Thursday (25 Feb) - A Little Bit of PvP
Until the MM group gets itself together, Wild doesn't have a raid on Thursday nights. Philly was out and about, though, getting her dailies done, including her JC daily, which has become a fun expedition. She has seen some six separate quests for the daily, and so far all but one have been solo-able. Today Philly will spend the four JC tokens she's accumulated so far this week and learn Bold Cardinal Ruby, the +20 strength gem that will save DER and Melasahnd a lot of gold. Wild scarfed up a bunch of cardinal rubies early in the week (3 of them for his new weapon and shoulders), but JB keeps grinding out one per day, so there will be a few available when needed. Philly also does an Icy Prism, a once a day crafting that sometimes drops a cardinal ruby and other gems. Happy keeps the mats needed for all this crafting coming, despite the downturn in the market.
Philly is 64% of the way to level 75. While she loves shadow priest spec, she knows she has to have a viable healing spec as well. Philly's +hit set is poor, so in dungeons and raids she's most useful as a healer, at least for now. Philly made some adjustments to her talent specs, and changed a glyph. I also set up a 3x3 grid of mouseover spells that correspond with the number pad on the keyboard so that Philly can use a casting system similar to what Wild uses. The spells are all different, of course, but they have a similar flavor - instant heals, bigger heals, emergency heals, special spells.
Priests have two healing specs, holy and discipline (disc). The holy spec is very like most other healing specs, and is a versatile raid healing spec as well as a tank support spec. Philly is specced disc. The disc spec is a bit different. Instead of the focus being on healing damage caused, disc spec focuses on anticipating and avoiding damage from being done. The primary healing weapon of a disc priest is a Shield, which she can cast on multiple players. Shields do have some healing ability (if glyphed for it, which Philly is) but it's main advantage is that the Shield absorbs incoming damage so that it doesn't get to the target. Disc priests have a number of pre-heals that heal damage as it comes in, instead of being cast after it hits the player. Disc priests are best at single target healing (tank healing) but can also raid heal.
Disc priests are better accepted now than in the past, but they are still misunderstood if folks don't understand how they heal. The damage absorbed by a Shield, for example, does not show up on a healing meter, so disc priest healing numbers can look low in comparison with other healers. Before there was a Shield glyph that provided some healing along with the damage absorption, uninformed players complained that they weren't getting healed because their health bar was not getting better, when in fact the Shield was absorbing the incoming damage and keeping that bar from falling.
Philly has read up on the strats for disc priest healing and feels she is ready to give it a try. Her gear stats are in the range for healing the types of dungeons that Dungeon Finder would give her, but she's a little nervous about jumping in with a bunch of strangers without getting in a little practice on friendlier turf. On a night when Philly, DER, and Sis can get together, Philly hopes to do a little dungeon crawling with them so she can assess just how ready she really is.
Later in the evening Ando popped in and offered some pvp fun. Mery was happy to oblige, and the two girls made a fine looking pair as they made their grand entrance at the opening bell of Warsong Gulch. At level 37 (Ando) and 38 (Mery) the two were pretty senior among the rest of the horde, and it showed. Ando's combination of healing, quick strikes with moonfire, and knack for swiping the allie flag out from under their noses baffled and enraged the allie forces. Mery ranged the field, first attacking the allie base, and then, once we secured two flags, defending our own base. Mery's combat pet Fleshrypper was in heaven, aggressively flapping in the faces of the enemy, screeching and diving at them, and even getting in a stun when Mery needed to back away. Mery poured hundreds of arrows into allie attackers. Mery does not yet have the survival ability of a really good hunter, so she died a lot - but she took a lot of allies with her. We won, 3-1 I believe. Mery was second in overall damage among the horde, and was #1 in Killing Blows with 11.
In between matches we worked on Ando's user interface. Ando is a druid, and can change forms between caster, bear, cat, and other forms. The main combat bar changes depending on what form Ando is in - or at least it's supposed to. Wild is a druid, of course, so he also came in game for awhile to help out in deciphering what the problem was. We were still working on it when we got the call to head for the Arathi Basin.
This AB match was the strangest I have seen. Mery and Ando rode out, going to the mining area, the stables, and others, setting the flag at each to make it a horde area. In AB you win by collecting resources, and the more areas you have under your control, the more resources you collect. Ando and Mery did not run across a single alliance attacker in all that running around. There was one allie that briefly took control of the mine, but fled when he saw us coming. We won the battle with Mery never having fired a single shot.
More troubleshooting with Ando's interface followed, and then we got another WSG match. We got off to a good start, capturing a flag and getting a 1-0 lead. Then things fell apart. The allies converged on the horde base, and essentially forced us to defend. With a heavy team keeping the allies at bay, we thought that taking their flag should be easy. But we couldn't do it. Mostly we couldn't get the three or four players we needed together to make a concerted attack.
Mery found herself leading one attack on the base with two others tagging along behind her. As we headed up the hillside to the upper level of their base (where flag carriers often hide) it initially appeared that they weren't there. But Mery could see them with her Track Humanoids ability, and then Fleshrypper caught their foul human stench and attacked, swooping up the hillside to engage. Mery and the mage with her charged up the hill, but the paladin that had also been by our side did not follow. There were three allies defending. When it was over Mery was the only player standing, but the allie flag carrier had fled and escaped when the battle turned in our favor. We lost that battle, but Mery was at least pleased that she led the horde team in overall damage dealing.
It was getting pretty late, and the matches were coming farther apart, so Ando and Mery dueled each other outside Orgrimmar while Wild chimed in with advice on the user interface. Ando eventually did get it figured out, all the while beating the daylights out of Mery in our duels. I did beat him once, when I surprised him with a melee assault instead of the usual ranged bowshot attack. Ando is extremely hard to kill, and he just wears players down. Mery can appreciate how those allies feel when up against him.
Ando dinged to level 38 during the pvp matches, and Mery is 94% of the way to level 39. The magic level 40, when Mery can start wearing mail armor instead of leather, is not that far off.
Friday, February 26, 2010
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Wednesday (24 Feb) - The Lows and Highs of Raiding
Wednesday (24 Feb) - The Lows and Highs of Raiding
Wild was still riding pretty high as he logged in Wednesday night, the dismantling of six boss encounters on Tuesday still fresh in his mind. Since there had been no raid sign up placed in the calendar by the MM group for the ten man run, Wild had signed up as Tentative for the Wednesday guild run.
No sooner did Wild log in, however, he got a whisper from Sh, the shaman who was tapped to get the MM ten man back together after losing our other raid leader to real life issues. Sh told Wild he was going to try to get ten man together. Wild told him I'd be happy to go, but that he would have to wait until guild invites were done before I'd know if I was available. "Ok", Sh sent back, "and don't worry, we'll hold a spot for you."
I was pretty sure Wild would not be raiding with the guild this night. The only thing in Wild's favor was that if you run the first night there is a preference to let you go the second night, too. However, as Wild was only a tentative sign up, and was a Tier 2 raider to boot, I figured others would get the call. Wild was fine with that. There were a number of good healers sitting around as Standbys already, and I had no problem with letting them run if a spot opened.
The guild raid filled, so Wild sent Sh a whisper, "Ok, I'm all yours!" The invite to the ten man came right after that. Lady Hunter was with the group this night, who Wild hadn't seen much of in recent weeks. We got caught up on things as we tried to get enough to fill the raid. Lady Hunter and I even talked another one of Wild's guildies into joining us, as he was looking for a ten man to join.
We were never able to get ten together, however, which Sh blamed himself for since he had not put up a calendar invite in time. We made plans for next week. I really think we'll be ready to rock with this ten man by then.
Ok, break break, pretend this is another post. :)
Gratz on the new mouse gadget, erik! I'm not even jealous (since it isn't made for a lefty anyway). That new allie is going to need all the the help it can get in BGs against the Wild family. :P
So, how many Deathbots do you plan to have? Isn't this your second one? JB has a hard enough time figuring out all those special characters in those names.
Wild actually has a couple of black sheep alliance family members, although they've been off the reservation for quite a while. A paladin and a hunter, both level 13. They're pretty much bumpkins, though, geared only with what Happy had scrounged up for them a long time ago. Those two would probably get your allie killed faster than one of the horde family. ;-)
I've got too many other things on the plate than trying to level those two, but if your allie just wants company in the teens bracket on our pvp night I'm game to see what the "other side" is like.
Wild was still riding pretty high as he logged in Wednesday night, the dismantling of six boss encounters on Tuesday still fresh in his mind. Since there had been no raid sign up placed in the calendar by the MM group for the ten man run, Wild had signed up as Tentative for the Wednesday guild run.
No sooner did Wild log in, however, he got a whisper from Sh, the shaman who was tapped to get the MM ten man back together after losing our other raid leader to real life issues. Sh told Wild he was going to try to get ten man together. Wild told him I'd be happy to go, but that he would have to wait until guild invites were done before I'd know if I was available. "Ok", Sh sent back, "and don't worry, we'll hold a spot for you."
I was pretty sure Wild would not be raiding with the guild this night. The only thing in Wild's favor was that if you run the first night there is a preference to let you go the second night, too. However, as Wild was only a tentative sign up, and was a Tier 2 raider to boot, I figured others would get the call. Wild was fine with that. There were a number of good healers sitting around as Standbys already, and I had no problem with letting them run if a spot opened.
The guild raid filled, so Wild sent Sh a whisper, "Ok, I'm all yours!" The invite to the ten man came right after that. Lady Hunter was with the group this night, who Wild hadn't seen much of in recent weeks. We got caught up on things as we tried to get enough to fill the raid. Lady Hunter and I even talked another one of Wild's guildies into joining us, as he was looking for a ten man to join.
We were never able to get ten together, however, which Sh blamed himself for since he had not put up a calendar invite in time. We made plans for next week. I really think we'll be ready to rock with this ten man by then.
Ok, break break, pretend this is another post. :)
Gratz on the new mouse gadget, erik! I'm not even jealous (since it isn't made for a lefty anyway). That new allie is going to need all the the help it can get in BGs against the Wild family. :P
So, how many Deathbots do you plan to have? Isn't this your second one? JB has a hard enough time figuring out all those special characters in those names.
Wild actually has a couple of black sheep alliance family members, although they've been off the reservation for quite a while. A paladin and a hunter, both level 13. They're pretty much bumpkins, though, geared only with what Happy had scrounged up for them a long time ago. Those two would probably get your allie killed faster than one of the horde family. ;-)
I've got too many other things on the plate than trying to level those two, but if your allie just wants company in the teens bracket on our pvp night I'm game to see what the "other side" is like.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Tuesday (23 Feb) - The Highs and Lows of Raiding
Tuesday (23 Feb) - The Highs and Lows of Raiding
It was Tuesday night once again. Once again, Wild arrived in game early, made his preparations for the evening, and then flew to Icecrown Citadel to wait word on whether Wild would be getting an invite. To pass the time Wild checked the raid calendar to see his status. Hmm, there was no Standby by his name this time. This time it said Confirmed. Wild was in.
The cynic in me could say, well, Wild questioned the invite process last week, and this week I'm invited. But that wouldn't hold up with what Wild also noted in the calendar - the raid leader who makes those decisions had listed himself as a standby. And he whispered Wild shortly before invites went out, in that gruff manner of his, "Wild, tell me you have a boomkin spec."
"I do," I told him. And I do, and it has the mandatory amount of +hit in order not to embarrass oneself by missing the boss when casting spells. That gear set lacked a lot of other things in order to reach the minimum +263 hit that Wild had to have. But I didn't plan to mention that. I wanted to raid, and if it was in boomkin spec, well, Wild had been getting a lot of practice in that spec in the heroic five mans.
"Good," he sent back, "I don't plan to raid tonight, but I wanted a boomkin in the raid for the buff." Ok, so it's the buff he wants. Hey, if it means I'm raiding, I'll raid "in the buff" if that's what it takes.
Wild joined the raid as a ranged/caster DPS boomkin. Which, once Wild shifted into his chicken suit, seemed to confuse Wild's raider friends. The healing leader tried to assign Wild to healing duty. Friends whispered me, "Did you switch to DPS? Aren't you healing anymore?" The raid leader who would run the raid this night put Wild in the healing group on the raid screen like he's been doing literally for year's with Wild. It was both amusing and kind of neat (now there's a word you don't see much anymore) that so many were so baffled.
Before ICC, however, we trooped over to Wintergrasp, which was under Horde control, to tackle Toravon in VoA. This new boss is something of a wimp, and we killed him easily. He dropped two Tier 10 pieces, neither of which were for druids. Then it was on to ICC.
The first boss in ICC is Lord Marrowgar. I know you know that, but it's been awhile since Wild got to see the flailing skeletal creature. That wasn't Wild's problem, though. I remembered the fight just fine - but as a healer. As a DPS, well, Where do I stand? Where do I run? What do I do? Actually, Marrowgar wasn't so bad. Wild had a pretty good idea what the ranged DPS did on this fight. I could handle this. One thing I will say, though, after the fight was over and Marrowgar was dead, is that it's a lot harder to DPS with a boss breathing down your neck than it is to heal or DPS in Heroics. Wild could not just stand and fire away, like he can do in most Heroics. And it was nothing like healing, where Wild could cast any of several instant heals while on the move. No, this was different.
The second boss was Lady Deathwhisper. Wild knew enough about this fight to know that as ranged DPS, he would be targeting the melee mobs. I had to ask who the tank was for the melee mobs, though, since no instructions were given. A warlock friend in the raid whispered some additional instructions as well, and would help Wild out several times over the course of the evening. It was smooth sailing and the Lady died.
Then came the Gunship Battle. With this group of raiders this fun fight was no contest. Three encounters down.
For the fourth and final boss in this first wing, Wild had to admit that he really had no idea what DPS role he played against Deathbringer Saurfang. Wild hadn't seen this fight much, and the strats had kept changing. Since Wild was basically replacing another boomkin, I asked where the other boomkin usually stood and what his role was. The warlock friend guided Wild to my spot. He whispered Wild, letting me know the other druid focused on the adds when they spawned, and if they got loose he used Typhoon on them to knock them back. Wild's spec doesn't include Typhoon, so Entangling Roots would have to do.
Wild had never killed Saurfang before. Until now. Wild had cleared the entire first wing of Icecrown Citadel. That would have made Wild's night all by itself. But we still had an hour left in the evening. We weren't done yet.
Behind the dias where Saurfang stands there is a portal. Once Saurfang is dead, we can pass through that portal to the next wing, The Plagueworks, and the first boss in that wing, Festergut. If you recall, this is where Wild started last week when he was asked to join the raid on Wednesday. The Festergut fight was fresh in my mind; but then they tried to confuse me with DPS stuff.
Actually, doing ranged DPS on Festergut was easier than healing. Wild had a lot of sympathy for the great tree druid in the raid who anchored the healers and kept the tanks topped off with Hots. Last week Wild was in his position, standing on one spot all night so that raiders would have a mark to run to when the spores showed up. Spores were both bad and good. They were bad because they explode after a few seconds. Getting exploded spores on you was a good thing, though, as it Inoculates raiders, greatly reducing shadow damage and the only thing that will save a raider from Pungent Blight, which is instant death if not inoculated. Spores appear on random raiders, and all ranged raiders run to the "mark" where the tree druid stands so that they'll be in spore exploding range. Then everyone has to get back into position in order to maintain at least a ten yard distance between us to avoid other nasty things getting spread across the raid.
Wild learned from his last encounter with Festergut not to stand too far from where I have to run when the spores come out. Last week Wild missed getting spores when I didn't get there in time and of course died. Wild stubbornly took up position ten yards from the tree druid, daring anyone to try to bump me farther down the line.
We nearly got Festergut on our first try, hitting the Enrage timer and wiping at 3%. We got him now, someone said.
We wiped again on our second try when healers got confused and died early - twice, since both Wild and the other druid battle rezzed them. It's not like this group hasn't killed Festergut before, because they have.
We wiped on our third try when we lost a tank early in the fight. A very frustrated tree druid growled that he'd been hit with Vile Gas seven times, which causes the affected raider to become disoriented, and, in the tree druid's case, unable to heal for 2-6 seconds at a time. No wonder the tank fell.
Some new directions were issued for the next attempt. Raider positioning was adjusted to ensure that folks could get to spores more effectively, as raiders were still dying from not being inoculated. For example, mages who could Blink, could be farther away since Blink could be used to instantly transport them to the spore location. Wild lost his favored position next to the tree druid because a druid's Barkskin spell would absorb enough damage that I would not have to run to the spores mark. I admit I was a bit dubious about that, and didn't like having to move a lot farther away than I would have liked. Well, we'll just try this and see.
On our fourth attempt we wiped again with Festergut at 7%. But Wild was absent for about half of that fight. When the first spores came out Wild cast barkskin and it did keep Wild alive. On the second round of spores, a nervous Wild watched the cooldown timer of his Barkskin spell (which I can only use once every minute - a minute is a long time in combat) count down. I didn't get the spell up while spores were out, but I did get it done before Pungent Blight hit, which would have killed Wild otherwise. This was not as easy as it sounded. Wild did not get Barkskin up the next time as it was still on cooldown, and died.
On our fifth attempt, Wild's second attempt while learning this new Barksin method, I finally got it down. I used a range of solutions in order that Barkskin was used less often, saving it for when I absolutely needed it. Three spores spawn each time they come up. One ends up at the tree druid spot, and another ends up in the melee area. The raider with the third spore stays away from the other two because the exploding damage goes up if spores are close together. Wild first looked to see if that third spore was close by, and if so I went to it to get inoculated. Second, if no spore was nearby, Wild used his Barkskin. On the next spore spawn after a Barkskin, Wild made absolutely sure he could run to the tree druid spot to get inoculated. It worked. Festergut died.
It was right at 9pm, our stopping point. There is a quest which we had all accepted that required a series of actions in order to complete it. It was complicated enough that so far the raid had not even tried on previous raids. The quest reward was quite nice (5 frost emblems) and we talked about trying to get the quest done before we called it an evening. Only one person had to complete the quest for everyone in the raid to get the reward, and it required a player to get spit on by the next boss, Rotgut. After getting Slimed by Rotgut, the raider had ten minutes get back to the quest giver and complete the quest. We didn't have to beat Rotgut, we just had to keep one player alive long enough to complete the quest.
We decided to give it a try. Not only did we complete the quest, we killed Rotgut as well.
It was a big night for Wild. Six boss encounters down in one night, and a bonus 5 frost emblems to boot from the quest. Wild had also won at item that dropped off of Deathwhisper, the second boss we'd faced. It went down like this:
Deathwhisper dropped the weirdly named Nibelung, an i264 two-handed staff for DPS casters. Wild was a DPS caster for this evening, but really, Wild was a healer just playing caster. I did not feel right bidding mainspec for it, so I bid it as offspec. Apparently only one other raider bid, a shadow priest, which would be a main spec bid for her. She won it. She then said she would pass on it since Wild was a caster tonight.
