Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Monday (28 Jun) - Back From the Desert

Monday (28 Jun) - Back From the Desert

We are, at last, back from the desert. It was a fun trip, but it seems I am even farther behind now that I am back. Our 21st wedding anniversary is July 1st and the Mrs birthday is 30 Jun (what kind of a glutton for punishment does that make me?). Our gift giving is more on the creative side than the costly side (at least this year) and it is taking up most of my time right now to get things together.

Happy is still manhandling the Auction House, Wild is still pondering the cost of a pair of i264 boots, and Naithipe is still being her enigmatic self. The MM guild ICC10 raid appears to be on for Tuesday and Wednesday, and Wild is signed up for that despite the looming RL events.

As for Monday night, I desperately needed to go kill things to recharge the batteries, so Monday night pvp couldn't have come at a better time.

Happy had been logging in and out of the game during the day with no problems. However, at 8:45pm when Mery tried to log in, I could not get past the Connect screen. After several tries I finally got in game. Mery was in Thunder Bluff. Lao was already in game in an Arathi Basin match. We greeted each other and Mery started preparing for the evening, donning her heirloom gear and swapping out her soling pet (Sassy the gorilla) for her pvp pet (Fleshrypper the predator bird). Lao invited Mery to group up, asking Mery if she was ready. Lao didn't get an answer because Mery went into an extended lag and then was booted out of the game.

It took several more minutes of attempting to login before Mery was finally able to get back in. All seemed fine this time. Lao reported that Ando would not be joining us, not on Monday night and not for awhile. Real Life had taken center stage . . . Ando and the rest of the DER family hope to be back in about a month.

Lao and Mery got into Warsong Gulch, on a team in which more than half the players were paladins. It was not a good mix and when it became obvious we had no chance, and when players started leaving, we both agreed to bail on the match if an Arathi Basin match came up. After a protracted and fruitless battle, AB became available and we switched over.

Arathi Basin was no better, however, but for a different reason. The alliance opponent must have been under represented, as the horde team swept through the bases with little opposition. Lao and Mery took two bases ourselves, and then helped overwhelm the alliance graveyard, killing alliance players as they rezzed. In less than five minutes we'd won the match.

Then it was back to Warsong Gulch in another protracted fight that didn't seem to go anywhere. The terrible lag earlier in the evening returned as well, and Mery found herself in a twilight world where she could do nothing while the battle went on around her and without her. She was then disconnected from the game once again.

There is major server maintenance planned for Tuesday, although our server supposedly had our big upgrade done last week (when our server was down a full 24 hours). This time the new Ruby Sanctum dungeon might be opened, and perhaps preps for that caused the lagging. Also supposedly, Silvermoon server will be back online at 11am Tuesday morning. But I doubt it.

Mery and Lao decided to call it a night, given Mery's lag/DC issues and the uninspiring pvp matches. At least Mery picked up a little experience, going from 23% to 30% of the way to level 44.

Wild will be waiting to see whether he'll be joining the MM guild in an ICC10 run Tuesday night - or perhaps getting a first look at Ruby Sanctum.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Tuesday (22 Jun) - Anti-Social, Old fashioned or Just Weird

Tuesday (22 Jun) - Anti-Social, Old fashioned or Just Weird

A strange title for a post about the latest patch, 3.3.5, which went live this morning. The servers are still down but there will be a crush of players trying to get into the new raid dungeon, Ruby Sanctum, the second those servers come up. Massive excitement, and massive lag, will reign for a few days until the novelty wears off. Ruby Sanctum (RS) has only one boss with a few mini-bosses similar to the Obsidium Sanctum. The new loot will be welcome, and Wild is certainly looking forward to getting in there. For now it's uncertain whether RS will become a scheduled weekly run or not. It will certainly be PUGed to death once it's secrets have been plumbed and strategies defined.

The only other major release from the patch is Real ID. The background behind this starts with how game accounts were handled. I have two WoW accounts, Wild's and Philly's. Those accounts were at one time managed completely independently with their own account information (password, login ID, etc). A few months ago Blizzard forced the merger of all such accounts (multiple accounts owned by the same person, to include all of Blizzard's games, not just WoW) under the same account called a Battlenet account. I resisted this because of the obvious question of account security - hack one account and under Battlenet both accounts are at risk, instead of just one. After being forced into a Battlenet account, I'll admit it's more convenient, although I did purchase an Authenticator key for better security.

