night: Flame Leviathon, Razorscale, XT-002, Kologarn, Auriaya, and Hodir.

Come Friday, Wild will be eager add to that list.

Wild finished third among the three healers, but didn't care because we got the job done, putting the right amount of healing in the right places at the right time. Bosses went down and we had very few deaths as well.

#1: Mxpally, 2630 hps, 34.7% healing
#2: hpriest, 2107/26.9%
#3: Wild, 1811/26.7%

Tuesday (20 Oct) - Terribad and Redunkulus It Is

Tuesday (20 Oct) - Terribad and Redunkulus It Is

Servers across WoW land have been disintegrating into lag pits to the point of unplayability for the past week. Everyone hoped that the Tuesday maintenance cycle would clean up the problem, but instead, it was worse than ever. There were no guild raids scheduled from either guild on Tuesday, which was just as well as I'm not sure it would have been playable. Speculation is that the cause derives from the Halloween events, which encourage players to log in and out constantly to collect candy and other things and to get the achievements for the events done. There is also the Headless Horseman event in Scarlet Monastery that I believe has turned that dungeon and surrounding area into lagfest as well. "Terribad" and "redunkulus" are two of my favorite terms being used to describe the server problems.

JB logged in around 7pm, taking more than five minutes at the "blue bar" before actually getting in. JB waded through the lag in Dalaran to the flight master and hopefully a more playable area at the Argent Tournament grounds. Once there, it did seem to get a bit better. JB picked up the jousting dailies and then headed out into the Icecrown wilderness to get them done. The first quest is done on a jousting mount, killing various mobs. Three mounted mobs also have to be defeated. They aren't that hard to kill, but depending on how many players are out there doing the quest, it can get dicey as there are a LOT of mobs.

The area was nearly deserted of players when JB arrived. She grabbed her lance and mounted up, and headed to one of three areas where the mounted mobs were with their squads of foot soldiers. JB picked out the mounted mob she wanted to attack first, always choosing ones that had not had time to get their shields up as they were easier kills. The mobs around the mounted mob could be trampled to death, assuming there weren't too many of them.

JB Charged her target, trampling a half dozen of the ground troops in the process. Her Charge carried her past the target and as she wheeled around for the second strike she aggroed another mounted mob and his small army of foot soldiers. JB trampled as many as she could while trying to out maneuver the two mounted mobs that were now after her. But she failed and her mount died under her. On foot, there's no contest. JB was overwhelmed and killed.

Well, that wasn't the first time, and likely not the last. JB released, arrived at the graveyard, and then flew back as a ghost to her corpse to rez. But her corpse wasn't there. JB knew she had the right spot, but just to sure I circled the entire area. No body.

I put in a trouble ticket with a Game Master (GM) and of course got the standard initial reply "We are currently experiencing a large number of tickets." After 15 minutes I flew JB's ghost back to the graveyard and considered using the Spirit Rez there, but doing that forces a 25% durability hit on all her gear and darned if JB was going to pay to have that gear repaired! She flew back to the quest area and there was her corpse! But the expected message allowing her to rez did not appear. She was still stuck. After 45 minutes JB logged out in disgust, having gotten nothing done.

Wednesday morning update - JB logged in early Wednesday morning. She was still in Icecrown at the quest area; she was still dead. Her corpse was still there, but now she received the option of being resurrected. The ticket to the GM was still open and had never been responded to. JB abandoned the ticket, rezzed, and returned to the quest area camp. No sense crying over spilt blood. JB got her lance, hopped on a mount, and went to finish her Argent tournament daily, a day later than expected.

JB now has 21 of the 25 Valiant seals that she needs. After tomorrow's dailies she will have enough for a Challenge match to raise her standing in the tournament. JB is still a miserable jouster; but maybe she'll get lucky.

In other news the server problems have been particularly hard on the mail system and the Auction House. Happy had his worst day in months when his Wednesday morning AH sales came to 42 gold, and most of his stock for sale came back expired. Most of the reason for that was lag so bad on the AH that it took several minutes for a bid or a buy to take effect, and many folks quickly gave up trying. Blizzard ran rolling server restarts Wednesday morning in addition to the regular Tuesday maintenance. However, server lag could already be felt in Dalaran and Orgrimmar at 10am server time when JB was working with Wild on some enchants.