Well, that was extremely nice of her, but Wild responded back asking her to keep it since since 99% of the time Wild is going to be healing, and she would get more use from it. Nope, she said, I want you to have it. Wild got the staff.
Now I know that Nibelung tends to drop frequently, and that there are many other weapons in ICC better than this one. Many of the casters either already had a better weapon, or were saving their EPGP points for something else. The shadow priest already had a very nice staff, which doesn't mean that she couldn't have used Nibelung - she could, as it had greater spell power than hers. So Wild was very grateful for getting it.
What made Nibelung a DPS caster weapon? It has a special feature that when attacking things with it, it will sometimes spawn a Vyrkul warrior (a viking) to fight by Wild's side. Neat, huh? The rest of the stats on this fine staff worked just as well healing as it does for DPS. Wild doesn't much like staffs for healing, though. I prefer a main hand/off hand combination, as it is more flexible and usually when combined offer better stats. Not this time, though. Nibelung was good enough that Wild had no choice but to make it his mainspec healing weapon as well. Wild will still do the quests to get the Quel'Delar main hand mace, but that is a lot less urgent now.
Wild had also earned enough frost badges to purchase his second T10 Lasherweave set piece, the shoulders. It's not a Sanctified piece, so it's an i251, not an i264, but it still counts toward the set bonus, which is what Wild was after. Wild now has the two piece set bonus, which increases the damage of Wild's constantly used Wild Growth spell. Wild's gear still lags the other druid healers, but I keep closing that gap.
I know you've all been wondering how Wild did on the DPS meters. Frankly, Wild was terrible, but I expected that. Take two tanks and six healers away from 25 raiders, and you have 17 raiders left to do DPS. Wild finished 17th.
The top DPSer was a hunter with 8634 DPS, one of four who topped 8k (2 hunters and 2 rogues). There were 4 at 7k+, 4 at 6k+, 3 at 5k+, one at 4k+, and then there was Wild at 3463 DPS. I'm glad they needed that moonkin buff. :)
I had a blast, though, gained a greater appreciation of what raiding DPSers have to go through, and learned enough about DPSing ICC to feel comfortable filling in as DPS when/if needed. This was one of the "High" nights of raiding for Wild.
Oh, and I thought you'd like to see Wild's new look with his cool looking Nibelung and those shoulder, which look like they could take a bite out of someone.
It was Tuesday night once again. Once again, Wild arrived in game early, made his preparations for the evening, and then flew to Icecrown Citadel to wait word on whether Wild would be getting an invite. To pass the time Wild checked the raid calendar to see his status. Hmm, there was no Standby by his name this time. This time it said Confirmed. Wild was in.
The cynic in me could say, well, Wild questioned the invite process last week, and this week I'm invited. But that wouldn't hold up with what Wild also noted in the calendar - the raid leader who makes those decisions had listed himself as a standby. And he whispered Wild shortly before invites went out, in that gruff manner of his, "Wild, tell me you have a boomkin spec."
"I do," I told him. And I do, and it has the mandatory amount of +hit in order not to embarrass oneself by missing the boss when casting spells. That gear set lacked a lot of other things in order to reach the minimum +263 hit that Wild had to have. But I didn't plan to mention that. I wanted to raid, and if it was in boomkin spec, well, Wild had been getting a lot of practice in that spec in the heroic five mans.
"Good," he sent back, "I don't plan to raid tonight, but I wanted a boomkin in the raid for the buff." Ok, so it's the buff he wants. Hey, if it means I'm raiding, I'll raid "in the buff" if that's what it takes.
Wild joined the raid as a ranged/caster DPS boomkin. Which, once Wild shifted into his chicken suit, seemed to confuse Wild's raider friends. The healing leader tried to assign Wild to healing duty. Friends whispered me, "Did you switch to DPS? Aren't you healing anymore?" The raid leader who would run the raid this night put Wild in the healing group on the raid screen like he's been doing literally for year's with Wild. It was both amusing and kind of neat (now there's a word you don't see much anymore) that so many were so baffled.
Before ICC, however, we trooped over to Wintergrasp, which was under Horde control, to tackle Toravon in VoA. This new boss is something of a wimp, and we killed him easily. He dropped two Tier 10 pieces, neither of which were for druids. Then it was on to ICC.
The first boss in ICC is Lord Marrowgar. I know you know that, but it's been awhile since Wild got to see the flailing skeletal creature. That wasn't Wild's problem, though. I remembered the fight just fine - but as a healer. As a DPS, well, Where do I stand? Where do I run? What do I do? Actually, Marrowgar wasn't so bad. Wild had a pretty good idea what the ranged DPS did on this fight. I could handle this. One thing I will say, though, after the fight was over and Marrowgar was dead, is that it's a lot harder to DPS with a boss breathing down your neck than it is to heal or DPS in Heroics. Wild could not just stand and fire away, like he can do in most Heroics. And it was nothing like healing, where Wild could cast any of several instant heals while on the move. No, this was different.
The second boss was Lady Deathwhisper. Wild knew enough about this fight to know that as ranged DPS, he would be targeting the melee mobs. I had to ask who the tank was for the melee mobs, though, since no instructions were given. A warlock friend in the raid whispered some additional instructions as well, and would help Wild out several times over the course of the evening. It was smooth sailing and the Lady died.
Then came the Gunship Battle. With this group of raiders this fun fight was no contest. Three encounters down.
For the fourth and final boss in this first wing, Wild had to admit that he really had no idea what DPS role he played against Deathbringer Saurfang. Wild hadn't seen this fight much, and the strats had kept changing. Since Wild was basically replacing another boomkin, I asked where the other boomkin usually stood and what his role was. The warlock friend guided Wild to my spot. He whispered Wild, letting me know the other druid focused on the adds when they spawned, and if they got loose he used Typhoon on them to knock them back. Wild's spec doesn't include Typhoon, so Entangling Roots would have to do.
Wild had never killed Saurfang before. Until now. Wild had cleared the entire first wing of Icecrown Citadel. That would have made Wild's night all by itself. But we still had an hour left in the evening. We weren't done yet.
Behind the dias where Saurfang stands there is a portal. Once Saurfang is dead, we can pass through that portal to the next wing, The Plagueworks, and the first boss in that wing, Festergut. If you recall, this is where Wild started last week when he was asked to join the raid on Wednesday. The Festergut fight was fresh in my mind; but then they tried to confuse me with DPS stuff.
Actually, doing ranged DPS on Festergut was easier than healing. Wild had a lot of sympathy for the great tree druid in the raid who anchored the healers and kept the tanks topped off with Hots. Last week Wild was in his position, standing on one spot all night so that raiders would have a mark to run to when the spores showed up. Spores were both bad and good. They were bad because they explode after a few seconds. Getting exploded spores on you was a good thing, though, as it Inoculates raiders, greatly reducing shadow damage and the only thing that will save a raider from Pungent Blight, which is instant death if not inoculated. Spores appear on random raiders, and all ranged raiders run to the "mark" where the tree druid stands so that they'll be in spore exploding range. Then everyone has to get back into position in order to maintain at least a ten yard distance between us to avoid other nasty things getting spread across the raid.
Wild learned from his last encounter with Festergut not to stand too far from where I have to run when the spores come out. Last week Wild missed getting spores when I didn't get there in time and of course died. Wild stubbornly took up position ten yards from the tree druid, daring anyone to try to bump me farther down the line.
We nearly got Festergut on our first try, hitting the Enrage timer and wiping at 3%. We got him now, someone said.
We wiped again on our second try when healers got confused and died early - twice, since both Wild and the other druid battle rezzed them. It's not like this group hasn't killed Festergut before, because they have.
We wiped on our third try when we lost a tank early in the fight. A very frustrated tree druid growled that he'd been hit with Vile Gas seven times, which causes the affected raider to become disoriented, and, in the tree druid's case, unable to heal for 2-6 seconds at a time. No wonder the tank fell.
Some new directions were issued for the next attempt. Raider positioning was adjusted to ensure that folks could get to spores more effectively, as raiders were still dying from not being inoculated. For example, mages who could Blink, could be farther away since Blink could be used to instantly transport them to the spore location. Wild lost his favored position next to the tree druid because a druid's Barkskin spell would absorb enough damage that I would not have to run to the spores mark. I admit I was a bit dubious about that, and didn't like having to move a lot farther away than I would have liked. Well, we'll just try this and see.
On our fourth attempt we wiped again with Festergut at 7%. But Wild was absent for about half of that fight. When the first spores came out Wild cast barkskin and it did keep Wild alive. On the second round of spores, a nervous Wild watched the cooldown timer of his Barkskin spell (which I can only use once every minute - a minute is a long time in combat) count down. I didn't get the spell up while spores were out, but I did get it done before Pungent Blight hit, which would have killed Wild otherwise. This was not as easy as it sounded. Wild did not get Barkskin up the next time as it was still on cooldown, and died.
On our fifth attempt, Wild's second attempt while learning this new Barksin method, I finally got it down. I used a range of solutions in order that Barkskin was used less often, saving it for when I absolutely needed it. Three spores spawn each time they come up. One ends up at the tree druid spot, and another ends up in the melee area. The raider with the third spore stays away from the other two because the exploding damage goes up if spores are close together. Wild first looked to see if that third spore was close by, and if so I went to it to get inoculated. Second, if no spore was nearby, Wild used his Barkskin. On the next spore spawn after a Barkskin, Wild made absolutely sure he could run to the tree druid spot to get inoculated. It worked. Festergut died.
It was right at 9pm, our stopping point. There is a quest which we had all accepted that required a series of actions in order to complete it. It was complicated enough that so far the raid had not even tried on previous raids. The quest reward was quite nice (5 frost emblems) and we talked about trying to get the quest done before we called it an evening. Only one person had to complete the quest for everyone in the raid to get the reward, and it required a player to get spit on by the next boss, Rotgut. After getting Slimed by Rotgut, the raider had ten minutes get back to the quest giver and complete the quest. We didn't have to beat Rotgut, we just had to keep one player alive long enough to complete the quest.
We decided to give it a try. Not only did we complete the quest, we killed Rotgut as well.
It was a big night for Wild. Six boss encounters down in one night, and a bonus 5 frost emblems to boot from the quest. Wild had also won at item that dropped off of Deathwhisper, the second boss we'd faced. It went down like this:
Deathwhisper dropped the weirdly named Nibelung, an i264 two-handed staff for DPS casters. Wild was a DPS caster for this evening, but really, Wild was a healer just playing caster. I did not feel right bidding mainspec for it, so I bid it as offspec. Apparently only one other raider bid, a shadow priest, which would be a main spec bid for her. She won it. She then said she would pass on it since Wild was a caster tonight.
Well, that was extremely nice of her, but Wild responded back asking her to keep it since since 99% of the time Wild is going to be healing, and she would get more use from it. Nope, she said, I want you to have it. Wild got the staff.
Now I know that Nibelung tends to drop frequently, and that there are many other weapons in ICC better than this one. Many of the casters either already had a better weapon, or were saving their EPGP points for something else. The shadow priest already had a very nice staff, which doesn't mean that she couldn't have used Nibelung - she could, as it had greater spell power than hers. So Wild was very grateful for getting it.
What made Nibelung a DPS caster weapon? It has a special feature that when attacking things with it, it will sometimes spawn a Vyrkul warrior (a viking) to fight by Wild's side. Neat, huh? The rest of the stats on this fine staff worked just as well healing as it does for DPS. Wild doesn't much like staffs for healing, though. I prefer a main hand/off hand combination, as it is more flexible and usually when combined offer better stats. Not this time, though. Nibelung was good enough that Wild had no choice but to make it his mainspec healing weapon as well. Wild will still do the quests to get the Quel'Delar main hand mace, but that is a lot less urgent now.
Wild had also earned enough frost badges to purchase his second T10 Lasherweave set piece, the shoulders. It's not a Sanctified piece, so it's an i251, not an i264, but it still counts toward the set bonus, which is what Wild was after. Wild now has the two piece set bonus, which increases the damage of Wild's constantly used Wild Growth spell. Wild's gear still lags the other druid healers, but I keep closing that gap.
I know you've all been wondering how Wild did on the DPS meters. Frankly, Wild was terrible, but I expected that. Take two tanks and six healers away from 25 raiders, and you have 17 raiders left to do DPS. Wild finished 17th.
The top DPSer was a hunter with 8634 DPS, one of four who topped 8k (2 hunters and 2 rogues). There were 4 at 7k+, 4 at 6k+, 3 at 5k+, one at 4k+, and then there was Wild at 3463 DPS. I'm glad they needed that moonkin buff. :)
I had a blast, though, gained a greater appreciation of what raiding DPSers have to go through, and learned enough about DPSing ICC to feel comfortable filling in as DPS when/if needed. This was one of the "High" nights of raiding for Wild.
Oh, and I thought you'd like to see Wild's new look with his cool looking Nibelung and those shoulder, which look like they could take a bite out of someone.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Monday (22 Feb) - Quel'Delar
Monday (22 Feb) - Quel'Delar
A couple of days ago Wild got re-acquainted with a quest chain that could get him to a weapon upgrade that he sorely needs. Wild has completed six of the 13 required quests in the chain, but quests 7-9 all require dungeon runs.
The first part is a quest called "Reforging the Sword" and to accomplish that quest Wild has to enter the dungeon Pit of Saron (PoS). The quest can be done in the normal mode (ie, Heroic mode isn't required). There were hints that this quest could be soloed, and Wild decided to give it a try.
The first part of the quest required collecting five items scattered about the dungeon. This would be a pain to do in a random group, as it would require slowing down the group every time Wild needed to go collect an item. Instead, Wild entered the dungeon alone. Wild shifted to cat form and went stealth. To my left and to my right along a rocky ledge some distance away were two of the items Wild needed. In front of Wild were around five mobs, one of which was a level 80 elite. Wild figured that if he had to he could kill the elite and the grouping of non-elites, but first I tried to stealth my way to the items. Wild started with the right side, and was able to get the item. However, as soon as I picked it up, it triggered the start of the event. A number of npcs appeared, started ranting about something, and Wild decided to leave before things could get out of hand.
I reset the dungeon and re-entered. This time Wild tried the left side, and when he picked up the item nothing happened. Cool. I then reversed course, went back to the right and picked up the other one. Again, the event started and Wild left the dungeon. I now had three items, though. Wild reset and returned, picking up the other two he needed. Piece of cake.
Wild didn't really know his way around in PoS, but I decided to go exploring in cat form stealth to see if I could find the boss that was the next target of the quest. Wild slipped past a group of mobs, avoided a patrol, and located a stairway that I figured probably led to the boss. The long rocky lane that led to the stairway was lined with non-elites on one side, and the lane itself was patrolled by two elite dragons. Aggroing any of the non-elites would most assuredly aggro the elites, so Wild's only choice was to clamber about on the opposite side, along a ridge of rock that dropped down to more bad guys below, should Wild miss-step and fall off.
Getting by the elites was a bit tricky, but Wild managed it without aggroing anything. Wild stealthed up to the top of the stairs he'd spied out, and there was the boss, Forgemaster Garfrost. Garfrost was a level 82 boss elite. There were four packs of non-elite mobs scattered about the area. Aggroing any of them aggroes them all, including the boss. To complete the quest, Wild had to kill Garfrost, take his hammer, and then use the nearby anvil to reforge the sword using the hammer and the broken hilt Wild had gotten from an earlier quest. Garfrost is a frost giant, and much of his attacks are frost based, including a stacking debuff that is quite deadly. Garfrost also throws boulders. Big ones. And has four more frost based attacks. Pallies and death knights claim to be able to solo Garfrost in normal mode. Some claim that stacking frost resistant gear helps. Wild could craft frost resist gear, and take him on. Let's see, Garfrost has 500,000 health. Wild has 20,000. Being generous, Wild might average 3,000 damage per second. Wild started mumbling to himself - 3k into 500k, hmm, drop the zeroes, forget the fractions, umm, that comes out to about three minutes to kill him. Of course, wild has to heal, too, so maybe 2k damage would be more realistic. More mumbling, and that works out to something over five minutes, so let's round up to six. Meanwhile, Garfrost is doing damage to Wild. Let's see, there is the AoE frost damage that stacks, which after Wild get a boulder thrown at him he can hide behind to drop the stack. But while hiding he's getting Deep Freeze and Chilling Wave, and then twice during the fight the damage doubles. So, so 3k damage per second in the first third of the fight, halved by the frost resist gear, and then doubled up twice. This is getting complicated. Since Wild theoretically can kill him, given six minutes, let's see if Wild can theoretically stay alive that long.
First two minutes: 3k damage
Second two minutes: 6k damage
Third two minutes: 12k damage
That's 21k damage, and assuming some healing in there theoretically Wild could outlast him. Piece of cake. Ha. I think I'm really underestimating the damage and over estimating how much damage Wild could deal while getting pummelled and chased by Garfrost while running from boulders.
Did Wild try it? No. Not this time, anyway. Maybe Wild will make that frost gear. Maybe Wild will drag DER into this to tank. :P
Wild's next option was to check the with guild, but they were busy with ICC or some other silly thing. Wild decided to go into dungeon finder and select normal mode Pit of Saron. Wild even set his spec to healing to ensure getting a quicker group.
Five minutes later the call came. When Wild arrived in the dungeon, though, something wasn't right. It took a moment for it to sink in, then Wild addressed the group.
"weird, this isn't the instance I signed up for," a perplexed Wild told them. Wild was standing in the Halls of Reflection, and a quick check revealed that it was Heroic mode.
There was a long pregnant pause from the rest of the group. No one said anything, likely thinking, "crap, we are going to lose our healer."
Wild sighed. "but ok," I said, resigned to healing a random group with what I hoped were some decent players. The paladin tank whispered Wild a thank you. For staying.
The first part of the fight was a number of waves of mobs with boss fights in between. The tank was fine, but two of the DPS could not manage aggro and at least one of them would die on each wave. On one wave we had to manage with only three players, as we couldn't get dead players rezzed in time between waves and Wild's battle rez was still on cooldown. Wild did what he could to help the DPSers, but I made sure of two things first - the tank lived, and so did Wild. That ensured there would be no wipe, even if the fight took awhile. We survived. The second part of the fight is a chase that's fun and easy, and we finished the instance. Wild has done PoS three times now, twice as the healer. Loot in PoS on heroic is ilevel 232. Wild needs very little from there, but a cloth belt dropped that had both crit and haste that would probably help Wild's moonkin spec. I rolled greed on it. The shaman in the group complained that the loot system would not let him bid on it (not sure why not) but as a result Wild got it. Not to mention Wild got two frost emblems and some triumph emblems out of it. So it wasn't a complete waste of time.