This was all backend stuff, though, not anything that affected the game itself. Using Battlenet, though, Blizzard has now expanded it's capabilities in what is called Real ID, which was released with this patch.

Using Real ID is voluntary. It's an in game system that expands on the existing Friends List. The original Friends list simply listed the character name, allowing players to see a list of friends in game and as they login or logout. If a player has more than one character (as all do) then every character name had to be entered if you wanted to find that player in game, or you had to know who all that players other characters were.

When players agree to become Friends under Real ID, their real name is displayed in the friends list, along with whatever character they are on. No matter what character that player is playing, he will show up in the friends list. This ability extends across Blizzard games as well. Someone playing Starcraft online will be able to contact a Real ID friend playing Warcraft. Real ID friends playing on different factions (one playing on his horde character and the other on his alliance character) can chat with each other, something never allowed before. Messages can be broadcast to all Real ID Friends, and players can set a status that tells friends whether they are Available, Away, or Busy.

Now, I'm a person who doesn't use twitter, or facebook, or any other social networking site. I'm not anti-tech - I use email, a cell phone, a blackberry, etc. I'm not anti-friends - I have many friends and family who do use those things. More power to them. But I am a private person that has a more limited idea of how much personal information and access should be shared over the internet.

How does that relate to WoW? Well, I've often alluded to some of the things I'll just say plainly here. Not only do I have two accounts, and not only do I have toons in four different guilds, I also have two private guilds just for me. The private guilds are mostly to make use of the guild bank space I can get, but it's also to provide a little privacy when I want it. For example, it took a long time for me to decide to let Philly join the MM guild. That exposed Philly to an entire guild of new people who only knew me as Wild. Philly will never be able to play "under the radar" ever again, because she and Wild are now the same to both the MM and FS guilds. I don't regret doing that since I want Philly to grow into a raiding toon, but it did change how I play her, sometimes for the better, sometimes not.

Under Real ID,frankly it bothers me that every move of every one of my toons in the game can now be tracked by anyone I accept as a Real ID Friend. Yes, it is voluntary. Yes, I can set my status to Busy if I want. But there also does not appear to be any way to opt out on a character by character, or account by account, basis. It's in all the way or not at all. Which gets to the real question. How will other players feel about those of us who would prefer not to participate in Real ID? Am I anti-social? Am I just an old geezer not in tune with the times? Am I just weird? Or all of the above?

One aspect of that is how important Real ID will become to guilds. Will it become something that guild leaders will demand of guildies, like Vent, or using the in game calendar, in order to be able to contact guildies regardless of what toon they are on? Will guildies who opt out of that be seen as not being as supportive of the guild as they should be? Will turning down a request to become a Real ID Friend be seen as dissing or rejecting that player?

I treasure my in game friends and enjoy their company whether we are doing something together or off doing our own thing. Those that know me know my little foibles, so I'm not really worried on that front. However, it is going to take some time for me to find the right balance of companionship and privacy with this new system, if I opt to use it at all.

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Monday (21 Jun) - Secrets

Monday (21 Jun) - Secrets

Auchindoun has been opened. The broken fortress, which once held great battles within it's high walls and deep caverns, had grown silent as the world looked past the Burning Crusade and entered the Wrath of the Lich King. But not every adventurer had left. Some still remember Outland. Some still come to the near deserted city of Shattrath, the jewel city of the great floating island in the heavens.

Auchindoun lies close to Shattrath. Three great wings brought numerous challenges and rewards for those who tested their strength and will against those that dwelt there. A stalwart pair entered Auchindoun early one morning and entered the wing called Sethekk Halls, home of the bird men called the Arakkoa. The two adventurers had very different reasons for stalking this near forgotten place. For one of them it was a test for a later journey to complete a deed long delayed. For the other . . . well, those reasons remained cloaked in the mystery of Naithipe.

Both found somewhat what they were looking for, but not all the secrets and treasure of the place were taken, and they knew they would have to return.

As Naithipe has grown stronger, her demands have become ever stranger. Happy has baffled over requests for pyrestone, and Khorium ore. The latter can be mined, but is exceedingly rare and expensive. The former is not even known in the land of Northrend in the world of the Lich King, and it's acquisition is one of Happy's toughest challenges.