Wild plans to travel to Ulduar long before the raid start time in hopes of avoiding the worst of the lag, but that doesn't mean there will be a raid. The former Lady Hunter group and now MM raid seems to have settled on Wednesday for their raid, the same day as Wild's guild, and at the same time (6pm start). Well, two choices for Wednesday, assuming the servers let enough raiders in. If the raids happen, Wild is hoping the two raids will tackle different instances - such as one going to Ulduar and the other to ToC - so that Wild won't be totally locked out of one of them if there is a second raid day.

Monday (19 Oct) - The Amphitheater of Anguish

Monday (19 Oct) - The Amphitheater of Anguish

A quick note from Wild, before passing the baton to JB and DER. Monday night was the second night of the MM guild Ulduar run that Wild had gotten into on Friday. Wild was invited to the Monday raid and planned to attend. However, the server was having terrible problems and Wild could not stay logged in. Other players from that raid also seemed to be having problems. Wild could only see a handful of players around as the time ticked toward 630pm, and decided to log out rather than continue to fight the lag.

It was after 9pm when JB decided to try and log in. DER was already in game.

JB and DER had a great idea - let's two man the level 72-74 dungeon Azjol-Nerub. Sure, the dungeon was tuned to require five players, but JB was level 80, and DER almost level 75, so we figured we could handle it.

Azjol-Nerub (AN) is located in Dragonblight. Getting there means dropping through a hole in the ground and then entering a warren full of bugs. Because that's what AN is all about - bugs.

The elite trash mobs did not give us any trouble, and we were quickly at the first boss, Krik'thir the Gatewatcher. Fronting the big bug were three sets of three mobs each. Each set of three mobs had a named level 74 elite leading them, and Krik'thir was also a level 74 elite with special boss abilities.

We decided to pull the three mobs to our left. We got the two smaller bugs down, but DER died and JB was left to handle the 74 elite. Which JB would have most likely been able to do, except that the elite kept wrapping JB in spider webs that stopped JB from moving or casting. The only way to break it was for another player to attack the webbing. Without DER JB could only wait until the webbing expired several seconds later, taking damage from the elite the whole time. Despite that, JB was able to self-heal and re-engage each time it happened, and was making progress. Then Krik'thir made some sort of announcement in it's thrumming voice and the middle set of mobs attacked. Well, that's just great. Apparently the sets of mobs are on a timer, and attack in waves. JB died.

We made a few more attempts, trying different things to see if we could get the first three mobs killed fast enough to recover before the next wave started, but the web wraps slowed us down and without a dedicated healer JB had to split time between DPS and healing, and it just took too long.

So we abandoned AN and did some questing in Zul'Drak so DER could reach level 75, which was the minimum level at which we could do Amphitheater of Anguish (AA).

WoW has a number of events similar to AA, such as the Ring of Blood in Nagrand and the Conquest Pit in Grizzly Hills, among others. Basically it's a gladiator style event, where players are pitted against a series of elite bad guys, with each subsequent match up a little nastier than the last. What can make this interesting and confusing is that bystanders and looky loos who happen to be around or waiting their turn to fight can join in on the fights. Mostly that helps the group actually doing the event, but at other times it can get crazy.

DER and JB were alone at the Amphitheater, however, so we were on our own. Note that the guidance requires a minimum level 75, but suggests that players be level 77. The guidance also suggests that the group have a full five players.

We had picked up the starter quest in Dalaran, which all by itself was a mini-adventure. The annual Halloween themed event kicked off this week, and the popular city of Dalaran in Northrend was crowded and abuzz with activity. The lag in the city was pretty bad, but once we were away from it things got back more of less to normal.

At AA there is a fight promoter, Gurgthock, who arranges the matches. DER and JB then jumped down to the floor of the open air theater and DER blew a horn to call out our first opponent, Yggdras, a large frostwyrm. I believe the wyrm was a level 74 elite. We had no trouble with him, taking him down and then calling up the next opponent, a magnataur.

DER and JB have seen elite magnataurs before, in other battles. They are immense centaur-like creatures and they hit extremely hard. This one also has a very deadly AoE to go with those big fists. JB misjudged the amount of damage DER would take tanking this thing and DER died. JB didn't last much longer.