Why did Wild not get the dungeon he asked for? Well, once I thought about it it was obvious. Wild had already "done" PoS that night. Not completed it of course, but I was in there, and had initiated the event, so DF was not going to assign that dungeon to Wild.
Also on Monday night Philly was able to collect her fourth JC token, and bought the recipe for Runed Cardinal Ruby. Not only that, but JB did a transmute to get a cardinal ruby so Philly could actually use the recipe. The cut gem then went to Wild so he could equip it in the new belt he got from PoS. See how all those things tie together?
Oh yea, Philly is now 31% of the way to level 75.
Oh yea again, Wild still has to go back to PoS to get the dang quest done.
A couple of days ago Wild got re-acquainted with a quest chain that could get him to a weapon upgrade that he sorely needs. Wild has completed six of the 13 required quests in the chain, but quests 7-9 all require dungeon runs.
The first part is a quest called "Reforging the Sword" and to accomplish that quest Wild has to enter the dungeon Pit of Saron (PoS). The quest can be done in the normal mode (ie, Heroic mode isn't required). There were hints that this quest could be soloed, and Wild decided to give it a try.
The first part of the quest required collecting five items scattered about the dungeon. This would be a pain to do in a random group, as it would require slowing down the group every time Wild needed to go collect an item. Instead, Wild entered the dungeon alone. Wild shifted to cat form and went stealth. To my left and to my right along a rocky ledge some distance away were two of the items Wild needed. In front of Wild were around five mobs, one of which was a level 80 elite. Wild figured that if he had to he could kill the elite and the grouping of non-elites, but first I tried to stealth my way to the items. Wild started with the right side, and was able to get the item. However, as soon as I picked it up, it triggered the start of the event. A number of npcs appeared, started ranting about something, and Wild decided to leave before things could get out of hand.
I reset the dungeon and re-entered. This time Wild tried the left side, and when he picked up the item nothing happened. Cool. I then reversed course, went back to the right and picked up the other one. Again, the event started and Wild left the dungeon. I now had three items, though. Wild reset and returned, picking up the other two he needed. Piece of cake.
Wild didn't really know his way around in PoS, but I decided to go exploring in cat form stealth to see if I could find the boss that was the next target of the quest. Wild slipped past a group of mobs, avoided a patrol, and located a stairway that I figured probably led to the boss. The long rocky lane that led to the stairway was lined with non-elites on one side, and the lane itself was patrolled by two elite dragons. Aggroing any of the non-elites would most assuredly aggro the elites, so Wild's only choice was to clamber about on the opposite side, along a ridge of rock that dropped down to more bad guys below, should Wild miss-step and fall off.
Getting by the elites was a bit tricky, but Wild managed it without aggroing anything. Wild stealthed up to the top of the stairs he'd spied out, and there was the boss, Forgemaster Garfrost. Garfrost was a level 82 boss elite. There were four packs of non-elite mobs scattered about the area. Aggroing any of them aggroes them all, including the boss. To complete the quest, Wild had to kill Garfrost, take his hammer, and then use the nearby anvil to reforge the sword using the hammer and the broken hilt Wild had gotten from an earlier quest. Garfrost is a frost giant, and much of his attacks are frost based, including a stacking debuff that is quite deadly. Garfrost also throws boulders. Big ones. And has four more frost based attacks. Pallies and death knights claim to be able to solo Garfrost in normal mode. Some claim that stacking frost resistant gear helps. Wild could craft frost resist gear, and take him on. Let's see, Garfrost has 500,000 health. Wild has 20,000. Being generous, Wild might average 3,000 damage per second. Wild started mumbling to himself - 3k into 500k, hmm, drop the zeroes, forget the fractions, umm, that comes out to about three minutes to kill him. Of course, wild has to heal, too, so maybe 2k damage would be more realistic. More mumbling, and that works out to something over five minutes, so let's round up to six. Meanwhile, Garfrost is doing damage to Wild. Let's see, there is the AoE frost damage that stacks, which after Wild get a boulder thrown at him he can hide behind to drop the stack. But while hiding he's getting Deep Freeze and Chilling Wave, and then twice during the fight the damage doubles. So, so 3k damage per second in the first third of the fight, halved by the frost resist gear, and then doubled up twice. This is getting complicated. Since Wild theoretically can kill him, given six minutes, let's see if Wild can theoretically stay alive that long.
First two minutes: 3k damage
Second two minutes: 6k damage
Third two minutes: 12k damage
That's 21k damage, and assuming some healing in there theoretically Wild could outlast him. Piece of cake. Ha. I think I'm really underestimating the damage and over estimating how much damage Wild could deal while getting pummelled and chased by Garfrost while running from boulders.
Did Wild try it? No. Not this time, anyway. Maybe Wild will make that frost gear. Maybe Wild will drag DER into this to tank. :P
Wild's next option was to check the with guild, but they were busy with ICC or some other silly thing. Wild decided to go into dungeon finder and select normal mode Pit of Saron. Wild even set his spec to healing to ensure getting a quicker group.
Five minutes later the call came. When Wild arrived in the dungeon, though, something wasn't right. It took a moment for it to sink in, then Wild addressed the group.
"weird, this isn't the instance I signed up for," a perplexed Wild told them. Wild was standing in the Halls of Reflection, and a quick check revealed that it was Heroic mode.
There was a long pregnant pause from the rest of the group. No one said anything, likely thinking, "crap, we are going to lose our healer."
Wild sighed. "but ok," I said, resigned to healing a random group with what I hoped were some decent players. The paladin tank whispered Wild a thank you. For staying.
The first part of the fight was a number of waves of mobs with boss fights in between. The tank was fine, but two of the DPS could not manage aggro and at least one of them would die on each wave. On one wave we had to manage with only three players, as we couldn't get dead players rezzed in time between waves and Wild's battle rez was still on cooldown. Wild did what he could to help the DPSers, but I made sure of two things first - the tank lived, and so did Wild. That ensured there would be no wipe, even if the fight took awhile. We survived. The second part of the fight is a chase that's fun and easy, and we finished the instance. Wild has done PoS three times now, twice as the healer. Loot in PoS on heroic is ilevel 232. Wild needs very little from there, but a cloth belt dropped that had both crit and haste that would probably help Wild's moonkin spec. I rolled greed on it. The shaman in the group complained that the loot system would not let him bid on it (not sure why not) but as a result Wild got it. Not to mention Wild got two frost emblems and some triumph emblems out of it. So it wasn't a complete waste of time.
Why did Wild not get the dungeon he asked for? Well, once I thought about it it was obvious. Wild had already "done" PoS that night. Not completed it of course, but I was in there, and had initiated the event, so DF was not going to assign that dungeon to Wild.
Also on Monday night Philly was able to collect her fourth JC token, and bought the recipe for Runed Cardinal Ruby. Not only that, but JB did a transmute to get a cardinal ruby so Philly could actually use the recipe. The cut gem then went to Wild so he could equip it in the new belt he got from PoS. See how all those things tie together?
Oh yea, Philly is now 31% of the way to level 75.
Oh yea again, Wild still has to go back to PoS to get the dang quest done.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Weekend (21 Feb) - In No Particular Order
Weekend (21 Feb) - In No Particular Order
Various members of the DER clan have recently been touting the awesomeness of levelling in random dungeon runs. From the Wild family perspective, the only folks using the dungeon finder were the two level 80s, Wild and JB. The dungeon runs provided badges, pure and simple.
But Dungeon Finder works just as well with under level 80 players that are in search of help for a specific dungeon or dungeon quests, or just for levelling in a dungeon setting instead of questing or pvp. I knew about it, but couldn't convince the likes of Philly, Mery, Melasahnd, Jocelyne, or the others. They continued to level by questing, grinding kills, a bit of pvp, and occasionally by dungeon run throughs with a much higher level friend or two.
Late Friday night DER and Philly battled Wintergrasp and then decided to give the 30s team some pvp time. Druid healer Ando (level 34) and hunter Mery (level 36) paired up for some solid WSG and AB battles. I think we won three of four. The time between matches kept getting longer, though, and Ando brought up the idea of joining the dungeon finder queue for some dungeon action. Mery was a little shy about trying that. She has been very much a solo player most of her life, and even her pvp experience is pretty light. Mery had no experience in five man dungeons and only the vaguest of ideas of what to do. Now, of course she knew all about dungeons, but that knowledge was primarily from Wild's perspective as a druid healer and moonkin. JB added her own insights as well, but neither Wild nor JB knew anything specific about what was expected of a hunter. In general, Mery stood at range and fired away at the bad guys with her bow, and sending her pet into the fray to add additional damage. She could use a few special bowshots for extra damage and used mana. She also could set an Aspect that would provide buffs to her and the rest of the group. Hunters have a range of traps that can be set, as well as some very nice special talents such as Feign Death (which is like playing possum) and the ability to redirect a mob that is after you and send it after someone else. What Mery lacked was the experience or training in knowing what to use and when.
I suppose Mery also had it in her head that these dungeon adventures would be what ancient Wild remembered them to be back in the day (when cows were cows and level 60 was the top of the world). Wild's days of dungeons back in his 30s seemed as tough then as the new dungeons we poke our noses into with every new patch now.
But Ando was winning Mery over with visions of dancing xp and climbing levels. "It'll be fun!"
We joined together, and it only took a few minutes to fill the five man group. We had a mage and two paladins to go with Ando, who was healing, and Mery. Mery had her pet Sassy with her, a gorilla more suited to tanking than DPS, but Mery figured that this was just a trial run. The dungeon was one of the wings of the Scarlet Monastery (SM). SM is a mob crazy dungeon and the denizens just love to flee a fight and go rally others to come and help. On our first or second pull I think we brought down a couple of dozen mobs in about three waves of "Crap, here come some more!" Sassy proved to be quite adept at tanking, and helped keep mobs off of Mery and Ando while Ando poured on the healing.
Back in Wild's days this would have been a wipe. Yet this time, due I'm sure to many factors such as improved gear, dungeon nerfs, and lots of experience from players who have levelled multiple toons, there was no wipe and only one death - the tank. Which oddly didn't seem to hurt us. We laughed it off. The tank said he would slow down a tad, so that we didn't pull that many. We didn't just slow down, though, we all but stopped, and after single and double pulling mobs for a few minutes even Mery was wanting to move things along a little faster. We killed the first boss with no problem and then, with no explanation, both paladins abruptly left the group. They might have been friends on the same server, or they both might have only been interested in the first boss. No idea, but we were now down to three, with no tank.
Well, not quite with no tank. Ando pointed at the next mob in our way, and said, "Let Sassy tank." So that's what we did. Sassy has a Charge ability and that worked wonders in getting a mob's full attention. Once we got into a rhythm, Ando could even pre-strike mobs with moonfire and the four of us (counting Sassy) plowed through the dungeon. We did not get any further help until we were near the final boss, when another player joined us who took over part of the tanking.
Mery led in DPS with 91, but that was really just #1 of 2 since there were only three of us and Ando was healing. Still, Mery was pretty excited when the final boss went down and she DINGED! to level 37. Normal random dungeons don't award badges, but they do reward a satchel that has a blue quality item of gear in it.
Ando and Mery would delve into dungeon finder three more times, again in SM and twice in Razorfen Downs, another mob heavy dungeon a bit higher level than SM. All the time we were playing Ando and Mery kept up a discussion on hunters in pve and Ando (who learned at the knee of hunter Red) offered suggestions for improvement. By the end of the evening Mery's DPS had improved to 123 DPS, not bad considering it started at just 91. Part of that was due to switching out Sassy for a more DPS focused pet, Mery's large black-winged predator, Fleshrypper. The RFD runs were more of a race than a real dungeon battle, as the mobs were no match for the DPS heavy group. Mery was 3rd in DPS, but the two ahead of her were far, far ahead. The only DPSer Mery beat was the other hunter in the group.
When it all ended not only had Mery DINGED 37, she DINGED 38 as well. Ando had jumped from level 34 to level 36. For pure levelling, dungeon finder is by far the fastest way to do it.
Wild was happy for Mery, as she came home all excited about the experience, the new exposure to dungeons, and some new gear to fuss over. Wild was in a reflective mood, though. Wild would never want to go back to the days when lower level players HAD to get into dungeons in order to do mandatory quests and earn the loot to get into the end game content. At least not when getting a dungeon run together could take hours or days or in some cases never. Wild has lots of fond memories of the good ole days, but that wasn't one of them. Yet Wild has his reservations about what dungeons have now become. Wild and JB both discovered quickly that running level 80 heroic dungeons were nothing more than a kill grind. Very little strategy was needed as even modestly geared players way overmatched the content. We can just plow through it, ignoring the carefully crafted strategies that made these encounter interesting and fun. As long as someone had enough sense to know where to go, it was simply kill and move on. And frankly, Wild has been in groups where we just meandered about killing whatever we found.
So Wild was a bit sad when he learned from Mery that lower level dungeon runs are much the same as the level 80 ones. Many players will plow through these dungeons for the xp and the loot, and never experience the thrill of actually learning how to run the dungeon the way it was designed and meant to be done. Maybe even getting a glimpse of how all that lore fit into what was going on in there beyond killing things. Doing Wailing Caverns the first time was an awesome event for a young group of teens, and left an indelible impression on Wild. The same for many other dungeons, which took time and effort to defeat. For all Mery's success, she really didn't use many of her talents and abilities, because they simply weren't needed. It's only when challenged that players really learn how to play. I guess Wild is just getting old.
Back when Philly decided to start levelling again and took up the Jewelcraftng profession in addition to Inscription, I thought the Wild family had it all figured out. JB held on to Alchemy and Herbalism. Wild had his Tailoring and Enchanting, and Melasahnd was going to fill in with Mining and either Blacksmithing or Engineering. There was a lot of activity and Wild was happy that everyone was doing their chores. Then one day Wild discovered that things weren't as organized as he thought.
It started with a Huge Citrine. Philly needed one. No, it is not a drink and it's not a, ahem, toy. It's a gem, ok? There is a daily quest for Jewelcrafters that Wild had told Philly not to bother with until she was high enough level to do the quest. Philly chafed at the restriction for weeks, and when she hit level 73 demanded to try. The mobs she was after were right below Dalaran, just a portal away. Well, she sort of got lost, and got herself killed. Philly doesn't give up, though, and she was determined enough even to ask Wild for help. Wild knew better than to argue, and he went with Philly and killed the mob she needed killed. In addition to what the mob dropped, Philly also needed a sun crystal and a shadow crystal. She prospects ore for gems like that, and got some help from DER with a stack of saronite ore. Mission accomplished. The end result is that Philly earned a JC token. With four tokens she can buy one the top end JC recipes.
Roll forward a day (it's a daily quest, remember). JB gets the JC daily, and it's not the same as the one the day before. She does her research and figures out where to find mobs that she can both reach and can kill at her level. She gets the kill, but this time to go along with that she needs a bloodstone and a huge citrine. The bloodstone was readily available, and Philly knew she had huge citrines, but over time and as more gems were collected, they wound up scattered across the banks of multiple toons. Where the heck were those huge citrines?
It all got sorted out eventually, and one day the Wild family will get more organized. But there was a more immediate issue. The first recipe Philly will buy when she gets four JC tokens is the Runed Cardinal Ruby with it's +23 spell power. Cutting that recipe requires only one thing - a cardinal ruby. These rubies can cost 200g or more each. Miners can find them, but Melasahnd was not yet a good enough miner for that. Buy them? That's when JB smacked herself upside the head. I can make them, she remembered, using an Alchemy transmute. Only one gem can be transmuted per day, something that JB should have already been doing but had forgotten about. Alchemy and gem transmutes? Who would have paired those two things?
So now Philly has to prospect for gems so they can be used in the daily quest she must remember to do, while JB must continue to do her transmute to make the high end gem everyone wants for the cut recipes. For want of a huge citrine we uncovered a bunch of things we should have been doing all along.
By the way, Philly DINGED to level 74 and even took the time to dust off her Discipline spec in the expectation of doing some random dungeon healing to get into practice. We'll see how that works out.
Another thing to report is that on Saturday I received my Authenticator. This is a device that is used to add an extra layer of security when logging into WoW. I have been skeptical about this, but at $6.50 I decided to check it out. I intended to hate it when it came in, but once I set it up I had to admit I should have bought it a long time ago. The device easily fits on a keychain, does not attach in any way to the computer, and can be used anywhere. All I have to do is press a button on the device and type in the number displayed, along with my regular password. Read the Blizzard post to get the details, but it works and it's simple and quick to use. AND, you get a really AWESOME vanity pet once it's been activated!
Information about the next patch (3.3.3) has come out on the heels of announcing a follow on patch (3.3.5). What happened to 3.3.4? Who knows. I'm running long so an explanation will have to come in another post, but there seems to be major changes in the pvp/battlegrounds system and big tweaks to dungeon finder (battlegrounds in dungeon finder? Yep). Patch 3.3.5 has surprised the community by announcing another dungeon - The Ruby Sanctum in the Wyrmrest Temple in Dragonblight. This is a four boss dungeon at the same level as Icecrown Citadel. The merry-go-round turns ever faster. Grind baby grind!
Sorry if things are sounding a bit disjointed. Order should be restored next week, assuming Blizzard doesn't wack us with maintenance on Tuesday again. But I bet they will.
Various members of the DER clan have recently been touting the awesomeness of levelling in random dungeon runs. From the Wild family perspective, the only folks using the dungeon finder were the two level 80s, Wild and JB. The dungeon runs provided badges, pure and simple.
But Dungeon Finder works just as well with under level 80 players that are in search of help for a specific dungeon or dungeon quests, or just for levelling in a dungeon setting instead of questing or pvp. I knew about it, but couldn't convince the likes of Philly, Mery, Melasahnd, Jocelyne, or the others. They continued to level by questing, grinding kills, a bit of pvp, and occasionally by dungeon run throughs with a much higher level friend or two.
Late Friday night DER and Philly battled Wintergrasp and then decided to give the 30s team some pvp time. Druid healer Ando (level 34) and hunter Mery (level 36) paired up for some solid WSG and AB battles. I think we won three of four. The time between matches kept getting longer, though, and Ando brought up the idea of joining the dungeon finder queue for some dungeon action. Mery was a little shy about trying that. She has been very much a solo player most of her life, and even her pvp experience is pretty light. Mery had no experience in five man dungeons and only the vaguest of ideas of what to do. Now, of course she knew all about dungeons, but that knowledge was primarily from Wild's perspective as a druid healer and moonkin. JB added her own insights as well, but neither Wild nor JB knew anything specific about what was expected of a hunter. In general, Mery stood at range and fired away at the bad guys with her bow, and sending her pet into the fray to add additional damage. She could use a few special bowshots for extra damage and used mana. She also could set an Aspect that would provide buffs to her and the rest of the group. Hunters have a range of traps that can be set, as well as some very nice special talents such as Feign Death (which is like playing possum) and the ability to redirect a mob that is after you and send it after someone else. What Mery lacked was the experience or training in knowing what to use and when.