The latest request from Naithipe is for nether vortex, yet another substance of uncertain value beyond the obvious - that it is difficult to obtain. Nether vortex is required of a recipe Naithipe seeks which is found only in the watery depths of Serpentshrine Cavern.

There is more. JB, who has been having difficulty sleeping of late, hears the pounding of a blacksmith's hammer at the forge in Dalaran long into the night. The stacks of armor that grow with that persistent work could equip an army.

On Monday the pair of adventurers were caught out together. Naithipe and (he now has to admit) Wild were deep within Sethekk Halls on a second foray when Wild got a whisper from a guildie.

"Aha!" whispered Wild's old shaman friend, Bf. "You trying to get the mount?"

"No," Wild whispered back, "I'm helping out a friend." Naithipe remained silent, radiating disapproval.

"Want to give it a try when you're done?" Bf has been after Wild to do heroic level Sethekk Halls. There was a time when druids had to complete a quest chain to get their swift flying form, the culmination of which was a special, very difficult battle in heroic mode Sethekk Halls. At level 70 it pretty much took a full five man group to win their way to that encounter and defeat it. One of the additional rewards from that battle were the [Reins of the Raven Lord], an extremely rare mount drop made more rare because only a druid who has completed the quest chain can summon the boss, Anzu, that drops the mount. The Raven Lord mount is one of the most sought after mounts in the game.

Wild agreed to the heroic Sethekk Halls run with Bf once he'd finished with Naithipe. Naithipe was hoping for two items she wanted there, but she was bitterly disappointed when neither dropped. Naithipe stomped off, freeing up Wild for the next run.

Bf was already waiting outside Sethekk Halls when Wild left the dungeon. We quickly buffed up, switched to heroic mode, and entered. Two level 80s, both of whom can heal, should be plenty of firepower for this level 70 dungeon, even though it is calibrated for five players. We had no trouble with the front half of the dungeon. Bf has been through this dungeon numerous times and knew what groups could be avoided and which direction to take to get to the room where we would be summoning Anzu. However, somewhat shockingly, we wiped on a quartet of elites that were able to repeatedly stun us, which stopped us from healing. After that, though, we knew to keep pulls to two when facing that particular mob.

We reached a point when Bf stopped, checked out where we were, and asked Wild, "Is this the spot where we summon Anzu?"

Perhaps this is a good spot for Wild to explain something. Anyone remember a show called Everyone Loves Raymond? We've (me and the Mrs) been watching old reruns of that recently, and right now, in the middle of Sethekk Halls, Wild was getting a sinking feeling that he was playing Raymond.

"Uh, Bf, I haven't actually completed the quest chain, so I don't know whether this is the spot or not."

"What?" a clearly baffled Bf asked. After all, Wild is a druid, so of course I would have completed the quest chain.

"It's ok, I still have the final quest, though. I just need to complete it."

Slightly mollified, Bf replied. "Well, ok, are you ready to summon Anzu?"

Wild made a face. Wild scratched his head. Wild reminded himself that only a druid can do the summons. Wild decided to read up on that quest, which he hoped would tell him how to summon Anzu. While Wild was doing that Bf dropped the other shoe. "You do have the two items you need, don't you?" Uh.

Wild re-read the quest. The first "item" was actually to kill Anzu. Well, that was annoying. I can't kill him if I can't summon him. What else? There was something called a moonstone or a healthstone or something, looked like a trinket? Whatever it was, Wild didn't have anything like that on him. Wild admitted that to Bf, and then suggested it might be in his bank.

Bf is one of the most laid back fellows I know in game. "No problem, Wild," he said," why don't you fly back to Shattrath and check to see if it's in your bank."

Things got worse, though, when Wild got to his bank could not find the item. It seemed Wild still had to complete some other quest chain to get the item that he could then use to summon Anzu. "No matter," said Bf, "when you get the quests done let me know and I'll help you kill Anzu."

Wild learned later in the day that the item is in fact called a moonstone, and that because of some quirk of the quest the item, when won, is not placed in the bags, but on the keychain. Wild wasn't sure what he was hoping for when he opened his keychain to check. Did Wild have that item with him all along? Wild was both relieved and disappointed - he didn't have it.