On our second attempt, though, we got a better feel for the fight, and settled into a mode where both of us took time out from DPSing to heal and we both stayed alive. On the backside of the fight JB added her elemental pet to put on some extra damage and the magnataur went down.

The next opponent was described as "a being from the elemental planes" which turned out to be some kind of floating thingy with some adds. The adds almost did us in, as JB got confused as to which target was the boss when all three of the adds got in JB's face. Somewhere in there DER died. JB systematically hammered each opponent in turn, mixing in self-heals as needed, dropping DPS totems for more damage, using Chain Lightning to hit multiple targets, and one after another they went down.

The fourth opponent had a name - Tuskarrmmageddon, and I couldn't tell you what it was. It was humanoid, fat, heavily armored, and carried a big sword. He also sent in a swarm of penguins to attack us. I kid you not. That one took us a couple of tries, but he died, too.

Finally, there was Korrak the Bloodrage. Korrak was once a fixture and a pvp objective in the Alterac Valley battleground. But he got fired from that job when he tended to one shot folks in AV, and he now makes his living pounding horde and alliance fools who come to challenge him.

Korrak entered the theater on a huge whooly mammoth, and immediately started whaling away at DER for great chunks of damage. JB could barely get off any DPS for all the healing required, but we managed to knock Korrak off the mount, which DER then mounted. JB, meanwhile, had the now on foot Korrak in her face and JB died, having not noticed the sad state of her health after being stomped on a couple of times before corralling the mammoth.

On the second attempt JB was prepared for the initial damage, doling out the heals while DER and JB both quickly took Korrak off his mount. DER jumped astride the mammoth, and JB fretted a few seconds without firing off her spells so that Korrak would stay glued to DER. JB could not heal the mammoth, but I could heal DER, and once Korrak was thoroughly engaged JB lit him up and even added her elemental pet. I think DER died again (poor DER, who did an amazing tanking job on all the fights, having only half healer JB to keep him alive), but Korrak aggroed on the elemental pet and while Korrak was occupied JB burned him down.

For those at the right level, the weapon rewards for completing all the events is superb, and DER's new blade should carry him right to level 80. JB could not use the caster weapon reward, as she already has a better one, but the melee mace was a solid upgrade for JB's dual wielding alternate spec.

A good night, and good night!

Weekend (18 Oct) - Catching Up

Weekend (18 Oct) - Catching Up

Here's a bit of catch-up for the weekend:

I must admit that Wild is a bit worried about the guild. Getting fewer than ten guildies to show up on a Friday raid night was really disheartening. I believe the two guild ten man groups are still active, but apparently there isn't enough guildies to fill one more group even on a part time basis or even with alts. During the MM Ulduar raid on Friday, Wild got a whisper from one of the few guildies in game mentioning that despite the size of our guild, we had both been reduced to running with PUGs on a Friday night. He was in a PUG ToC raid. The guild website has gone completely silent. On most days there isn't a single post. Which may be why nothing has ever been posted there about raid changes that were announced in the last aborted 25 man raid. Wild gets questions about our raiding now and then, so not everybody knows what the situation is. I don't really know what the situation is anymore, either, so it's hard to answer.

JB had better news. She was sorting through the AH looking for +hit gear when she saw a truly great price on [Titansteel Spellblade]. This is the same one hand mace that Wild had crafted and used for a very long time. Not only was the price very reasonable, the seller had already enchanted it with the best enchant available, +63 spell power. JB bought it, adding over +200 spell power to her gear in addition to +30 hit and some instant credibility for her level 80 gear set. That purchase, along with the 327 gold it cost to buy the 23 spell upgrades from the shaman trainer when she hit level 80, pretty much wiped out JB's funds, but no other single item could provide as much improvement. Her gear set should be just fine for normal dungeon runs, but JB still has work to do to get her +hit gear.

JB still had one slot in her gear that was embarrassingly out dated. The Relic slot is where shaman put special gear called Totems. Why Blizz would call them that, when it can be confused with the totem spells that shaman cast - well, that's just like Blizzard.

JB's current relic/totem is [Totem of the Storm], which increases Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning damage by +33. Sounds good, and it is, if you are a level 60. For a level 80, this is a very low quality totem with an ilevel of 65. Other than this piece, JB has no gear below ilevel 138, and she has gear as high as ilevel 200. JB truly needed a better totem for that slot. Some time ago JB planned to address that, but got quickly frustrated when she did some research and learned that shaman totems were heavily weighted toward healing and melee specs, with very limited choices for elemental (ranged caster) spec, which is JB's spec. And a great many of the totems could only be acquired through pvp, or by doing 25 man raids. So JB abandoned the effort. At least for the moment.