I suppose Mery also had it in her head that these dungeon adventures would be what ancient Wild remembered them to be back in the day (when cows were cows and level 60 was the top of the world). Wild's days of dungeons back in his 30s seemed as tough then as the new dungeons we poke our noses into with every new patch now.
But Ando was winning Mery over with visions of dancing xp and climbing levels. "It'll be fun!"
We joined together, and it only took a few minutes to fill the five man group. We had a mage and two paladins to go with Ando, who was healing, and Mery. Mery had her pet Sassy with her, a gorilla more suited to tanking than DPS, but Mery figured that this was just a trial run. The dungeon was one of the wings of the Scarlet Monastery (SM). SM is a mob crazy dungeon and the denizens just love to flee a fight and go rally others to come and help. On our first or second pull I think we brought down a couple of dozen mobs in about three waves of "Crap, here come some more!" Sassy proved to be quite adept at tanking, and helped keep mobs off of Mery and Ando while Ando poured on the healing.
Back in Wild's days this would have been a wipe. Yet this time, due I'm sure to many factors such as improved gear, dungeon nerfs, and lots of experience from players who have levelled multiple toons, there was no wipe and only one death - the tank. Which oddly didn't seem to hurt us. We laughed it off. The tank said he would slow down a tad, so that we didn't pull that many. We didn't just slow down, though, we all but stopped, and after single and double pulling mobs for a few minutes even Mery was wanting to move things along a little faster. We killed the first boss with no problem and then, with no explanation, both paladins abruptly left the group. They might have been friends on the same server, or they both might have only been interested in the first boss. No idea, but we were now down to three, with no tank.
Well, not quite with no tank. Ando pointed at the next mob in our way, and said, "Let Sassy tank." So that's what we did. Sassy has a Charge ability and that worked wonders in getting a mob's full attention. Once we got into a rhythm, Ando could even pre-strike mobs with moonfire and the four of us (counting Sassy) plowed through the dungeon. We did not get any further help until we were near the final boss, when another player joined us who took over part of the tanking.
Mery led in DPS with 91, but that was really just #1 of 2 since there were only three of us and Ando was healing. Still, Mery was pretty excited when the final boss went down and she DINGED! to level 37. Normal random dungeons don't award badges, but they do reward a satchel that has a blue quality item of gear in it.
Ando and Mery would delve into dungeon finder three more times, again in SM and twice in Razorfen Downs, another mob heavy dungeon a bit higher level than SM. All the time we were playing Ando and Mery kept up a discussion on hunters in pve and Ando (who learned at the knee of hunter Red) offered suggestions for improvement. By the end of the evening Mery's DPS had improved to 123 DPS, not bad considering it started at just 91. Part of that was due to switching out Sassy for a more DPS focused pet, Mery's large black-winged predator, Fleshrypper. The RFD runs were more of a race than a real dungeon battle, as the mobs were no match for the DPS heavy group. Mery was 3rd in DPS, but the two ahead of her were far, far ahead. The only DPSer Mery beat was the other hunter in the group.
When it all ended not only had Mery DINGED 37, she DINGED 38 as well. Ando had jumped from level 34 to level 36. For pure levelling, dungeon finder is by far the fastest way to do it.
Wild was happy for Mery, as she came home all excited about the experience, the new exposure to dungeons, and some new gear to fuss over. Wild was in a reflective mood, though. Wild would never want to go back to the days when lower level players HAD to get into dungeons in order to do mandatory quests and earn the loot to get into the end game content. At least not when getting a dungeon run together could take hours or days or in some cases never. Wild has lots of fond memories of the good ole days, but that wasn't one of them. Yet Wild has his reservations about what dungeons have now become. Wild and JB both discovered quickly that running level 80 heroic dungeons were nothing more than a kill grind. Very little strategy was needed as even modestly geared players way overmatched the content. We can just plow through it, ignoring the carefully crafted strategies that made these encounter interesting and fun. As long as someone had enough sense to know where to go, it was simply kill and move on. And frankly, Wild has been in groups where we just meandered about killing whatever we found.
So Wild was a bit sad when he learned from Mery that lower level dungeon runs are much the same as the level 80 ones. Many players will plow through these dungeons for the xp and the loot, and never experience the thrill of actually learning how to run the dungeon the way it was designed and meant to be done. Maybe even getting a glimpse of how all that lore fit into what was going on in there beyond killing things. Doing Wailing Caverns the first time was an awesome event for a young group of teens, and left an indelible impression on Wild. The same for many other dungeons, which took time and effort to defeat. For all Mery's success, she really didn't use many of her talents and abilities, because they simply weren't needed. It's only when challenged that players really learn how to play. I guess Wild is just getting old.
Back when Philly decided to start levelling again and took up the Jewelcraftng profession in addition to Inscription, I thought the Wild family had it all figured out. JB held on to Alchemy and Herbalism. Wild had his Tailoring and Enchanting, and Melasahnd was going to fill in with Mining and either Blacksmithing or Engineering. There was a lot of activity and Wild was happy that everyone was doing their chores. Then one day Wild discovered that things weren't as organized as he thought.
It started with a Huge Citrine. Philly needed one. No, it is not a drink and it's not a, ahem, toy. It's a gem, ok? There is a daily quest for Jewelcrafters that Wild had told Philly not to bother with until she was high enough level to do the quest. Philly chafed at the restriction for weeks, and when she hit level 73 demanded to try. The mobs she was after were right below Dalaran, just a portal away. Well, she sort of got lost, and got herself killed. Philly doesn't give up, though, and she was determined enough even to ask Wild for help. Wild knew better than to argue, and he went with Philly and killed the mob she needed killed. In addition to what the mob dropped, Philly also needed a sun crystal and a shadow crystal. She prospects ore for gems like that, and got some help from DER with a stack of saronite ore. Mission accomplished. The end result is that Philly earned a JC token. With four tokens she can buy one the top end JC recipes.
Roll forward a day (it's a daily quest, remember). JB gets the JC daily, and it's not the same as the one the day before. She does her research and figures out where to find mobs that she can both reach and can kill at her level. She gets the kill, but this time to go along with that she needs a bloodstone and a huge citrine. The bloodstone was readily available, and Philly knew she had huge citrines, but over time and as more gems were collected, they wound up scattered across the banks of multiple toons. Where the heck were those huge citrines?
It all got sorted out eventually, and one day the Wild family will get more organized. But there was a more immediate issue. The first recipe Philly will buy when she gets four JC tokens is the Runed Cardinal Ruby with it's +23 spell power. Cutting that recipe requires only one thing - a cardinal ruby. These rubies can cost 200g or more each. Miners can find them, but Melasahnd was not yet a good enough miner for that. Buy them? That's when JB smacked herself upside the head. I can make them, she remembered, using an Alchemy transmute. Only one gem can be transmuted per day, something that JB should have already been doing but had forgotten about. Alchemy and gem transmutes? Who would have paired those two things?
So now Philly has to prospect for gems so they can be used in the daily quest she must remember to do, while JB must continue to do her transmute to make the high end gem everyone wants for the cut recipes. For want of a huge citrine we uncovered a bunch of things we should have been doing all along.
By the way, Philly DINGED to level 74 and even took the time to dust off her Discipline spec in the expectation of doing some random dungeon healing to get into practice. We'll see how that works out.
Another thing to report is that on Saturday I received my Authenticator. This is a device that is used to add an extra layer of security when logging into WoW. I have been skeptical about this, but at $6.50 I decided to check it out. I intended to hate it when it came in, but once I set it up I had to admit I should have bought it a long time ago. The device easily fits on a keychain, does not attach in any way to the computer, and can be used anywhere. All I have to do is press a button on the device and type in the number displayed, along with my regular password. Read the Blizzard post to get the details, but it works and it's simple and quick to use. AND, you get a really AWESOME vanity pet once it's been activated!
Information about the next patch (3.3.3) has come out on the heels of announcing a follow on patch (3.3.5). What happened to 3.3.4? Who knows. I'm running long so an explanation will have to come in another post, but there seems to be major changes in the pvp/battlegrounds system and big tweaks to dungeon finder (battlegrounds in dungeon finder? Yep). Patch 3.3.5 has surprised the community by announcing another dungeon - The Ruby Sanctum in the Wyrmrest Temple in Dragonblight. This is a four boss dungeon at the same level as Icecrown Citadel. The merry-go-round turns ever faster. Grind baby grind!
Sorry if things are sounding a bit disjointed. Order should be restored next week, assuming Blizzard doesn't wack us with maintenance on Tuesday again. But I bet they will.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Thursday (18 Feb) Gear Wars
Thursday (18 Feb) Gear Wars
The DER Family is definitely making out with all that heirloom gear. Not just one of each, but even going with more than one gear type (the shoulders cloth and plate). Wild's excuse is that his family would just squabble over all those goodies. Three pieces are all you get, boys and girls, Wild tells them. And sure, Melasahnd might want those plate shoulders, but hey, she can wear cloth, can't she? Of course, when Wild's back is turned JB twists Happy's nose and he buys off the rack gear from the AH for those who need it. Seriously, though, that is a nice set of heirloom gear to keep the DER Family moving forward.
Wild couldn't help but mention, however, that he won a couple of WG matches and spent his winning honor points on those i264 bracers, and is up to five i264 pieces. That now makes a weapon upgrade Wild's most critical need.
Wild is currently using [Surgeon's Needle]. This an i232 dagger won in the Pit of Saron dungeon on the day that new dungeon debuted. So, it is still a relatively new weapon, and better than many. As a standard for comparison, caster weapons are measured largely by how much spell power it offers. There are many other stats that must be compared as well, but those stats generally scale upward as spell power goes up, too. Wild's blade has +550 spell power. On Wild's first run of ICC 25 (now several weeks ago) the first boss, Marrowgar, dropped the dagger [Frozen Bonespike]. Wild's guildie friend and a fellow druid healer won the roll on this dagger. He was also wielding [Surgeon's Needle] at the time. The bonespike dagger has +741 spell power. One moment Wild and the other druid had equal weapons, and suddenly his druid friend had jumped ahead by almost 200 spell power, a titanic upgrade. Knowing that gear like that is out there . . . well, the Needle just wasn't good enough anymore.
Wild could wait until something like the bonespike dagger drops again, and hope he wins it, but maybe there are other weapons and other ways to get them. And what he came up with is the Quel'Delar quest chain.
Wild did not know anything about this chain just a few weeks ago, and only just recently learned that it was something Wild might be interested in. Some time ago Wild got it into his head to do the Sons of Hodir faction quest grind - primarily because I wanted the heirloom/BoA shoulder enchants that it offered, and second because it could be done relatively quickly. Part of that faction grind introduced Wild to Thorim and the Quel'Delar. There is a confusing array of lore regarding Thorim, but it mostly is a derivative of Norse mythology. Instead of Thor and his hammer, we have Thorim and his sword. Que'Delar is a sword. A sword that was broken. And the quest chain is for the reforging of that sword.
To start that quest, however, you have to find the battered hilt - the first piece of the broken sword. The hilt is a rare drop that can be found in the new 5 mans - Halls of Reflection, Pit of Saron, or Forge of Souls. Wild was lucky enough to get one during that first memorable run of all three of those dungeons. At the time I didn't really know what I had, but it started the quest "The Battered Hilt" (aptly named) and Wild started doing the chain along with the related Sons of Hodir faction quests. Wild reached Exalted with the Sons of Hodir, got my shoulder enchants, and then abandoned the rest of the chain. Why? Well, Quel'Dalar is a Sword. I repeat - a sword. Druids can't wield swords, so what was the point?
So, Wild was researching weapons and how to get them, and came across the [Hammer of Purified Flame]. Hmmm. It wasn't of the same calibre as the Bonespike, but it was a heck of a nice mace, and Wild could happily crush heads with a mace. Where does this mace come from? It comes from Quel'Dalar. It turns out that there are two "final" quests in the Quel'Dalar chain. One offers a set of swords to choose from - the other offers a set of maces, including the one Wild ran across. The spell power of the Hammer is +657, over a 100 more than what Wild currently has. Like I said, it's no Bonespike, but it would still be a major upgrade.
Wild rummaged around and found his quest log. Where in the chain did he stop? What is left to do? There are thirteen quests in the chain. Wild has completed six of them. Wild holds the remnants of the Quel'Delar blade. His next step is to go back to the Pit of Saron and reforge the sword at the anvil guarded by the dungeon boss Forgemaster Garfrost. From the looks of the remaining quests, Wild will be spending considerable time in the Pit, the Halls of Reflection, and the Forge of Souls. But this is all very doable. Wild can't wait to get started.
Wild is also reviewing trinkets. Both his trinkets are i219, but that isn't as bad as it sounds. They are excellent trinkets, better for a druid healer than many higher ilevel trinkets Wild could be using. He does have an upgrade path, though, but is still considering whether to go the high spell power route, or the high +int route. More on that when Wild makes up his mind.
The DER Family is definitely making out with all that heirloom gear. Not just one of each, but even going with more than one gear type (the shoulders cloth and plate). Wild's excuse is that his family would just squabble over all those goodies. Three pieces are all you get, boys and girls, Wild tells them. And sure, Melasahnd might want those plate shoulders, but hey, she can wear cloth, can't she? Of course, when Wild's back is turned JB twists Happy's nose and he buys off the rack gear from the AH for those who need it. Seriously, though, that is a nice set of heirloom gear to keep the DER Family moving forward.
Wild couldn't help but mention, however, that he won a couple of WG matches and spent his winning honor points on those i264 bracers, and is up to five i264 pieces. That now makes a weapon upgrade Wild's most critical need.
Wild is currently using [Surgeon's Needle]. This an i232 dagger won in the Pit of Saron dungeon on the day that new dungeon debuted. So, it is still a relatively new weapon, and better than many. As a standard for comparison, caster weapons are measured largely by how much spell power it offers. There are many other stats that must be compared as well, but those stats generally scale upward as spell power goes up, too. Wild's blade has +550 spell power. On Wild's first run of ICC 25 (now several weeks ago) the first boss, Marrowgar, dropped the dagger [Frozen Bonespike]. Wild's guildie friend and a fellow druid healer won the roll on this dagger. He was also wielding [Surgeon's Needle] at the time. The bonespike dagger has +741 spell power. One moment Wild and the other druid had equal weapons, and suddenly his druid friend had jumped ahead by almost 200 spell power, a titanic upgrade. Knowing that gear like that is out there . . . well, the Needle just wasn't good enough anymore.
Wild could wait until something like the bonespike dagger drops again, and hope he wins it, but maybe there are other weapons and other ways to get them. And what he came up with is the Quel'Delar quest chain.
Wild did not know anything about this chain just a few weeks ago, and only just recently learned that it was something Wild might be interested in. Some time ago Wild got it into his head to do the Sons of Hodir faction quest grind - primarily because I wanted the heirloom/BoA shoulder enchants that it offered, and second because it could be done relatively quickly. Part of that faction grind introduced Wild to Thorim and the Quel'Delar. There is a confusing array of lore regarding Thorim, but it mostly is a derivative of Norse mythology. Instead of Thor and his hammer, we have Thorim and his sword. Que'Delar is a sword. A sword that was broken. And the quest chain is for the reforging of that sword.
To start that quest, however, you have to find the battered hilt - the first piece of the broken sword. The hilt is a rare drop that can be found in the new 5 mans - Halls of Reflection, Pit of Saron, or Forge of Souls. Wild was lucky enough to get one during that first memorable run of all three of those dungeons. At the time I didn't really know what I had, but it started the quest "The Battered Hilt" (aptly named) and Wild started doing the chain along with the related Sons of Hodir faction quests. Wild reached Exalted with the Sons of Hodir, got my shoulder enchants, and then abandoned the rest of the chain. Why? Well, Quel'Dalar is a Sword. I repeat - a sword. Druids can't wield swords, so what was the point?
So, Wild was researching weapons and how to get them, and came across the [Hammer of Purified Flame]. Hmmm. It wasn't of the same calibre as the Bonespike, but it was a heck of a nice mace, and Wild could happily crush heads with a mace. Where does this mace come from? It comes from Quel'Dalar. It turns out that there are two "final" quests in the Quel'Dalar chain. One offers a set of swords to choose from - the other offers a set of maces, including the one Wild ran across. The spell power of the Hammer is +657, over a 100 more than what Wild currently has. Like I said, it's no Bonespike, but it would still be a major upgrade.
Wild rummaged around and found his quest log. Where in the chain did he stop? What is left to do? There are thirteen quests in the chain. Wild has completed six of them. Wild holds the remnants of the Quel'Delar blade. His next step is to go back to the Pit of Saron and reforge the sword at the anvil guarded by the dungeon boss Forgemaster Garfrost. From the looks of the remaining quests, Wild will be spending considerable time in the Pit, the Halls of Reflection, and the Forge of Souls. But this is all very doable. Wild can't wait to get started.
Wild is also reviewing trinkets. Both his trinkets are i219, but that isn't as bad as it sounds. They are excellent trinkets, better for a druid healer than many higher ilevel trinkets Wild could be using. He does have an upgrade path, though, but is still considering whether to go the high spell power route, or the high +int route. More on that when Wild makes up his mind.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Wednesday (17 Feb) - Rotting Faces and Festering Guts 2
Wednesday (17 Feb) - Rotting Faces and Festering Guts 2
Wild was outside Icecrown Citadel when the invite came his way. I was the last raider invited, so I hustled inside only to find no one there. Ok, get your bearings. I did not at that moment know how far the guild had gotten on Tuesday. I quickly figured that wherever they were, they were likely at the most recently opened portal within ICC. Wild trotted over to the portal in the npc area of ICC and used the last portal listed.
Ok, here they are! Wild joined the raid. Wild quickly counted healers. There were six of us: two priests, two shaman, a paladin, and Wild. Trash mobs faced us. Wild got his buffs and we started. Wild still did not know where he was or what he was facing, but I could figure that out as we went along. At least he wasn't facing a boss right off the bat.
The initial trash mobs were easy enough to kill, but there were some large mobs mixed in that had a very nasty AoE that pounded the entire raid down to almost no health. The raid leader warned raiders to be prepared for this, as they had wiped on those mobs more than once in last week's run. Wild joined the rest of the healers in timing our AoE heals to coincide with the mass AoE damage and that kept everyone alive.
We soon made it to the first boss, and Wild realized where he was. The raid was no longer in the Lower Spire of ICC. We were in the Plagueworks, the second wing of ICC. We were facing the first boss in that wing, Festergut. This was one ugly looking sob.
When the raid leader asked for a show of hands of those who had never seen this fight, four of us, including Wild, sent a hand skyward. The strategy for the fight was explained quickly, and we engaged.