Wild had plowed through Sethekk Halls twice this morning, with little to show for it. Bf, nonchalant about Wild's failure with Anzu, asked Wild to join him for another two man jaunt, this time into Zul'Gurub, a twenty person raid for level 60ish raiders. [Note - in real life I was getting some long stares from the Mrs, since I was supposed to be getting the RV ready for our trip. But I felt I owed Bf the ZG run after the wasted effort in SH].

Wild had not been inside ZG since our guild had stopped raiding there long, long ago. Bf, though, again knew a route that bypassed most of the place and got us directly to the boss he was after. This boss, High Priest Thekal, has a rare chance to drop a Swift Zulian Tiger mount, another rare ground mount greatly coveted by horde players who collect such things. This is the only tiger mount available to the horde. Getting the idea that Bf likes to collect mounts?

For a five man group at level 60, this fight requires a lot of coordination, particularly in the first phase where the Priest is aided by two adds. All three elites must be killed at the same time or the fight starts over. With Wild spamming his AoE Hurricane, dropping them all at once should not be a problem.

There was one thing Bf forgot about, however - one of the elites is a rogue with a lot of abilities to stun and interrupt casting. As soon as the fight began and Wild started casting, I quickly discovered that half the time I was stunned and unable to cast at all, and the other half I had been slowed by the other elite (a shaman). The fight took a very, very long time. The boss restarted at least three times that I counted, maybe more than that. The only thing that saved us was the fact that we had so much mana and such high mana regen that it was simply impossible for the three elites to kill us. After a numbingly long time, we finally dropped all three. The second phase is a mostly tank and spank with Wild moonkin tanking a single Tiger boss while Bf kept Wild alive long enough to kill him. To complete Wild's day, the tiger mount did not drop.

So, why hadn't Wild completed the flying form quest chain after all this time? A patch was released which made swift flying form a trainable ability. Instead of an epic battle, all that was required was to spend 19g at the trainer. So Wild never completed the quest chain. Guess Wild had better go get that done.

Given that I am kind of on probation by the Mrs until I get all our preparations together, not sure if I'll be able to make it Monday night. I'll try, though.

Friday, June 18, 2010

Wednesday/Thursday (17 Jun) - Losing Track

Wednesday/Thursday (17 Jun) - Losing Track

Had a great time at the Padres game Wednesday night, even though they lost rather badly. It's a great park. Had a physical this morning (Thursday) and the Doctor said I was so disgustingly healthy she couldn't prescribe anything more potent than aspirin for me. I celebrated with a giant chocolate shake from McDonald's. Yes, they now make pretty decent (and cheap) shakes. We have one more evening with our visiting friends (likely Chinese food tonight), Texas Holdem likely on Saturday, and we'll be in Arizona Wed-Fri next week. I'm starting to lose track of where I'm supposed to be and what the Wild family are up to . . .

Philly was up to something, I'm told. She got into a VoA25 raid as a healer and had a good opportunity to compare her healing with the other four healers, two of which were priests. The two others were a paladin and a druid. We did the usual two boss fight, Toravon and Koravon. One priest item dropped, which got Philly excited because she rarely sees i264 drops, but she lost the roll to one of the other priests.

Since four of the five healers could use shields (excluding only the druid), this raid could also show the differences in pure healing and in "absorption" healing where a shield absorbs damage instead of healing it.

Philly was last in healing no matter how I counted it, which was expected, but I still find the numbers interesting. The first hps (heals per second) counts both pure healing and shield absorption, while the second hps counts only pure healing.

#1: priest, 5153 hps/24.9% of the healing (#2, with 3439 pure hps)
#2: paladin, 4814/22% (#1, 4592)
#3: priest, 3439/17% (#4, 2099)
#4: druid, 2977/16.6% (#3, 2977)
#5: Philly, 3280/10.7% (#5, 1184)

Counting shield absorption, Philly was well within range of all but the top two healers, even though her total healing was low (probably because she was on raid healing, which meant spamming shields on many raiders even if no damage was ever done to them). Looking at only the second hps number, the two higher ranked priests both dropped down and Philly's numbers looked a lot worse than they really were. Raid leaders who don't take shield absorption into account are missing out on what disc priests can bring to a raid.