That totem deficiency really stands out, now that JB is level 80, and something had to be done. JB went through the totem list again looking for something she could use and would be happy with. And she found something. JB had passed it by the first time she checked out the totems because getting it required special coins associated with pvp. This time she looked harder at it, because she liked the totem enough to check out just how difficult getting it might be. Well, the pvp she would have to do was not in a battleground or arena, but in a pvp "zone" called Venture Bay at the southern tip of Grizzly Hills. The enemy npcs there were around level 73, and there is several daily quests available that earn the coins required. It took thirty coins to buy the totem, so the next step was to find out how long that would take.

To JB's great surprise, she found that she only needed to do three quests to earn 30 coins. JB caught a flight from Dalaran to Conquest Hold in Grizzly Hills, and then grabbed her flying mount, arriving at Venture Bay within minutes.

Just accepting a quest here flagged JB for pvp, making her open to attacks not only from the enemy npcs, but also from any alliance player that wanted to attack her. JB was out there on a Saturday night, so it seemed the odds were pretty good there would be other players there. So be it, JB decided, let them try.

In the end it was a bit anti-climatic. Not only did she not see any alliance players, there weren't any players around at all. JB killed alliance npcs, set fire to their buildings, and then killed a level 74 elite ship captain. That got JB her 30 coins, and the totem [Venture Co. Lightning Rod], ilevel 150. The totem (which is not really a totem spell, but a relic) has nothing to do with lightning (ie, a shaman's Lightning Bolt or Chain Lightning), but JB will forgive Blizzard their often incomprehensible naming conventions (or lack of naming conventions, to be more precise). The totem increases the damage dealt by Lava Burst by +121. Lava Burst is an elemental shaman's meat and potatoes spell. It's the best elemental shaman totem JB can get until she gets into Ulduar or earns enough conquest emblems to get [Totem of Hex].

JB also got one entirely new spell at level 80, among the other 22 spell upgrades she got from her trainer. The spell is called Hex (which, of course, has nothing to do with the totem of the same name). Hex is a crowd control spell that turns the target into - drum roll please - a frog. Hex affects humanoids and beasts, which give it a pretty good range of targets to choose from, and can be used against alliance in pvp. It's similar to a mage's sheep spell (yes, that one turns targets into sheep) in that the target cannot attack or cast spells while hexed, but unlike the sheep spell hexed targets still have complete freedom of movement. The range is only 20 yards, too, which means you have to get pretty close to cast it. The short range and freedom of movement limits it's usefulness, but hey, it'll still be fun to turn things into frogs! JB is looking forward to testing it out.

With her new gear JB did some testing on the practice dummies in Orgrimmar. On the non-elite level 80 dummy she was able to consistently hit DPS numbers in the 2300-2400 range, much better than the 1700 or so she was getting before. JB then moved to the elite boss practice dummy, where her lack of +hit can result in misses. On average JB missed with her Lightning Bolt about 14% of the time, and about 6% of the time with Lava Burst. That dropped her overall DPS down to around 1900, which would not get her invited to any Heroics or raids, but was still better than I thought it would be.

Coming up - JB and DER take on the Amphitheater of Anguish.

Friday (16 Oct) - An Invitation to Raid

Friday (16 Oct) - An Invitation to Raid

The start time came and went for the guild ten man on Friday night. There were a total of seven guildies in game. On a Friday night. Neither raid leader stayed more than thirty minutes, and I never saw more than five guildies on for the remainder of the evening.

Wild stayed around to get the daily cooking and fishing quests done. I considered hooking up with a PUG (pick up group), and there were several looking for warm bodies to fill out their raids. Wild was getting that desperate to get in some raid time. But Wild kind of hoped to see some non-guildie friends from Lady Hunter's group around. The only one I saw was already in Ulduar, so Wild figured he'd missed his chance at possibly getting in with that raid.