We were directed to spread out, maintaining at least 10 yards between raiders to avoid multiple raiders getting hit by AoE exploding gas spores. These spores were actually a good thing, as the afflicted raider (assuming he survived) gets inoculated, and they can protect other raiders from more nastiness.
We didn't get far on the first attempt. There was a large explosion and half the raid died. That must have been a Gastric Explosion, kind of like what happens after a lot of pizza and beer. Only this explosion is a lot more fatal. That was tanking hand off problem.
We set up for a second attempt. Wild was raid healing, and was kept very busy due to constant AoE damage across the raid. Then, during periods when Festergut was focusing on the tanks, Wild helped tank heal. During the AoE phase, the amount of shadow damage being done to the raid becomes fatal, unless protected by inoculated raiders. Two healers were assigned to anchor safe zones where raiders would congregate with inoculated raiders during the worst of the AoE. The key to that was to make sure that you were both ten yards away from any other raider, but close enough to run to the safe spot when necessary. Wild made that run successfully three times, but I kept finding myself farther and farther away. Wild didn't make it on the fourth phase change and died. There were other deaths, and we wiped with Festergut at 21%.
I've mentioned before that we have two raid leaders, kind of a good cop stern cop team. The good cop RL told us what a great effort it was, and Wild learned that the guild had not yet killed this boss. The 21% was the closest yet to killing him. The stern cop RL pointed out the DPS flaws, saying that they were not bringing enough damage. Tighten it up, use speed pots, reduce movement, and bring those numbers up.
Wild knew what I'd done wrong, but the RL knew how to fix Wild's movement issues. He tagged Wild as the anchor point for one of the safe areas. Wild would not have to move at all. Wild was happy with that role, but I also knew that I could handle the movement on future fights now that I'd seen enough of the fight to get a feel for it.
We went at Festergut a third time, and this time the abomination went down. Wow, a first kill! And Wild was there.
The new EPGP loot system was in use now. Nobody had gotten around to answering Wild's question on the guild website asking when the system went live. It obviously had, though, and yet there'd been no notification. Oh well, I've already covered the raid management issues. EPGP is pretty neat. A popup comes up on the screen that shows the item up for bid, with all the choices laid out - mainspec, minor upgrade, offspec, greed and pass. You must decide within thirty seconds or it's an automatic pass. The two drops from Festergut were both cloth items and Wild passed on them. Had they been items that Wild couldn't equip (plate gear for example) Wild would have been informed that I could not bid on the item. However, there was a problem with the results, as those with master loot authority weren't all getting the same list of bidders. Most likely a problem with versions of the addon, but that got sorted out.
On the next set of trash there was a mob called Precious. I never really figured what that was all about, or which of the mobs we killed between Festergut and Rotface that Precious was. I'll have to do some more research on that. This part of ICC was still pretty new to folks, and we also stumbled into mobs that we thought despawned when we killed Festergut, but apparently were Rotface mobs. We had no trouble taking them down, though, and despite the rough edges we were soon facing Rotface.
Rotface has also never been killed by the guild in 25 man. If Wild needed to move a lot during the Festergut encounter, the movement was three times as bad against Rotface. Rotface spewed vomit that had to be avoided. The very walls of Rotface's chamber dumped spreading pools of acid across the floor, and small oozes sludged their way through the raid, doing minor damage at first, but merging with each other into bigger and nastier oozes that then explode disgustingly - and fatally for those in range. Not only does the ooze explosions hit nearby raiders, it tosses more disgusting stuff into the air that aims at raider positions as they come down.
It was a crazy fight. The raid circled Rotface with one tank handling him in the middle. Wild was the tank healer for this fight. Two other off tanks were responsible for kiting and safely exploding the oozes. Wild was almost immediately caught in the spewing snot from Rotface, but I remembered there were three snorts and managed to get out of the way of the second two. A wall belched yellow slime and Wild shifted to another quadrant to keep his feet out of the mess. When the explosions occured, raiders ran to the outer edges so that they would be somewhere other than where they were standing before. Then we returned once the stuff stopped falling. Wild avoided oozes for most of the fight, but one finally attached itself to Wild. The damage was minor when it's small. Wild looked for the off tank as the strat was to kite the sickening little fellow to the off tank and let it join with the bigger one the tank was kiting. Wild didn't get there as the raid was collapsing by that time and we wiped.
We did remarkably well, though, getting Rotface to 26%. The primary problem were the oozes. Too many had fused together and killed people. Getting those oozes out of the raid and to the off tanks was critical.
There was confusion on our second attempt and we went down quickly.
Then came the third attempt, and we came oh so close, finally wiping at 4%. We killed Rotface on our fourth attempt, another guild first. And Wild was there. Again!
I know. Pictures or it doesn't count. Well, here they are:
Rotface dropped three items, and they all appeared in EPGP windows at the same time. With only thirty seconds to respond, Wild had to act quickly. One was cloth, and Wild passed on it. The next was a +haste trinket with what Wild thought was a spell power proc feature, so Wild rolled mainspec and then, with just a few seconds left, rolled mainspec on a leather healing helm.
There was more loot confusion. The loot master announced that Wild had won the trinket and the RL moonkin had won the helm. Two other raiders, though, had bid mainspec on the trinket but their bids had not appeared to the loot master. Wild had also made a mistake in bidding mainspec on the trinket. The +haste was used by DPS and healers, but the spell power feature only procced when doing damage. Wild had missed that part. Had I seen that I could have bid offspec, but not mainspec. The issues were handled very carefully and thoroughly. Both the RL moonkin and Wild were ready to turn over our loot depending on who it rightfully belonged to.
In the end the moonkin RL was determined to be the winner of the trinket. Wild, as the only leather wearing mainspec healer in the raid (and of course I had bid on it) won the ilevel 264 helm. That makes four i264 pieces, if one is counting (points at DER :P ).
Beyond Rotface is Professor Putricide. We made one attempt on this even more complex fight in which Wild ran the leather off the soles of his hooves, and managed to get to 49%. Time was tight, and Wintergrasp belonged to the horde, so at that point we changed focus and headed for Vault of Archovan to take on the new boss, Toravon, that drops Tier 10 gear.
Wild has seen Toravon only once, and had come away from that with the T10 pants. We killed Toravon rather easily, and all the loot went to paladins. Nobody was interested in any of the other bosses in VoA, and we called it a night.
Wild had one more task to accomplish. During the ICC run Wild had reached Honored with the ICC faction called the Ashen Verdict. This faction awards a ring that is upgraded each time a higher faction level is reached. Wild was wearing the ilevel 251 version. Wild returned to ICC and traded that ring in for the better i259 ring.
Ok, so there were two more tasks. The WG battle was about ready to start. JB had clued Wild into the fact that honor points gained in battles like WG could now be used to buy i264 pvp gear. Really. JB showed Wild the one she picked up, an incredible cape. Wild's greatest need in terms of gear was a new weapon (which is mostly wishful thinking only) and new bracers to replace the badly worn, i226 [Bracers of the Broodmother] which came from Ulduar. Wouldn't it be nice to get at least an interim upgrade by getting the i264 pvp bracers? Wild needed about 45k honor, and had 32k of that just gathering dust. Wild decided to start doing WG again. It'll take four or five runs to get enough honor to get those bracers. JB now wishes she hadn't told Wild about it. Now she'll have to share time with Wild in getting the rest of the gear she wants.
Wild was outside Icecrown Citadel when the invite came his way. I was the last raider invited, so I hustled inside only to find no one there. Ok, get your bearings. I did not at that moment know how far the guild had gotten on Tuesday. I quickly figured that wherever they were, they were likely at the most recently opened portal within ICC. Wild trotted over to the portal in the npc area of ICC and used the last portal listed.
Ok, here they are! Wild joined the raid. Wild quickly counted healers. There were six of us: two priests, two shaman, a paladin, and Wild. Trash mobs faced us. Wild got his buffs and we started. Wild still did not know where he was or what he was facing, but I could figure that out as we went along. At least he wasn't facing a boss right off the bat.
The initial trash mobs were easy enough to kill, but there were some large mobs mixed in that had a very nasty AoE that pounded the entire raid down to almost no health. The raid leader warned raiders to be prepared for this, as they had wiped on those mobs more than once in last week's run. Wild joined the rest of the healers in timing our AoE heals to coincide with the mass AoE damage and that kept everyone alive.
We soon made it to the first boss, and Wild realized where he was. The raid was no longer in the Lower Spire of ICC. We were in the Plagueworks, the second wing of ICC. We were facing the first boss in that wing, Festergut. This was one ugly looking sob.
This is Festergut - an Abomination (Obviously)
When the raid leader asked for a show of hands of those who had never seen this fight, four of us, including Wild, sent a hand skyward. The strategy for the fight was explained quickly, and we engaged.
We were directed to spread out, maintaining at least 10 yards between raiders to avoid multiple raiders getting hit by AoE exploding gas spores. These spores were actually a good thing, as the afflicted raider (assuming he survived) gets inoculated, and they can protect other raiders from more nastiness.
We didn't get far on the first attempt. There was a large explosion and half the raid died. That must have been a Gastric Explosion, kind of like what happens after a lot of pizza and beer. Only this explosion is a lot more fatal. That was tanking hand off problem.
We set up for a second attempt. Wild was raid healing, and was kept very busy due to constant AoE damage across the raid. Then, during periods when Festergut was focusing on the tanks, Wild helped tank heal. During the AoE phase, the amount of shadow damage being done to the raid becomes fatal, unless protected by inoculated raiders. Two healers were assigned to anchor safe zones where raiders would congregate with inoculated raiders during the worst of the AoE. The key to that was to make sure that you were both ten yards away from any other raider, but close enough to run to the safe spot when necessary. Wild made that run successfully three times, but I kept finding myself farther and farther away. Wild didn't make it on the fourth phase change and died. There were other deaths, and we wiped with Festergut at 21%.
I've mentioned before that we have two raid leaders, kind of a good cop stern cop team. The good cop RL told us what a great effort it was, and Wild learned that the guild had not yet killed this boss. The 21% was the closest yet to killing him. The stern cop RL pointed out the DPS flaws, saying that they were not bringing enough damage. Tighten it up, use speed pots, reduce movement, and bring those numbers up.
Wild knew what I'd done wrong, but the RL knew how to fix Wild's movement issues. He tagged Wild as the anchor point for one of the safe areas. Wild would not have to move at all. Wild was happy with that role, but I also knew that I could handle the movement on future fights now that I'd seen enough of the fight to get a feel for it.
We went at Festergut a third time, and this time the abomination went down. Wow, a first kill! And Wild was there.
The new EPGP loot system was in use now. Nobody had gotten around to answering Wild's question on the guild website asking when the system went live. It obviously had, though, and yet there'd been no notification. Oh well, I've already covered the raid management issues. EPGP is pretty neat. A popup comes up on the screen that shows the item up for bid, with all the choices laid out - mainspec, minor upgrade, offspec, greed and pass. You must decide within thirty seconds or it's an automatic pass. The two drops from Festergut were both cloth items and Wild passed on them. Had they been items that Wild couldn't equip (plate gear for example) Wild would have been informed that I could not bid on the item. However, there was a problem with the results, as those with master loot authority weren't all getting the same list of bidders. Most likely a problem with versions of the addon, but that got sorted out.
On the next set of trash there was a mob called Precious. I never really figured what that was all about, or which of the mobs we killed between Festergut and Rotface that Precious was. I'll have to do some more research on that. This part of ICC was still pretty new to folks, and we also stumbled into mobs that we thought despawned when we killed Festergut, but apparently were Rotface mobs. We had no trouble taking them down, though, and despite the rough edges we were soon facing Rotface.
Rotface is even prettier than Festergut
Rotface has also never been killed by the guild in 25 man. If Wild needed to move a lot during the Festergut encounter, the movement was three times as bad against Rotface. Rotface spewed vomit that had to be avoided. The very walls of Rotface's chamber dumped spreading pools of acid across the floor, and small oozes sludged their way through the raid, doing minor damage at first, but merging with each other into bigger and nastier oozes that then explode disgustingly - and fatally for those in range. Not only does the ooze explosions hit nearby raiders, it tosses more disgusting stuff into the air that aims at raider positions as they come down.
It was a crazy fight. The raid circled Rotface with one tank handling him in the middle. Wild was the tank healer for this fight. Two other off tanks were responsible for kiting and safely exploding the oozes. Wild was almost immediately caught in the spewing snot from Rotface, but I remembered there were three snorts and managed to get out of the way of the second two. A wall belched yellow slime and Wild shifted to another quadrant to keep his feet out of the mess. When the explosions occured, raiders ran to the outer edges so that they would be somewhere other than where they were standing before. Then we returned once the stuff stopped falling. Wild avoided oozes for most of the fight, but one finally attached itself to Wild. The damage was minor when it's small. Wild looked for the off tank as the strat was to kite the sickening little fellow to the off tank and let it join with the bigger one the tank was kiting. Wild didn't get there as the raid was collapsing by that time and we wiped.
We did remarkably well, though, getting Rotface to 26%. The primary problem were the oozes. Too many had fused together and killed people. Getting those oozes out of the raid and to the off tanks was critical.
There was confusion on our second attempt and we went down quickly.
Then came the third attempt, and we came oh so close, finally wiping at 4%. We killed Rotface on our fourth attempt, another guild first. And Wild was there. Again!
I know. Pictures or it doesn't count. Well, here they are:
Festergut Kill
Rotface Kill
Rotface dropped three items, and they all appeared in EPGP windows at the same time. With only thirty seconds to respond, Wild had to act quickly. One was cloth, and Wild passed on it. The next was a +haste trinket with what Wild thought was a spell power proc feature, so Wild rolled mainspec and then, with just a few seconds left, rolled mainspec on a leather healing helm.
There was more loot confusion. The loot master announced that Wild had won the trinket and the RL moonkin had won the helm. Two other raiders, though, had bid mainspec on the trinket but their bids had not appeared to the loot master. Wild had also made a mistake in bidding mainspec on the trinket. The +haste was used by DPS and healers, but the spell power feature only procced when doing damage. Wild had missed that part. Had I seen that I could have bid offspec, but not mainspec. The issues were handled very carefully and thoroughly. Both the RL moonkin and Wild were ready to turn over our loot depending on who it rightfully belonged to.
In the end the moonkin RL was determined to be the winner of the trinket. Wild, as the only leather wearing mainspec healer in the raid (and of course I had bid on it) won the ilevel 264 helm. That makes four i264 pieces, if one is counting (points at DER :P ).
Beyond Rotface is Professor Putricide. We made one attempt on this even more complex fight in which Wild ran the leather off the soles of his hooves, and managed to get to 49%. Time was tight, and Wintergrasp belonged to the horde, so at that point we changed focus and headed for Vault of Archovan to take on the new boss, Toravon, that drops Tier 10 gear.
Wild has seen Toravon only once, and had come away from that with the T10 pants. We killed Toravon rather easily, and all the loot went to paladins. Nobody was interested in any of the other bosses in VoA, and we called it a night.
Wild had one more task to accomplish. During the ICC run Wild had reached Honored with the ICC faction called the Ashen Verdict. This faction awards a ring that is upgraded each time a higher faction level is reached. Wild was wearing the ilevel 251 version. Wild returned to ICC and traded that ring in for the better i259 ring.
Ok, so there were two more tasks. The WG battle was about ready to start. JB had clued Wild into the fact that honor points gained in battles like WG could now be used to buy i264 pvp gear. Really. JB showed Wild the one she picked up, an incredible cape. Wild's greatest need in terms of gear was a new weapon (which is mostly wishful thinking only) and new bracers to replace the badly worn, i226 [Bracers of the Broodmother] which came from Ulduar. Wouldn't it be nice to get at least an interim upgrade by getting the i264 pvp bracers? Wild needed about 45k honor, and had 32k of that just gathering dust. Wild decided to start doing WG again. It'll take four or five runs to get enough honor to get those bracers. JB now wishes she hadn't told Wild about it. Now she'll have to share time with Wild in getting the rest of the gear she wants.
Wednesday (17 Feb) - Rotting Faces and Festering Guts
Wednesday (17 Feb) - Rotting Faces and Festering Guts
The Silvermoon server was remarkably well behaved Wednesday. Wild had no trouble logging in at 5:30pm, and even the busy city of Dalaran seemed halfway free of lag. But it seemed that this would be where Wild's fortune would end. The calendar invites for the MM group weren't working properly and Wild had been unable to sign up for the raid. Wild had sent in game mail to the raid leader, Bd, letting him know Wild would be there. At 5:45pm, though, the usually early arriving Bd was still not in game, and there were only two other MM raiders in game.
Wednesday was also the second night of raiding for Wild's guild, but Wild had declined that invitation, expecting to be raiding with the MM group. Given that Wild had not been invited to the Tuesday run, it was with a little bit of surprise that Wild got a whisper from a guild raid leader. "You declined the invite, has your status changed?" Wild sent back that the MM raid leader was still not in game, but that I would let him know as soon as I knew if the MM group raid was still on or not. The raid leader sent back, "k, we might have some open spots tonight."
Wild whispered one of the MM raiders and learned that Bd, who had been in between jobs in real life for several weeks, had gotten a job. That was good news for him, but the work hours conflicted with our raid schedule. The MM guild was getting together to decide what to do in the hopes of keeping the raid going with a schedule that Bd could make. Wild replied that I loved raiding with the group and would like to remain a part of the raid if I could. The MM raider, Sh, made it clear that Wild was welcome and needed in the group, and would keep me informed.
So, what about tonight's raid? The MM group would not be raiding. At 5:55pm, Wild whispered the guild raid leader and let him know that I was available to raid with them if they needed me. He promised to let Wild know in the next ten minutes whether there would be a spot. Wild was still in Dalaran, so I shifted to flying form and made the relatively short flight to Icecrown Citadel.
While Wild waited some real life friends stopped by and I got the company of the little girl that I generally entertain while Mom and spouse catch up on the gossip. When I happen to be on the computer she likes to take control of whatever toon I'm running and go exploring. She was a little disappointed that I might actually have to raid, and she hoped that I wouldn't get in the raid. Then she could play. Frankly, I would have been ok either way.
At 6:05pm Wild got his invite to the raid. I don't have any preconceived notions about what the invite means. Wild was the last invite. They were short healers and in particular, needed a druid healer. Wednesday is a tougher night for the guild to fill, which is likely a combination of key raiders not being able to raid on Wednesday, and the fact that Wednesday's raid tackled bosses that haven't been killed or gotten to farm status yet, so Tuesday is the far more popular night. Wild had posted on the guild website asking for the second time for an explanation of the invite/standby process. The post was not responded to directly, but a separate post referred to my request indirectly and came right to the point on the issue that I had raised. Raiders are placed in one of two categories, Tier 1 or Tier 2. Since Wild cannot make both raid nights, Wild automatically falls into Tier 2. Here's the guild policy on invites for the two groups:
"If a tier one is asked to sit out they will be put on a rotation against other tier ones in that particular category. A tier two will only get an invite for a role if there are not enough tier one raiders to fill that role. A tier two that does not get to run is NOT put on a rotation to get in against other tier ones, but other tier twos. The exception to that is raid buffs or class voids in a particular role. Attendance is also a factor. People that can commit two nights are better for the raid then folks that just show for the farm content."