We partied 'till pretty late Thursday night and only Happy got to see any game time.

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Tuesday (15 Jun) - No Moonkin Help in ICC

Tuesday (15 Jun) - No Moonkin Help in ICC

Last weekend Wild came "this" close to spending 8k gold for a pair of boots to upgrade his moonkin gear. Happy talked him out of it, pointing out that Icecrown Citadel had seven items that would upgrade Wild's gear at no cost. The gear just had to drop, and Wild just had to roll high enough to win them. Tuesday night, Wild figured he'd get four chances to get one of those seven items. On the night two nice trinkets did drop, but they were trinkets Wild already had. None of the seven +hit gear available in ICC dropped. Happy is doing his darndest to keep Wild away from the Auction House.

Our ICC10 on Tuesday night had several new faces. The MM guild did finally get two groups together, but it was well after 7pm before our group was able to get started. We did not have our regular off tank, but a DPS pally that is one of our regulars switched to tank spec for this run. We were also missing our regular paladin healer, and for awhile there I thought we would try to two heal it with Wild and the priest, Lg, who is also a regular. He's a good healer, but not nearly as well geared as the paladin, and that would have made things a real challenge. We did get a third healer, though, a druid healer like Wild who was in the MM guild but who I'd never run with before.

Wild was asked to heal the off tank instead of the main tank, giving that role to the other druid. Since the paladin who was doing the off tanking did not usually tank, the raid leader felt it was better to have Wild healing him. It was a good strategy, even though it got Wild killed. More than once.

We were working on the groups of trash mobs leading up to Lord Marrowgar, the first boss. Our lovely lady rogue, who's microphone was no longer working and who's voice on vent I missed, was having a little bout of lack of confidence in herself. Her job was to stealth around the area and find the traps that if tripped would release a big nasty hostile. But she was missing them somehow, and we kept tripping traps. Compounding that, the off tank was trying very hard to get into tank mode, and normally the trash mob battles were a good way to get settled in. With the big nasty's adding more challenge and confusion to the fight, the off tank was having a little trouble keeping control of the mobs he was tanking. And when that happened? Those mobs came right after Wild. Wild did what he could, Barkskinning, eating his "candy" (slang for a healthstone, which each raider usually has one of when there is a warlock to make them for us), casting his instant heals, and trying to kite the thing attacking me to the off tank so he could take control again. Wild still died twice before we were through with the trash.

All was good, though. We made it to Marrowgar and killed him on our first try. Wild was curious about how Wild and the new druid would stack up with each other. After all, we were likely going to be stealing each other's heals to some extent, assuming he would be a better geared healer than the priest since he'd been assigned to tank heal. The numbers for Marrowgar were Wild #1 (4803 hps) and the other druid #2 (3846 hps). That was still a very good hps for the other druid, and Wild figured we were set with our healing.

We had more interesting problems on the trash leading up to the second boss, Deathwhisper, and Wild died a third time. "What, am I covered in honey or something?" Wild asked after the third death. "Mmmm, honey," the lady rogue typed in chat. If only I could hear her voice. Deathwhisper went down on our first try as well. I must have been really distracted by that rogue, as the other druid healer beat Wild in healing, 3378 hps to 3005 hps. Concentrate, Wild, concentrate!

After a solid Gunship run last week, the quirks and bugs reappeared when we cast off the lines and launched the ship on this night. The raid leader asked the off tank if he wanted the jump ship role. It was his first time using the rocket launcher to fly to the enemy ship to bring the battle to them. He made the leap just fine, but didn't position close enough to the rails of the enemy ship for Wild to be able to heal him. Wild and the raid leader tried to talk him over to the right spot, but he didn't make it, and died. We won the battle on our second attempt easily. Wild got back to #1 in healing, 2809 hps to 2763 hps.