Wild was still more of less just hanging around when I got a whisper from a mage with a familiar sounding name. It took a moment to place him; then Wild realized it was an alt of Bd's, the warrior raid leader in Lady Hunter's group. We talked for a bit, and I mentioned that Wild's guild wasn't raiding tonight and that I was looking for a PUG to join.

Shortly after that, Wild got a whisper from the non-guildie player in Ulduar, asking Wild if I'd like to join them. Seems they had gotten through the trash mobs on the way to the first boss, Flame Leviathon, but were still filling the raid since they'd gotten off to a later start than usual. Wild was really glad he'd hung around as he accepted the port to Ulduar and joined their raid. Bd also joined on his mage alt. The raid leader (DPS warrior in Lady Hunter's group) and Bd were the only two in the raid that Wild knew. All but Wild were with the guild that we partner with in Lady Hunter's group. I'll call their guild MM.

Since we were already at the chamber where we would face Flame Leviathon, Wild grabbed the first seat he could find, which was as a gunner on a siege engine. We were not in hard mode, and Levi went down very fast.

The raid moved on to Razorscale. Wild wasn't sure what role he was to play. In addition to Wild there were two priests and a paladin in the raid who were potential healers. "Wild, are you a healer, I hope?" the raid leader asked. Wild had joined their vent channel, but in answer I shifted to tree form, showing him I was healing spec. "Good!"

The pally turned out to be the raid leader and the main tank. The two priests, one of which was DISC spec and the other holy, were healers. For assignments, Wild was asked to main tank heal, which was nice given they could have given that key role to the DISC spec priest from their own guild.

Razorscale is not a difficult fight and we killed Razor on our first attempt. As I got to know the rest of the raiders a bit better, I got the impression that most of the raiders were mains and part of the regular group for this raid, with a couple of fill ins like Wild and Bd's alt. They expected to kill Razor on the first try, and moved quickly to the trash mobs leading to Ignis, which can be a bear.

The trash fight with the two molten core giants is always a tricky one and Wild got the role of solo healing the main tank on the side away from the rest of the raid. They do things a little differently, though, sending a couple of DPSers to that side with the tank and healer. Wild was Silenced only once, but I'd HoTed up the tank real well, and we had no problems. Wild breathed a sigh of relief. This was going pretty well.

The next sets of mobs were the ones that pop tornadoes that can kill if the force of those winds tosses you down toward the bottom of the ramp we were on. We killed all but the last two mobs with no problems. But just as Wild thought he'd gotten through that one unscathed, both mobs spawned tornadoes, one on either side of Wild, and I got a double whammy tornado strike. It killed me.

Wild said something like, "Two on one, not fair!" And got the response back, "Come on, Wild, you know you always wanted to do two at once." And I don't think he was talking about tornadoes. ;-)

Wild main tanked the Ignis fight as well. We had some trouble with the constructs, breaking away from their tank and chasing the healers around. Wild healed through it and worked to get into a rhythm with his tank, anticipating when the tank needed to turn Ignis and keeping out of the blackened Scorch circles that Ignis kept dropping. We never really got the constructs under control, though, and wiped on our first attempt.

We tried again, and as the fight progressed Wild got more and more comfortable with how the raid operated and with how the other two healers worked. They were good. Ignis died.

Then it was on to XT. The raid leader liked the way things were going, so raid assignments, including healing, stayed the same. Wild remained the main tank healer. Main tank healing on XT can be a bear, and Wild stayed on his toes, keeping every HoT I had on the tank and making a lot of use of the Nourish spell to cover the larger hits the tank was taking. Wild also helped heal the raid when XT did his Tantrums, and I think only one raider died about halfway through the fight. He happened to be in range of Wild, so I got him rezzed. Wild was the only druid, by the way, so we had only Wild's battle rez.

Two-thirds of the way through the fight someone lit off a bomb bot in range of Wild. Usually those bots are left alone or killed well away from the raid, for exactly the reason that exploding them can kill anyone nearby. Wild hadn't seen a bot explosion in many, many raids. The explosion didn't kill Wild outright, and Wild got immediate healing help from an alert healer, and the battle went on. XT died.

Then came Kologarn, with his eyebeams. Wild doesn't much like this fight, particularly as the main tank healer. Between fleeing from eyebeams to trying to avoid the Silences while still keeping the main tank alive - and not dying myself or getting others killed - well, just ugh. This raid group handles eyebeams a little differently, actually running out of the room when they are targeted. Apparently that doesn't reset the fight, as it often does on other fights. Unsure what was safe to do and what was not, I stayed with the method I was used to, which is flee to right corner of the room away from the main body of the raid. Unlike Wild's earlier troubles with that in guild raids, everything went smoothly, and Kologarn went down.