No matter how consistent the participation, no matter how well prepared, Wild will get an invite ONLY when the raid is short tier 1 healers and then, attendance will be rotated with the other tier 2 healers. Given past attendance on Tuesday's, I see Wild getting that invite maybe no more than once a month.
The guidance concluded: "FS is a casual guild, but casual raiding has not ever worked. We now have a large enough pool of people committed to raiding to keep us moving forward on progression content and that is where the RAID focus will be."
FS is now rated #11 among all horde guilds in 25 man ICC content. Given the state of guild raiding just a few weeks ago, that is a pretty nice accomplishment. It's clear that the intent is to move even further toward hardcore raiding. The regulars get full preference, and the rest are just fill ins. There are still issues with raid healing, which is called "sporadic" and the raid's "weakest aspect." More recruiting is in the works, and Tier 2 healers will likely get even less chance to raid. This is the direction that the guild is going with raiding. There are serious flaws to this approach, but there's no sense raising those issues again as the direction has been decided on.
But back to Wednesday night. On Tuesday the raid cleared the four bosses in the the Lower Spire of ICC: Lord Marrowgar, Lady Deathwhisper, Gunship Battle, and Deathbringer Saurfang. These bosses are pretty much on farm, and that is another reason Tuesday is a popular raid night for the guild.
The Wednesday raid itself was a lot of fun, and I'll cover that in detail in the next post.
The Silvermoon server was remarkably well behaved Wednesday. Wild had no trouble logging in at 5:30pm, and even the busy city of Dalaran seemed halfway free of lag. But it seemed that this would be where Wild's fortune would end. The calendar invites for the MM group weren't working properly and Wild had been unable to sign up for the raid. Wild had sent in game mail to the raid leader, Bd, letting him know Wild would be there. At 5:45pm, though, the usually early arriving Bd was still not in game, and there were only two other MM raiders in game.
Wednesday was also the second night of raiding for Wild's guild, but Wild had declined that invitation, expecting to be raiding with the MM group. Given that Wild had not been invited to the Tuesday run, it was with a little bit of surprise that Wild got a whisper from a guild raid leader. "You declined the invite, has your status changed?" Wild sent back that the MM raid leader was still not in game, but that I would let him know as soon as I knew if the MM group raid was still on or not. The raid leader sent back, "k, we might have some open spots tonight."
Wild whispered one of the MM raiders and learned that Bd, who had been in between jobs in real life for several weeks, had gotten a job. That was good news for him, but the work hours conflicted with our raid schedule. The MM guild was getting together to decide what to do in the hopes of keeping the raid going with a schedule that Bd could make. Wild replied that I loved raiding with the group and would like to remain a part of the raid if I could. The MM raider, Sh, made it clear that Wild was welcome and needed in the group, and would keep me informed.
So, what about tonight's raid? The MM group would not be raiding. At 5:55pm, Wild whispered the guild raid leader and let him know that I was available to raid with them if they needed me. He promised to let Wild know in the next ten minutes whether there would be a spot. Wild was still in Dalaran, so I shifted to flying form and made the relatively short flight to Icecrown Citadel.
While Wild waited some real life friends stopped by and I got the company of the little girl that I generally entertain while Mom and spouse catch up on the gossip. When I happen to be on the computer she likes to take control of whatever toon I'm running and go exploring. She was a little disappointed that I might actually have to raid, and she hoped that I wouldn't get in the raid. Then she could play. Frankly, I would have been ok either way.
At 6:05pm Wild got his invite to the raid. I don't have any preconceived notions about what the invite means. Wild was the last invite. They were short healers and in particular, needed a druid healer. Wednesday is a tougher night for the guild to fill, which is likely a combination of key raiders not being able to raid on Wednesday, and the fact that Wednesday's raid tackled bosses that haven't been killed or gotten to farm status yet, so Tuesday is the far more popular night. Wild had posted on the guild website asking for the second time for an explanation of the invite/standby process. The post was not responded to directly, but a separate post referred to my request indirectly and came right to the point on the issue that I had raised. Raiders are placed in one of two categories, Tier 1 or Tier 2. Since Wild cannot make both raid nights, Wild automatically falls into Tier 2. Here's the guild policy on invites for the two groups:
"If a tier one is asked to sit out they will be put on a rotation against other tier ones in that particular category. A tier two will only get an invite for a role if there are not enough tier one raiders to fill that role. A tier two that does not get to run is NOT put on a rotation to get in against other tier ones, but other tier twos. The exception to that is raid buffs or class voids in a particular role. Attendance is also a factor. People that can commit two nights are better for the raid then folks that just show for the farm content."
No matter how consistent the participation, no matter how well prepared, Wild will get an invite ONLY when the raid is short tier 1 healers and then, attendance will be rotated with the other tier 2 healers. Given past attendance on Tuesday's, I see Wild getting that invite maybe no more than once a month.
The guidance concluded: "FS is a casual guild, but casual raiding has not ever worked. We now have a large enough pool of people committed to raiding to keep us moving forward on progression content and that is where the RAID focus will be."
FS is now rated #11 among all horde guilds in 25 man ICC content. Given the state of guild raiding just a few weeks ago, that is a pretty nice accomplishment. It's clear that the intent is to move even further toward hardcore raiding. The regulars get full preference, and the rest are just fill ins. There are still issues with raid healing, which is called "sporadic" and the raid's "weakest aspect." More recruiting is in the works, and Tier 2 healers will likely get even less chance to raid. This is the direction that the guild is going with raiding. There are serious flaws to this approach, but there's no sense raising those issues again as the direction has been decided on.
But back to Wednesday night. On Tuesday the raid cleared the four bosses in the the Lower Spire of ICC: Lord Marrowgar, Lady Deathwhisper, Gunship Battle, and Deathbringer Saurfang. These bosses are pretty much on farm, and that is another reason Tuesday is a popular raid night for the guild.
The Wednesday raid itself was a lot of fun, and I'll cover that in detail in the next post.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Tuesday (16 Feb) - No Maintenance!?
Tuesday (16 Feb) - No Maintenance!?
There was no maintenance run on Tuesday. One has to wonder whether that will help or hurt in regard to the login and lag issues that has battered the game in the early evening for close to two weeks. Wild will find out in a few hours.
Another issue of the non-maintenance is that they are routinely used to open and close special events. The Lunar Festive kicked off Tuesday on schedule, but interestingly the Valentine's events that should have closed up shop are still in operation. Philly still has a chance to get a full closet of fancy dresses, in addition to other romantic goodies.
Philly wasn't completely absorbed in frills, though. The Valentine's quests provided over 100k in xp per day. Add in the 136k in quest xp for the dailies on the Isle, and Philly DINGED! to level 73.
Tuesday also brought the new weekly Frost raid, and it was perhaps the easiest encounter yet - Flame Leviathon in Ulduar. Since Levi is a vehicle fight, there was no need to find tanks, healers, DPS, etc. All that was required (or should be required) was to know the fight. Well . . .
Wild volunteered for what I thought was a ten man Levi run. Only after being invited into the raid did Wild hear that the raid leader was getting so many whispers he decided to move up to a 25 man raid. The raid filled fast, likely faster than the raid leader expected. Raiders started filing into Ulduar, only to be told to come back out as it was still set at ten man. Once that was sorted out a rather ragtag group poured into Ulduar and began racing to vehicles. The raid leader did no set up and offered no leadership, unfortunately, and raiders gunned their vehicles and engaged haphazardly. Even the uncoordinated assault managed to take out the trash. However, the race through the trash left many towers still standing and there was no pause to assemble as a team once we got to Leviathon. To make matters even worse, the raid was set to hardcore mode.
We wiped, although not as badly as we should have. The only good thing out of that first run was that Wild got a look at all the nasty things that have to be overcome in hardcore mode. It was kinda cool, and had we been 10% coordinated we could probably have beaten him. Oh well.
Three players defected, leaving us with 22 raiders. We went at it again in normal mode, took down the towers, and were beating up on Levi when a raider took his vehicle out of the combat zone. Levi reset and one shot the raid. Another wipe. The raider who caused the wipe apologized. His reason? He'd let his young son take over the vehicle, un-supervised.
There was a mass migration after that. Wild hung around as the number dwindled to ten and held. Those of us that remained at least had a clue. We reset for ten man and easily destroyed Flame Leviathon.
Sometimes, the easier it's supposed to be, the worse it is.
Even JB wants to give the weekly a try. She knows what to do, and her modest stats don't matter in this type of fight. The only disadvantage to lesser geared players against Levi has to do with the amount of health of the vehicles themselves. Vehicle health is determined by the ilevel of the raider's gear. So raiders are always advised to equip their highest ilevel gear, no matter what stats they have. This mostly matters for the vehicle drivers. Raiders with the lowest ilevels are usually assigned as siege engine gunners. Demolisher gunners also work, unless the raid leader wants to use the catapult feature, where demo gunners (always ranged DPS) are launched onto Levi to attack the turrets. It wasn't used in the raid Wild did and I doubt it will be used by others just wanting to get the quest done. Another good spot for lesser geared players is on the motorcycles, where the primary duty is spreading burning oil. They are fun to play around with, easy to learn, and if they get destroyed it probably won't hurt the raids chances that much.
The Lunar Festive kicked off on Tuesday, as mentioned above. This event is loosely based on a Chinese holiday, and features lots of fireworks and a huge quest line to "honor the elders" which on the practical side means travelling to every corner of both horde and alliance zones and cities to get Coins of Ancestry from specially marked npcs. What makes this interesting to the Wild family is that completing the quests rewards faction rep for all the major cities, which is a great help in trying to reach Exalted rep with all the horde cities. I expect that Wild, JB, and Philly will try to get as many done as possible over the next week.
Tuesday Night - Please excuse the more somber tone as Wild is not in the best of moods. For the second week in a row he was assigned as a standby, and did not get in the guild's 25 man ICC raid. Here is the way I see it. I saw that most of the raid healers who were in last week's raid also got invites to this week's raid as well. By my count four of the six healers were the same. As for the other two, I can only be sure that one priest from last week could not make it and was replaced with another priest who had been a standby last week. I'm pretty sure there were two druid healers last week, but one of them was not here and was replaced, I believe, with a shaman. The final makeup of the healers were one druid, two priests, two shaman, and a paladin. Yesterday, long before the raid, I posted some questions about the new EPGP system as well as asking for clarity about how raid invites will/are being handled. Guild leadership had opened a thread about that more than a week ago, asking for input, and got it, but so far have not provided any guidance. Seems Wild will have to push this a lot little harder.
As I write this JB is busy flying from town to town, collecting Coins of Ancestry from the elders. Not all of them are in easy reach of a town, so for non-80s getting all of the coins could be a real challenge. JB is still thinking about how she is going to get coins from the alliance town elders, as those are also needed for the achievement and provide faction rep.
While on this mission DER popped in and we almost teamed up for the random daily dungeon. JB chickened out, though, because the random dungeon was Occulus (OCC) and JB was given a healthy hate of the place through Wild. Wild has a mental block with the dragon riding/flying that is a crucial part of OCC. Despite a lot of practice, and many wipes, Wild just can't get the hang of it. So rather than exasperate and infuriate other group members with Wild's ineptitude, I just stay away. Wild's only successful OCC run was with the guild, who promised Wild that they would help him through it. Even so, we wiped on the first attempt. We finished it on our second try, despite Wild. That one win was enough. JB apologized to the group, and abandoned DER to his fate. DER has no problem with OCC, his group cleared the dungeon, and DER even won an extremely nice super fast flying mount. Gratz!
DER and JB later hooked up for a Wintergrasp pvp battle, which the horde won in a landslide. JB has maxed out her pvp honor again at 75k, and will have to spend some of it. There is new gear now available and she was overwhelmed with the number of choices. Time for JB to get back into regular WG runs to pick up more of that wonderful pvp loot. Oh, and JB now has 25 of the 75 coins she needs for the Lunar achievement.
There was no maintenance run on Tuesday. One has to wonder whether that will help or hurt in regard to the login and lag issues that has battered the game in the early evening for close to two weeks. Wild will find out in a few hours.
Another issue of the non-maintenance is that they are routinely used to open and close special events. The Lunar Festive kicked off Tuesday on schedule, but interestingly the Valentine's events that should have closed up shop are still in operation. Philly still has a chance to get a full closet of fancy dresses, in addition to other romantic goodies.
Philly wasn't completely absorbed in frills, though. The Valentine's quests provided over 100k in xp per day. Add in the 136k in quest xp for the dailies on the Isle, and Philly DINGED! to level 73.
Tuesday also brought the new weekly Frost raid, and it was perhaps the easiest encounter yet - Flame Leviathon in Ulduar. Since Levi is a vehicle fight, there was no need to find tanks, healers, DPS, etc. All that was required (or should be required) was to know the fight. Well . . .
Wild volunteered for what I thought was a ten man Levi run. Only after being invited into the raid did Wild hear that the raid leader was getting so many whispers he decided to move up to a 25 man raid. The raid filled fast, likely faster than the raid leader expected. Raiders started filing into Ulduar, only to be told to come back out as it was still set at ten man. Once that was sorted out a rather ragtag group poured into Ulduar and began racing to vehicles. The raid leader did no set up and offered no leadership, unfortunately, and raiders gunned their vehicles and engaged haphazardly. Even the uncoordinated assault managed to take out the trash. However, the race through the trash left many towers still standing and there was no pause to assemble as a team once we got to Leviathon. To make matters even worse, the raid was set to hardcore mode.
We wiped, although not as badly as we should have. The only good thing out of that first run was that Wild got a look at all the nasty things that have to be overcome in hardcore mode. It was kinda cool, and had we been 10% coordinated we could probably have beaten him. Oh well.
Three players defected, leaving us with 22 raiders. We went at it again in normal mode, took down the towers, and were beating up on Levi when a raider took his vehicle out of the combat zone. Levi reset and one shot the raid. Another wipe. The raider who caused the wipe apologized. His reason? He'd let his young son take over the vehicle, un-supervised.
There was a mass migration after that. Wild hung around as the number dwindled to ten and held. Those of us that remained at least had a clue. We reset for ten man and easily destroyed Flame Leviathon.
Sometimes, the easier it's supposed to be, the worse it is.
Even JB wants to give the weekly a try. She knows what to do, and her modest stats don't matter in this type of fight. The only disadvantage to lesser geared players against Levi has to do with the amount of health of the vehicles themselves. Vehicle health is determined by the ilevel of the raider's gear. So raiders are always advised to equip their highest ilevel gear, no matter what stats they have. This mostly matters for the vehicle drivers. Raiders with the lowest ilevels are usually assigned as siege engine gunners. Demolisher gunners also work, unless the raid leader wants to use the catapult feature, where demo gunners (always ranged DPS) are launched onto Levi to attack the turrets. It wasn't used in the raid Wild did and I doubt it will be used by others just wanting to get the quest done. Another good spot for lesser geared players is on the motorcycles, where the primary duty is spreading burning oil. They are fun to play around with, easy to learn, and if they get destroyed it probably won't hurt the raids chances that much.
The Lunar Festive kicked off on Tuesday, as mentioned above. This event is loosely based on a Chinese holiday, and features lots of fireworks and a huge quest line to "honor the elders" which on the practical side means travelling to every corner of both horde and alliance zones and cities to get Coins of Ancestry from specially marked npcs. What makes this interesting to the Wild family is that completing the quests rewards faction rep for all the major cities, which is a great help in trying to reach Exalted rep with all the horde cities. I expect that Wild, JB, and Philly will try to get as many done as possible over the next week.
Tuesday Night - Please excuse the more somber tone as Wild is not in the best of moods. For the second week in a row he was assigned as a standby, and did not get in the guild's 25 man ICC raid. Here is the way I see it. I saw that most of the raid healers who were in last week's raid also got invites to this week's raid as well. By my count four of the six healers were the same. As for the other two, I can only be sure that one priest from last week could not make it and was replaced with another priest who had been a standby last week. I'm pretty sure there were two druid healers last week, but one of them was not here and was replaced, I believe, with a shaman. The final makeup of the healers were one druid, two priests, two shaman, and a paladin. Yesterday, long before the raid, I posted some questions about the new EPGP system as well as asking for clarity about how raid invites will/are being handled. Guild leadership had opened a thread about that more than a week ago, asking for input, and got it, but so far have not provided any guidance. Seems Wild will have to push this a lot little harder.
As I write this JB is busy flying from town to town, collecting Coins of Ancestry from the elders. Not all of them are in easy reach of a town, so for non-80s getting all of the coins could be a real challenge. JB is still thinking about how she is going to get coins from the alliance town elders, as those are also needed for the achievement and provide faction rep.
While on this mission DER popped in and we almost teamed up for the random daily dungeon. JB chickened out, though, because the random dungeon was Occulus (OCC) and JB was given a healthy hate of the place through Wild. Wild has a mental block with the dragon riding/flying that is a crucial part of OCC. Despite a lot of practice, and many wipes, Wild just can't get the hang of it. So rather than exasperate and infuriate other group members with Wild's ineptitude, I just stay away. Wild's only successful OCC run was with the guild, who promised Wild that they would help him through it. Even so, we wiped on the first attempt. We finished it on our second try, despite Wild. That one win was enough. JB apologized to the group, and abandoned DER to his fate. DER has no problem with OCC, his group cleared the dungeon, and DER even won an extremely nice super fast flying mount. Gratz!
DER and JB later hooked up for a Wintergrasp pvp battle, which the horde won in a landslide. JB has maxed out her pvp honor again at 75k, and will have to spend some of it. There is new gear now available and she was overwhelmed with the number of choices. Time for JB to get back into regular WG runs to pick up more of that wonderful pvp loot. Oh, and JB now has 25 of the 75 coins she needs for the Lunar achievement.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Monday (15 Feb) - Understanding EPGP
Monday (15 Feb) - Understanding EPGP
No, EPGP is not another one of Wild's crazy toons. EPGP is the guild's new loot system. Now that I "think" that Wild has the right addons installed, and might be using them on Tuesday night (assuming the server is sane and assuming Wild gets an invite, neither of which have exactly gone Wild's way recently) I figured I'd better take a closer look at how this system works.
On the surface EPGP is one of several addons that award points to raiders for various things and set prices and criteria for using those points to get raid loot. Past systems Wild has used primarily tracked attendance (here or not here) and the amount of loot won (regardless of gear value). EPGP takes this a little further, in that it awards points primarily based on the time spent in the raid, and sets a specific price for every piece of loot.
EP stands for "effort points" and the guild has initially set that at 10 points for every 15 minutes in the raid. So the typical three hour raid would award a raider 120 EP.
GP stands for gear points. This is what you would have to pay for loot you won. The formula used is rather weird to me, but I'll show you what it is in case there is a mathematician out there who can explain it:
GP = square root of (item value) x 0.04 x slot value
Item value is a combination of gear ilevel and whether it is uncommon, rare, or epic gear
Slot value is a fractional value based on what gear slot the item goes into
The EPGP addon calculates that for us (I hope), but if that isn't complicated enough the actual price you pay is also subject to class/need/greed rules. Buying main spec gear costs the full value of GP; but buying an offspec item only costs 25% of the GP. That doesn't sound unreasonable, but there is still yet another wrinkle to consider when determining who actually wins the item, and that's PR.
Aha, what's PR? PR stands for Priority, and it's calculated by dividing GP into EP. The higher that number the higher the priority.
Finally, EPGP has a decay factor, which the guild assigned as 10% per week. Each week, both EP and GP is reduced by 10%. Use it or lose it.
Now you know about all the pieces. So, having not yet seen the system in action, here is how I hope it works. Let's assume Wild has some EP to spend. An item drops. The addon sends a popup "bid window" that shows the item and how much GP it costs. As set up by the guild, Wild can pick one of the following options: Main Spec, Minor Upgrade, Offspec, Greed, or Pass. It appears that only the full GP price is shown, but I'm hoping that fractional GP prices are also shown depending on the choice; otherwise folks are going to have to manually do those calculations to see if they want/can bid.
Once all bids are in (and here I am guessing a bit at the order of things), the addon will start with the options and then proceed to priority to choose the winner. For example, the addon would first check to see if there were any main spec bids, and if so then would pick the raider with the highest PR as the winner. If there were no Main spec bids, it would check Minor Upgrade, and so on down the line. This is all done automatically, with the item automatically announced and awarded to the winner. That in and of itself saves raids and loot masters a lot of time.
Now, to summarize what all this means. Here I am paraphrasing exactly what the addon authors designed the system to do. Using this system, regular raiders have the most EP to spend, and over time become the best geared raiders. These raiders, by the fact that they need less gear than others, will have the highest PR and therefore will always have the best chance to win the rarer, most sought after gear. Once at the top of the gear chain, as long as you maintain your EP, you will stay at the top of the gear chain.
Those who attend less, will get gear less often, plain and simple, and the gear received will be of less value.
There is nothing wrong or different about this system compared to any other system of loot distribution that tries to meet the needs of every kind of raider. I would call this a top down system, though, one that ensures that those who get the most time in raid (and making the assumption that the better raiders are the ones getting the raid time) get the best gear, and get it first.
So, the system is the system. The hard spot is going to be: How does the guild decide who gets to raid? With still a day to go, thirty guildies have signed up for the Tuesday night raid. There is as yet no firm guidance about how raid assignments are being made in this new situation where we have more raiders show up than we have spots available. So far all they've said is that everything is being taken into consideration from what roles are required to raid attendance, to how many times a raider has been asked to standby. It's a tough job.
As an example, the guild has made a wide swing in it's healer population seemingly overnight. We went from barely being able to scratch together six healers less than a month ago to the 11 healers we had show up last week. Wild did a rough tally of healers that responded to the raid calendar so far. Six dedicated healers have Accepted (which means, I will be there). Five more raiders who have healed but I'm not sure are main spec healers also Accepted. Four more healers are signed on as Tentative. That's potentially 15 healers. How do these factors determine a healer's place on the invite list? Does Accepted get priority over Tentative? Do main spec healers get priority for healing spots over offspec healers? If an offspec healer is actually a better healer than a main spec healer, who gets priority? Does being forced to standby in a previous raid carry extra weight, and trump these other considerations?
I don't know. Wild will be there, ready to go. It's all I can do.
No, EPGP is not another one of Wild's crazy toons. EPGP is the guild's new loot system. Now that I "think" that Wild has the right addons installed, and might be using them on Tuesday night (assuming the server is sane and assuming Wild gets an invite, neither of which have exactly gone Wild's way recently) I figured I'd better take a closer look at how this system works.
On the surface EPGP is one of several addons that award points to raiders for various things and set prices and criteria for using those points to get raid loot. Past systems Wild has used primarily tracked attendance (here or not here) and the amount of loot won (regardless of gear value). EPGP takes this a little further, in that it awards points primarily based on the time spent in the raid, and sets a specific price for every piece of loot.
EP stands for "effort points" and the guild has initially set that at 10 points for every 15 minutes in the raid. So the typical three hour raid would award a raider 120 EP.
GP stands for gear points. This is what you would have to pay for loot you won. The formula used is rather weird to me, but I'll show you what it is in case there is a mathematician out there who can explain it:
GP = square root of (item value) x 0.04 x slot value
Item value is a combination of gear ilevel and whether it is uncommon, rare, or epic gear
Slot value is a fractional value based on what gear slot the item goes into
The EPGP addon calculates that for us (I hope), but if that isn't complicated enough the actual price you pay is also subject to class/need/greed rules. Buying main spec gear costs the full value of GP; but buying an offspec item only costs 25% of the GP. That doesn't sound unreasonable, but there is still yet another wrinkle to consider when determining who actually wins the item, and that's PR.
Aha, what's PR? PR stands for Priority, and it's calculated by dividing GP into EP. The higher that number the higher the priority.
Finally, EPGP has a decay factor, which the guild assigned as 10% per week. Each week, both EP and GP is reduced by 10%. Use it or lose it.
Now you know about all the pieces. So, having not yet seen the system in action, here is how I hope it works. Let's assume Wild has some EP to spend. An item drops. The addon sends a popup "bid window" that shows the item and how much GP it costs. As set up by the guild, Wild can pick one of the following options: Main Spec, Minor Upgrade, Offspec, Greed, or Pass. It appears that only the full GP price is shown, but I'm hoping that fractional GP prices are also shown depending on the choice; otherwise folks are going to have to manually do those calculations to see if they want/can bid.
Once all bids are in (and here I am guessing a bit at the order of things), the addon will start with the options and then proceed to priority to choose the winner. For example, the addon would first check to see if there were any main spec bids, and if so then would pick the raider with the highest PR as the winner. If there were no Main spec bids, it would check Minor Upgrade, and so on down the line. This is all done automatically, with the item automatically announced and awarded to the winner. That in and of itself saves raids and loot masters a lot of time.
Now, to summarize what all this means. Here I am paraphrasing exactly what the addon authors designed the system to do. Using this system, regular raiders have the most EP to spend, and over time become the best geared raiders. These raiders, by the fact that they need less gear than others, will have the highest PR and therefore will always have the best chance to win the rarer, most sought after gear. Once at the top of the gear chain, as long as you maintain your EP, you will stay at the top of the gear chain.
Those who attend less, will get gear less often, plain and simple, and the gear received will be of less value.
There is nothing wrong or different about this system compared to any other system of loot distribution that tries to meet the needs of every kind of raider. I would call this a top down system, though, one that ensures that those who get the most time in raid (and making the assumption that the better raiders are the ones getting the raid time) get the best gear, and get it first.
So, the system is the system. The hard spot is going to be: How does the guild decide who gets to raid? With still a day to go, thirty guildies have signed up for the Tuesday night raid. There is as yet no firm guidance about how raid assignments are being made in this new situation where we have more raiders show up than we have spots available. So far all they've said is that everything is being taken into consideration from what roles are required to raid attendance, to how many times a raider has been asked to standby. It's a tough job.
As an example, the guild has made a wide swing in it's healer population seemingly overnight. We went from barely being able to scratch together six healers less than a month ago to the 11 healers we had show up last week. Wild did a rough tally of healers that responded to the raid calendar so far. Six dedicated healers have Accepted (which means, I will be there). Five more raiders who have healed but I'm not sure are main spec healers also Accepted. Four more healers are signed on as Tentative. That's potentially 15 healers. How do these factors determine a healer's place on the invite list? Does Accepted get priority over Tentative? Do main spec healers get priority for healing spots over offspec healers? If an offspec healer is actually a better healer than a main spec healer, who gets priority? Does being forced to standby in a previous raid carry extra weight, and trump these other considerations?
I don't know. Wild will be there, ready to go. It's all I can do.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Weekend (13 Feb) - Naithipe Surfaces
Weekend (13 Feb) - Naithipe Surfaces
In the brightness of a clear Friday morning, the elusive Naithipe slipped into the riotous Valentine's week crowd in Orgrimmar. The fanciful displays and the decked out in hearts players held no interest. Naithipe hunted a hunter.
The hunter, Slash, had arrived in Orgrimmar the night before, staying at the Inn and enjoying the revelry of the big city. The young orc sampled the perfumes and candies, eyeing the lovely women and flexing his farm bred muscles. He partied long into the night.
The morning soon dawned for Slash, too, as it had for Naithipe. Despite his night, Slash was alert and just a bit nervous now, as the two met outside the Valley of Honor. Although Slash loomed over the slightly built Naithipe like a wide slab of rock, Slash still felt apprehensive. Would this go as planned? Much depended on it.
"Do you have the artifact?" Naithipe asked Slash in a soft voice edged in steel. He did. "Have you been to see Neeru Fireblade?" Naithipe pressed.
"I have," Slash replied. "Let us get this done." Slash put up a brave front, but Naithipe made him uneasy, even more so considering his very life depended on this dark clad figure holding a bloody red Hatebringer. JB had said everything would be all right. In the end it was. Slash had to admit that Hatebringer was one fine weapon, wielded by an equally talented Naithipe.
Even so, Slash had a lot more fun with Mery later that day. Mery and her square toothed gorilla Sassy were a lot better company, and with Sassy leading the way the trio made as much progress as Slash had gotten with the ominous Naithipe. Slash did not mention that to Naithipe, though, simply saying "Thanks for the help!" when they parted ways.
Slash still had one more task to complete, and in it's own way was scarier even than Naithipe. A leap into the dark beyond, so to speak. Again, JB promised that all would be well and that friends would be waiting for him.
Friday Night - Who's On First?
The "PvP Team" of Ando, Lao, and EZ has continued to prosper and expand to the point that this Friday night we had such a plethora of choices it was tough deciding who would get the game time. JB's guild now has twenty members at level 10 or higher. With EZ taking a break and staying in the 20s bracket for now (with several other 20 somethings), Mery will join Ando and Lao in the 30s bracket for the time being. At the high end of the spectrum are the 70s/80s team of Philly, Sis, and DER/Sin.
On Friday, though, we opted to go with the toddlers in the teens bracket. King of the toddlers is Death, a level 19 warlock that is starting to make a name for himself. Joining him, and following in his footsteps, is the level 10 warlock Deth. Now, even though Death may be higher level than Deth, Deth wants everyone to know that she has been around longer than Death and therefore any confusion about the name is Death's fault, not Deth's. Follow that if you can. Rounding out the toddler team is another level 10, Jless, a jawless undead rogue who loves to expound and pontificate on some pretty erudite subjects, like "Mhos Hgbde Wowdh." Oh, I did mention the missing lower jaw, right?
When folks started logging in around 10pm, Philly was in game out on the Isle wrapping up another set of dailies, finishing 28% of the way to level 73. Before she could retire and let the young ones play, she made a stopover in Orgrimmar. Philly greeted Slash at the Inn. He'd just left Mery at the Cleft of Shadow, where they had had some additional business to attend to before he met with Philly.
Slash was getting a little overwhelmed at the size of the new family he had been adopted into, but was certainly enjoying all this female attention. Slash turned over to Philly what Naithipe had cryptically called "the artifact."
"Thank you, Slash," Philly responded warmly. "You have done us a great service. Know that you are now one of us, and can use this gift and the others whenever you need to. Welcome to the family." Philly smiled (not something you really want to see an undead do, even one with a jaw). Slash tried not to wince, and thanked her in return.
Once Philly got word that Deth would be representing the team for the Friday pvp, she sent Deth not just one, but three "artifacts" - the two heirloom pieces Philly already possessed (shoulders and trinket) plus the new addition brought to them by Slash, the chest [Tattered Dreadmist Robe].
Getting the chest heirloom required collecting forty triumph emblems, emblems that Wild refused to part with since he desperately needed them to improve his own gear. The only other way to get at that chest piece was through the Argent Tournament, a process that would have literally taken months of effort to accomplish. The effort appeared dead - until JB made a suggestion.
JB, outfitted in mostly ilevel 200 gear, and much of that pvp gear that was not ideally suited for pve dungeons, offered to try the random dungeon heroics and collect the triumph emblems needed to purchase the chest heirloom. JB was a raw rookie at dungeon runs where she actually had to perform her elemental shaman DPS role with a regular group and against level 80 heroic bosses. She worried that she might even be laughed out runs by groups unhappy with her gear level or experience.
But Wild encouraged JB, and gave her the time to do it if she was that willing to give up the equivalent of an ilevel 232 piece of gear to help out the rest of the family.
Over a period of three days, JB was able to get into 2-3 heroics each day, and over that time accumulated 45 triumph emblems and even a few frost emblems to go with them. Those runs were not without their highs and lows. For the most part JB finished dead last in DPS, ranging from a low in the mid-1600s to a high that just broke over 2k DPS. Wild would not let her get discouraged, though, noting that when Wild first started his own heroics as a moonkin, his numbers did not start out much better than hers. The good news was that not a single group complained about her DPS or about her play. Well, there was this one group.
JB had a hard time keeping track of what dungeon they were in, but during one battle leading up to a boss the group kept getting Feared over and over. Finally, an exasperated but still calm group leader asked JB in party chat, "Come on Jezz, give us a break, and drop a tremor totem to clear these fears. Pls?" Oops, JB had totally not thought about that. There were also a couple of other times (with other groups) when she had to be reminded when to use her bloodlust spell (it has a ten minute cooldown so it is saved for the right situation).
On the positive side she learned a lot and gained some invaluable practice in real dungeon situations. She stepped in as healer on occasions when the main healer died, keeping the tank up and saving the fight. On the final heroic that got her past the 40 emblem mark, JB finished 2nd in DPS, Yes, it was because the rest of the DPS was even worse than JBs, and they were a mage and a DK who should have easily out DPSed JB. The tank led in DPS. That's not a good thing, but he was a good (and patient) tank, and despite a few deaths we never wiped and we cleared the place.
So, you must be wondering, where does Slash fit into all this? This gets a little technical. Slash was born into Wild's account, in order that JB would be able to mail the heirloom to Slash in that same account. With the help of Naithipe and Mery, Slash was quickly raised to level 10, the minimum level required to transfer between accounts. Slash made a leap of faith, leaving Wild's account for the "other" account (bringing the heirloom with him), which I guess is Philly's as she is the highest level. Or Happy's, who is the account's oldest member.
Once Philly reaches level 80 these account transfers will no longer be needed. Philly actually has a great responsibility not only in regard to heirloom items, but in many other ways such as faction rep, Cold weather flying, and other goodies that lower level toons would get the benefit of - providing Philly has done them first.
Umm, somewhere along the way didn't I mention that there was some pvp action Friday night? You bet.
Deth, Death, and Jless got in some great battles, winning both WSG matches they were in. Jless called it an evening, but the double Ds stuck around for two more matches, splitting them for a final 3-1 record on the night. Deth had a blast, even though it took a bit to figure out what a warlock was supposed to do. Death's advice - Drop DoTs (damage over time) on every alliance you get in range of, and never stop running. As a level 10 and wearing squishie armor, stopping for even a second will get you killed. Good advice, but I'd have to add that Deth didn't need to be standing still to get killed. Deth died a lot, but all those DoTs he cast contributed to 190 honor kills over the course of those four matches. Not bad for coming off the bench to help out.
In the brightness of a clear Friday morning, the elusive Naithipe slipped into the riotous Valentine's week crowd in Orgrimmar. The fanciful displays and the decked out in hearts players held no interest. Naithipe hunted a hunter.
The hunter, Slash, had arrived in Orgrimmar the night before, staying at the Inn and enjoying the revelry of the big city. The young orc sampled the perfumes and candies, eyeing the lovely women and flexing his farm bred muscles. He partied long into the night.
The morning soon dawned for Slash, too, as it had for Naithipe. Despite his night, Slash was alert and just a bit nervous now, as the two met outside the Valley of Honor. Although Slash loomed over the slightly built Naithipe like a wide slab of rock, Slash still felt apprehensive. Would this go as planned? Much depended on it.
"Do you have the artifact?" Naithipe asked Slash in a soft voice edged in steel. He did. "Have you been to see Neeru Fireblade?" Naithipe pressed.
"I have," Slash replied. "Let us get this done." Slash put up a brave front, but Naithipe made him uneasy, even more so considering his very life depended on this dark clad figure holding a bloody red Hatebringer. JB had said everything would be all right. In the end it was. Slash had to admit that Hatebringer was one fine weapon, wielded by an equally talented Naithipe.
Even so, Slash had a lot more fun with Mery later that day. Mery and her square toothed gorilla Sassy were a lot better company, and with Sassy leading the way the trio made as much progress as Slash had gotten with the ominous Naithipe. Slash did not mention that to Naithipe, though, simply saying "Thanks for the help!" when they parted ways.
Slash still had one more task to complete, and in it's own way was scarier even than Naithipe. A leap into the dark beyond, so to speak. Again, JB promised that all would be well and that friends would be waiting for him.
Friday Night - Who's On First?
The "PvP Team" of Ando, Lao, and EZ has continued to prosper and expand to the point that this Friday night we had such a plethora of choices it was tough deciding who would get the game time. JB's guild now has twenty members at level 10 or higher. With EZ taking a break and staying in the 20s bracket for now (with several other 20 somethings), Mery will join Ando and Lao in the 30s bracket for the time being. At the high end of the spectrum are the 70s/80s team of Philly, Sis, and DER/Sin.
On Friday, though, we opted to go with the toddlers in the teens bracket. King of the toddlers is Death, a level 19 warlock that is starting to make a name for himself. Joining him, and following in his footsteps, is the level 10 warlock Deth. Now, even though Death may be higher level than Deth, Deth wants everyone to know that she has been around longer than Death and therefore any confusion about the name is Death's fault, not Deth's. Follow that if you can. Rounding out the toddler team is another level 10, Jless, a jawless undead rogue who loves to expound and pontificate on some pretty erudite subjects, like "Mhos Hgbde Wowdh." Oh, I did mention the missing lower jaw, right?
When folks started logging in around 10pm, Philly was in game out on the Isle wrapping up another set of dailies, finishing 28% of the way to level 73. Before she could retire and let the young ones play, she made a stopover in Orgrimmar. Philly greeted Slash at the Inn. He'd just left Mery at the Cleft of Shadow, where they had had some additional business to attend to before he met with Philly.