The raid got a bit more excited about that kill. The impression Wild got was that they were used to needing more than one try to beat Kologarn. Wild got loot off of Kologarn, a chest piece that I can use for Wild's moonkin spec. Wild was the only leather wearing caster (a rogue was the only other leather wearer) so it pretty much went to Wild by default. That got to be a sort of joke, though, when the loot master sent the chest piece to the wrong raider, and when I didn't receive it for awhile we weren't sure what had happened to it. The raid leader got it sorted out, and it finally ended up in Wild's hands.

With each new boss the main tank healer responsibility got a little tougher. We tackled the Cat Lady next, and Wild remembered all the trouble he had healing the beginning of that fight the last time the guild took her on. But Wild did not have any trouble at all this time, getting past the deadly initial pull with everyone still alive.

We fought her hard through the first phases, all of us up tight against her until she Feared us away, then rushing back. This raid set things up differently, but Wild could follow what they were doing and stayed in sync with them. When the Cat Lady started spawning new cats, we went on the move, staying with the Cat Lady while we fought her and her pet, then jumping out of the deadly pools of seeping feral essence the pet casts.

It was the most fun Wild has had yet on this fight, and the Cat Lady died.

After this fight there was a discussion on whether to move on to the Antechamber bosses, or go get the optional boss encounter called the Iron Council. Wild voted for the Antechamber, as I haven't seen much of those bosses. The vote was tied 5-5, but ultimately they opted to go after the Iron Council, which they'd had a lot of success with. To make things more interesting, they decided to try it in hard mode, which they'd never attempted before.

There are thee elite bosses in the Iron Council. Normally, the toughest boss, Steelbreaker, is killed first, then the other two bosses are killed. In hard mode, Steelbreaker is kept alive while the other two are killed first. While that might not sound like much of a difference, it is. Each time a boss is killed, the elites that remain gain an extra ability. Keeping the deadliest boss, Steelbreaker, alive to the end means that he'll have two extra abilities, making him thrice deadly.

Main tank healing Steelbreaker is extremely challenging, with a lot of sizable hits that a HoT healer is less equipped for than, say, a DISC priest who can use her Shield ability on the tank to absorb a lot of that unpredictable damage. The raid leader opted to go with his DISC priest for main tank healing for this fight, and Wild didn't blame him. The other priest stayed with off tank healing and Wild was asked to raid heal. That in itself would be challenging enough, as Steelbreaker and the other two bosses were tanked on opposite sides of the room, and Wild would have to move back and forth between them to keep everyone healed.

We made a good first attempt on Steelbreaker, getting both of the other elites down, leaving only Steelbreaker. One of the new abilities Steebreaker gets when he is the last boss standing is a debuff that causes the tank to explode after sixty seconds. Either kill Steelbreaker in that time or have another tank ready to go. We thought we had the DPS to kill Steelbreaker in those sixty seconds - we didn't. The tank exploded (poor fellow), and we wiped, but it was a pretty exciting fight anyway.

We tried a second time, but the off tank died early in the fight while Wild was out of range healing other raiders fighting Steelbreaker. Another wipe.

We switched back to normal mode, where Steelbreaker is the first killed. That still took us three tries, but we finally got all three bosses killed.

We'd been at about three hours, and they were very tempted to keep going, but with the late start they didn't want to push things. We called it a night.

The raid leader told Wild that his group runs on Fridays and Mondays, and that Wild was welcome to join them on Monday to continue the raid if I was available. Monday's not a guild raid night, and if they start on time Wild should be done by 9-930pm. Wild was impressed with their group, too. And on Monday they'll be after bosses Wild rarely gets to see, and even more rarely gets to kill. I told them I thought I could make it.

I haven't posted healing numbers lately, but since Wild was healing with two new partners here they are. Wild and the DISC priest traded on and off with the healing lead throughout the evening, but she stepped ahead for good during the Iron Council fights.

DISCp: 2400 hps, 31.8% of the healing
Wild: 2103/31.4%
Holyp: 1724/21.0%