Slash was getting a little overwhelmed at the size of the new family he had been adopted into, but was certainly enjoying all this female attention. Slash turned over to Philly what Naithipe had cryptically called "the artifact."
"Thank you, Slash," Philly responded warmly. "You have done us a great service. Know that you are now one of us, and can use this gift and the others whenever you need to. Welcome to the family." Philly smiled (not something you really want to see an undead do, even one with a jaw). Slash tried not to wince, and thanked her in return.
Once Philly got word that Deth would be representing the team for the Friday pvp, she sent Deth not just one, but three "artifacts" - the two heirloom pieces Philly already possessed (shoulders and trinket) plus the new addition brought to them by Slash, the chest [Tattered Dreadmist Robe].
Getting the chest heirloom required collecting forty triumph emblems, emblems that Wild refused to part with since he desperately needed them to improve his own gear. The only other way to get at that chest piece was through the Argent Tournament, a process that would have literally taken months of effort to accomplish. The effort appeared dead - until JB made a suggestion.
JB, outfitted in mostly ilevel 200 gear, and much of that pvp gear that was not ideally suited for pve dungeons, offered to try the random dungeon heroics and collect the triumph emblems needed to purchase the chest heirloom. JB was a raw rookie at dungeon runs where she actually had to perform her elemental shaman DPS role with a regular group and against level 80 heroic bosses. She worried that she might even be laughed out runs by groups unhappy with her gear level or experience.
But Wild encouraged JB, and gave her the time to do it if she was that willing to give up the equivalent of an ilevel 232 piece of gear to help out the rest of the family.
Over a period of three days, JB was able to get into 2-3 heroics each day, and over that time accumulated 45 triumph emblems and even a few frost emblems to go with them. Those runs were not without their highs and lows. For the most part JB finished dead last in DPS, ranging from a low in the mid-1600s to a high that just broke over 2k DPS. Wild would not let her get discouraged, though, noting that when Wild first started his own heroics as a moonkin, his numbers did not start out much better than hers. The good news was that not a single group complained about her DPS or about her play. Well, there was this one group.
JB had a hard time keeping track of what dungeon they were in, but during one battle leading up to a boss the group kept getting Feared over and over. Finally, an exasperated but still calm group leader asked JB in party chat, "Come on Jezz, give us a break, and drop a tremor totem to clear these fears. Pls?" Oops, JB had totally not thought about that. There were also a couple of other times (with other groups) when she had to be reminded when to use her bloodlust spell (it has a ten minute cooldown so it is saved for the right situation).
On the positive side she learned a lot and gained some invaluable practice in real dungeon situations. She stepped in as healer on occasions when the main healer died, keeping the tank up and saving the fight. On the final heroic that got her past the 40 emblem mark, JB finished 2nd in DPS, Yes, it was because the rest of the DPS was even worse than JBs, and they were a mage and a DK who should have easily out DPSed JB. The tank led in DPS. That's not a good thing, but he was a good (and patient) tank, and despite a few deaths we never wiped and we cleared the place.
So, you must be wondering, where does Slash fit into all this? This gets a little technical. Slash was born into Wild's account, in order that JB would be able to mail the heirloom to Slash in that same account. With the help of Naithipe and Mery, Slash was quickly raised to level 10, the minimum level required to transfer between accounts. Slash made a leap of faith, leaving Wild's account for the "other" account (bringing the heirloom with him), which I guess is Philly's as she is the highest level. Or Happy's, who is the account's oldest member.
Once Philly reaches level 80 these account transfers will no longer be needed. Philly actually has a great responsibility not only in regard to heirloom items, but in many other ways such as faction rep, Cold weather flying, and other goodies that lower level toons would get the benefit of - providing Philly has done them first.
Umm, somewhere along the way didn't I mention that there was some pvp action Friday night? You bet.
Deth, Death, and Jless got in some great battles, winning both WSG matches they were in. Jless called it an evening, but the double Ds stuck around for two more matches, splitting them for a final 3-1 record on the night. Deth had a blast, even though it took a bit to figure out what a warlock was supposed to do. Death's advice - Drop DoTs (damage over time) on every alliance you get in range of, and never stop running. As a level 10 and wearing squishie armor, stopping for even a second will get you killed. Good advice, but I'd have to add that Deth didn't need to be standing still to get killed. Deth died a lot, but all those DoTs he cast contributed to 190 honor kills over the course of those four matches. Not bad for coming off the bench to help out.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Thursday (11 Feb) - Quiet Night
Thursday (11 Feb) - Quiet Night
Wild had no trouble logging in Thursday night, and for once things seemed much more stable. Of course it would be better, Wild would not be raiding. I whispered Bd, the raid leader for the MM group, and let him know that I needed to rest the hand and could not make the raid. He was disappointed, but understood. I wished them well, and I sincerely hope they clear the whole ICC wing.
Happy puttered about the AH. Happy is not that happy. Profits are down by two-thirds, with no signs of improvement. Enchanting mats, Happy's forte, are just not selling at the price or quantity of the past. In some cases once good selling items has become very stable, the absolutely worst thing that can happen since Happy needs prices to fluctuate in order to buy low and sell high. If the prices never vary by much, there's no profit to be made. Another trend of some sellers is to target the uninformed, the stupid, and the impatient buyers. These sellers blanket a market with items, filling several pages in the AH, and priced at double and triple their average value. Almost none of it sells, but it overwhelms the better priced posts and the seller makes a large profit on the small number that do get bought. For Happy, that's a mixed bag. Happy doesn't like to see his posts overshadowed by hundreds of other posts, but large blocks of highly priced items do tend to raise the average price of the item, allowing Happy to raise his own prices - assuming the items are selling. Happy is doing what he does best, though. He has been branching out, adding more items to his inventory, and the gold is still coming in, just not at the level Wild and his gold hungry family is used to.
Philly got in her nightly foray to the Isle for her dailies (soloing there can be done with one hand :-) ) and DINGED! to level 72.
I'm not sure what's in store for Friday night. I'll have to wait and see how "the hand" feels.
Wild had no trouble logging in Thursday night, and for once things seemed much more stable. Of course it would be better, Wild would not be raiding. I whispered Bd, the raid leader for the MM group, and let him know that I needed to rest the hand and could not make the raid. He was disappointed, but understood. I wished them well, and I sincerely hope they clear the whole ICC wing.
Happy puttered about the AH. Happy is not that happy. Profits are down by two-thirds, with no signs of improvement. Enchanting mats, Happy's forte, are just not selling at the price or quantity of the past. In some cases once good selling items has become very stable, the absolutely worst thing that can happen since Happy needs prices to fluctuate in order to buy low and sell high. If the prices never vary by much, there's no profit to be made. Another trend of some sellers is to target the uninformed, the stupid, and the impatient buyers. These sellers blanket a market with items, filling several pages in the AH, and priced at double and triple their average value. Almost none of it sells, but it overwhelms the better priced posts and the seller makes a large profit on the small number that do get bought. For Happy, that's a mixed bag. Happy doesn't like to see his posts overshadowed by hundreds of other posts, but large blocks of highly priced items do tend to raise the average price of the item, allowing Happy to raise his own prices - assuming the items are selling. Happy is doing what he does best, though. He has been branching out, adding more items to his inventory, and the gold is still coming in, just not at the level Wild and his gold hungry family is used to.
Philly got in her nightly foray to the Isle for her dailies (soloing there can be done with one hand :-) ) and DINGED! to level 72.
I'm not sure what's in store for Friday night. I'll have to wait and see how "the hand" feels.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Wednesday (10 Feb) - It's Deja Vu All Over Again
Wednesday (10 Feb) - It's Deja Vu All Over Again
The massive lag and interminable login problems have not gotten any better since the last maintenance 10 days ago, and that despite almost daily rolling restarts for emergency "fixes" that haven't fixed anything. Blizzard is ignoring the fact that this started after last week's maintenance, assuring us that they are working hard to fix the problems resulting over "the past two days" (ie, since the maintenance done this current week).
Last night (Wednesday) it took Wild four tries and three disconnects at the "blue bar" (the last stop before getting in game) to login. It took the MM group until 6:40pm to get a ten man together despite all of us starting the login process by 5:30pm.
The guild 25 man had those problems as well as a new wrinkle that wasn't expected. More than thirty raiders had signed up for the raid, 11 of them healers. Even with the server issues, there were more raiders in game than they could accommodate, although some of them had their spots held open as they fought their way online, a tougher battle than the ones they were going to face in the raid. There was confusion and at least one complaint, but guild leaders responded Thursday morning on the website to explain the situation, and it appeared that they did the best they could. They never got to ICC, but did kill two bosses in VoA before things further unraveled.
As the MM group was waiting for their 10th raider to join, and at the same moment that the second boss in VoA was falling to the guild, the Silvermoon server finally had enough and crashed. It was the only server crash according to the server listing that can be accessed from the login screen, and in fact those on us chatting on vent were able to go to other servers where they had alts and had no trouble at all logging in. Even Wild checked two servers where there are low level Wild family members. The server was working fine, and the toons were delighted to get even the short drive by.
There was no raiding for Wild. Shades of past server problems come to mind, when full queues and long login times was an almost normal occurrence. I really hope it doesn't get that bad.
Much, much later in the evening Philly got in game, did her dailies, and is now 83% of the way to level 72.
However, "the hand" suffered a setback and has been bothering me. I've been told to take it easier or I might wind up with a new set of stitches. Sigh. That may stop my raiding tonight. Maybe.
The massive lag and interminable login problems have not gotten any better since the last maintenance 10 days ago, and that despite almost daily rolling restarts for emergency "fixes" that haven't fixed anything. Blizzard is ignoring the fact that this started after last week's maintenance, assuring us that they are working hard to fix the problems resulting over "the past two days" (ie, since the maintenance done this current week).
Last night (Wednesday) it took Wild four tries and three disconnects at the "blue bar" (the last stop before getting in game) to login. It took the MM group until 6:40pm to get a ten man together despite all of us starting the login process by 5:30pm.
The guild 25 man had those problems as well as a new wrinkle that wasn't expected. More than thirty raiders had signed up for the raid, 11 of them healers. Even with the server issues, there were more raiders in game than they could accommodate, although some of them had their spots held open as they fought their way online, a tougher battle than the ones they were going to face in the raid. There was confusion and at least one complaint, but guild leaders responded Thursday morning on the website to explain the situation, and it appeared that they did the best they could. They never got to ICC, but did kill two bosses in VoA before things further unraveled.
As the MM group was waiting for their 10th raider to join, and at the same moment that the second boss in VoA was falling to the guild, the Silvermoon server finally had enough and crashed. It was the only server crash according to the server listing that can be accessed from the login screen, and in fact those on us chatting on vent were able to go to other servers where they had alts and had no trouble at all logging in. Even Wild checked two servers where there are low level Wild family members. The server was working fine, and the toons were delighted to get even the short drive by.
There was no raiding for Wild. Shades of past server problems come to mind, when full queues and long login times was an almost normal occurrence. I really hope it doesn't get that bad.
Much, much later in the evening Philly got in game, did her dailies, and is now 83% of the way to level 72.
However, "the hand" suffered a setback and has been bothering me. I've been told to take it easier or I might wind up with a new set of stitches. Sigh. That may stop my raiding tonight. Maybe.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Tuesday (9 Feb) - Ouch!
Tuesday (9 Feb) - Ouch!
Getting those stitches out was actually worse than suturing them in. I had a different doctor taking them out, and he immediately complained that a single rolling stitch hadn't been used to close the wound. Each of the fourteen stitches were tied separately, so he had to cut and remove them one at a time. The bruised, swollen remains after the stitches came out looked awful, but it will heal. There is going to be a doozy of a scar, though.
The real fun, however, started when Wild tried to log in Tuesday night for the guild 25 man raid. This was the weekly maintenance day and the down time had been extended three times to fix problems. Wild first logged in at 4pm, taking about 15 minutes and three tries to get in game. The idea was that I would get Wild logged in and out of Dalaran before things got even even worse. It was past 4:30pm by the time Wild got to Icecrown Citadel, where I had to leave him, logging out for dinner (mandatory family time on raid nights). After dinner it took more than 20 minutes to get logged back in, finally getting in game at about 5:55pm. So, even with the horrible login problems Wild was in game, one time, and at ICC where I was supposed to be. Wild had also signed up for the raid. Wild was ready to rock.
We were also planning on testing the new dkp system, which required every raider loading that addon I mentioned yesterday, EPGPLootMaster. Except that raid leadership had confused folks with differing addons, and after all that effort to login Wild learned that they had changed the addon and now I should be loading EPGPLoot2 instead. Or in addition. I wasn't sure, it was all very confusing.
I asked in guild chat for some guidance, as did others. I was not going to log out to change addons without being directed to as I didn't want to spend another 20 minutes trying to get back in. At 6:30pm (30 minutes late already) there were 13 raiders in ICC, and 11 more standing around outside. That's when Wild realized that invites must have gone out - and an invite had not come his way. I went to the raid calendar. To Wild's complete and utter surprise he was listed as a Standby. Wait a minute. For last week's raid Wild had checked himself as Tentative because of my hand, but I was still in game and on time and prepared to play if they needed me. They didn't need me and I was fine with that. But that should be taken into account for this week's raid.
So now, Wild is waiting to see if I'm going to be invited this week. Narcissus was in game with Wild while I was waiting. I need a shortcut name for her, and Narc just doesn't really do her justice. I think she's going to called Sis from now on. Sis was busy levelling and had reached level 76, making Philly pretty jealous and maybe spurring Philly to greater effort, as she is still short of level 72. Anyway, Sis was keeping Wild company and sharing cake while she was lagfrozen after dying, although the server hadn't caught up with that yet. She was also watching MST3K at the same time. Wild couldn't resist commenting about how great watching MST3k was, particularly when you are dead and eating cake. Chatting with Sis was great, and by far the best part of this evening.
Wild watched as the raid continued to fill, hearing that some spots were being held open for raiders still trying to log in. At 6:45pm there were still six guildies standing outside ICC, four of us, including Wild, being healers. I could count six healers in the raid already, and I was pretty sure that was the number they were aiming for. We got the word. The raid was full, thank you for standing by. Sis put down her cake long enough to whip up a special warlock "Curse of the Hemmorhoids" on the raid, which Wild greatly appreciated.
So Wild has now missed two weeks in a row, and I'm going to want an answer to that. I'm also going to be paying a lot more attention to how raiders answer the raid calendar. I am pretty sure one of the druids had listed himself as tentative, had made last week's raid, and yet got invited ahead of Wild.
To be honest, though, I'm pretty sure why. Wild did end up in the Wednesday night raid last week, where we downed Toravon in VoA and Wild got his T10. Wild wasn't even signed up for that raid and normally would have been running with the MM 10 man. A run's a run, though, so that is likely how they'll see it.
Philly got a little game time, and is now 67% of the way to level 72. In addition to the Isle Philly has been doing some of the dailies for Valentine's week (called Love is in the Air). There are five easy quests that give over 100k xp. There are other quests as well, and even a special level 80 boss to kill, but Philly isn't THAT interested in the silly goings on.
Getting those stitches out was actually worse than suturing them in. I had a different doctor taking them out, and he immediately complained that a single rolling stitch hadn't been used to close the wound. Each of the fourteen stitches were tied separately, so he had to cut and remove them one at a time. The bruised, swollen remains after the stitches came out looked awful, but it will heal. There is going to be a doozy of a scar, though.
The real fun, however, started when Wild tried to log in Tuesday night for the guild 25 man raid. This was the weekly maintenance day and the down time had been extended three times to fix problems. Wild first logged in at 4pm, taking about 15 minutes and three tries to get in game. The idea was that I would get Wild logged in and out of Dalaran before things got even even worse. It was past 4:30pm by the time Wild got to Icecrown Citadel, where I had to leave him, logging out for dinner (mandatory family time on raid nights). After dinner it took more than 20 minutes to get logged back in, finally getting in game at about 5:55pm. So, even with the horrible login problems Wild was in game, one time, and at ICC where I was supposed to be. Wild had also signed up for the raid. Wild was ready to rock.
We were also planning on testing the new dkp system, which required every raider loading that addon I mentioned yesterday, EPGPLootMaster. Except that raid leadership had confused folks with differing addons, and after all that effort to login Wild learned that they had changed the addon and now I should be loading EPGPLoot2 instead. Or in addition. I wasn't sure, it was all very confusing.
I asked in guild chat for some guidance, as did others. I was not going to log out to change addons without being directed to as I didn't want to spend another 20 minutes trying to get back in. At 6:30pm (30 minutes late already) there were 13 raiders in ICC, and 11 more standing around outside. That's when Wild realized that invites must have gone out - and an invite had not come his way. I went to the raid calendar. To Wild's complete and utter surprise he was listed as a Standby. Wait a minute. For last week's raid Wild had checked himself as Tentative because of my hand, but I was still in game and on time and prepared to play if they needed me. They didn't need me and I was fine with that. But that should be taken into account for this week's raid.
So now, Wild is waiting to see if I'm going to be invited this week. Narcissus was in game with Wild while I was waiting. I need a shortcut name for her, and Narc just doesn't really do her justice. I think she's going to called Sis from now on. Sis was busy levelling and had reached level 76, making Philly pretty jealous and maybe spurring Philly to greater effort, as she is still short of level 72. Anyway, Sis was keeping Wild company and sharing cake while she was lagfrozen after dying, although the server hadn't caught up with that yet. She was also watching MST3K at the same time. Wild couldn't resist commenting about how great watching MST3k was, particularly when you are dead and eating cake. Chatting with Sis was great, and by far the best part of this evening.
Wild watched as the raid continued to fill, hearing that some spots were being held open for raiders still trying to log in. At 6:45pm there were still six guildies standing outside ICC, four of us, including Wild, being healers. I could count six healers in the raid already, and I was pretty sure that was the number they were aiming for. We got the word. The raid was full, thank you for standing by. Sis put down her cake long enough to whip up a special warlock "Curse of the Hemmorhoids" on the raid, which Wild greatly appreciated.
So Wild has now missed two weeks in a row, and I'm going to want an answer to that. I'm also going to be paying a lot more attention to how raiders answer the raid calendar. I am pretty sure one of the druids had listed himself as tentative, had made last week's raid, and yet got invited ahead of Wild.
To be honest, though, I'm pretty sure why. Wild did end up in the Wednesday night raid last week, where we downed Toravon in VoA and Wild got his T10. Wild wasn't even signed up for that raid and normally would have been running with the MM 10 man. A run's a run, though, so that is likely how they'll see it.
Philly got a little game time, and is now 67% of the way to level 72. In addition to the Isle Philly has been doing some of the dailies for Valentine's week (called Love is in the Air). There are five easy quests that give over 100k xp. There are other quests as well, and even a special level 80 boss to kill, but Philly isn't THAT interested in the silly goings on.
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