The fourth and final boss in the first wing is Deathbringer Saurfang. We've finally learned, I thought, that for this fight we'd use only two healers, with the third healer switching to DPS. That third healer has always been the priest, but since we already had a shadow priest in the raid the other druid decided to switch to cat form DPS. From a pure DPS perspective, that was a good move because on our first attempt our cat druid was #2 in DPS (5166 DPS), second only to the rogue. Melee DPS should lead because Saurfang never moves during the fight, making him an easy target for the melee. The problem, we soon discovered, was that we had only two ranged DPS. Ranged DPS is critical to stop and kill the beasts that spawn several times during the fight. The beasts do HUGE damage and love to target healers. The ranged DPS has to aggro them, kite them, and kill them. With so few ranged DPS some of the melee had to help, taking away from doing damage to Saurfang, and giving the beasts a chance to hit the melee (which has the side effect of healing Saurfang). We fought well, but we could not bring down Saurfang and eventually hit the enrage timer and wiped.

On our second attempt we went with two druids healing and two shadow priests, which at least gave us three ranged DPS to work with. Again we made a good attempt, but our healer/shadow priest could only deliver 2530 DPS (#6, last among all the DPSers), and it wasn't enough to kill the beasts fast enough. Beasts found targets, Saurfang would gain health back, and eventually we were overwhelmed by beasts.

We gave it a third try, but one of our DPS disconnected right after the fight started. Short a ranged DPS, we had no chance whatever and wiped again.

They will be going after Saurfang again on Wednesday night, and the pally healer should be back to take Wild's place. Wild won't be there. I'll be cheering on the San Diego Padres at Petco Park.

Monday, June 14, 2010

Weekend (13 Jun) - Busy Busy Busy

Weekend (13 Jun) - Busy Busy Busy

We have friends visiting us, and are baby-sitting two cats, on top of a number of other real life things going on and it has been tough getting on the computer the past few days. And there wasn't even any painting going on.

Wild was all but absent and Philly couldn't seem to match up her in game time with either Wintergrasp or a VoA run and came away empty each time. The younger girls did get some slices of time. Mery leveled from 42 to 43 and had to put in a request for more hi-impact mithril shells for her gun with Lao after nearly emptying her current supply. EZ also leveled up, from 35 to 36, but was still a little disappointed she didn't make any more progress than that. There was talk that Naithipe was also out and about. There were no confirmed sightings, but rumor has it that Naithipe paid a visit to the big game hunter, Nessingway, and had gone hunting.

Happy and JB have quite the racket going, with JB crafting Flasks of the Frost Wyrm (average cost to make - 15g) and then Happy selling them for 20-25 gold each. The demand for the flasks, needed by virtually every raiding healer and DPS caster, was huge over the weekend.

The only major event over the weekend was Sin and Philly (after Philly kicked out EZ so she could come) pairing up for a Halls of Lightning normal dungeon run. Sin was finishing up the series of quests in the Sons of Hodir faction grind, the culmination of which was killing the final boss, Loken, in HoL. We had a bit of an over-cautious warrior tank for the run, but with an iffy rogue who routinely got himself killed and a mage who couldn't out DPS the tank, it was probably good that he took his time. Sin has made level 79 and the family is looking forward to congratulating her on level 80 in the very near future I'm sure.

Finally, Wild has a chance to make a rather large upgrade to his moonkin set. Wild was eyeing a pair of i264 cloth boots on the AH that would solve a vexing problem Wild was having with his +hit stat. In order to meet the minimum requirements of being able to hit a raid boss, Wild was using a trinket for a large amount of his +hit. I'd really like to replace that trinket with a +spell power trinket instead. The boots would make that possible. However, the boots cost 8,000 gold, which if Wild bought them would make them the single most expensive thing Wild has ever bought. Happy talked him into checking all of the +hit drops in ICC10 to see if a solution might be there (instead of in Happy's wallet). A review of the loot showed that there were seven items accessible to Wild through ICC10 that would help Wild get his moonkin set up to speed. A little patience and Wild would not have to spend that gold. That's not to say that Wild won't go off and buy those boots, anyway, but Happy at least kept hold of his gold for a few more days.

In other real life news, Wild will only be raiding on Tuesday night. I'll be at a Padres game Wednesday night. We're still in first place. How that can be is a mystery to all of us, but we're enjoying it while it lasts.

Friday, June 11, 2010

Friday (11 Jun) - Cataclysm Druid Talent tree

Friday (11 Jun) - Cataclysm Druid Talent tree

[warning - sad rant coming]

Blizzard has released the "still being worked" talent trees for the druid class in the Cataclysm expansion pack. The early reviews are WOW! for the feral tree for both cat (DPS) and bear (tank) forms. The moonkin tree has some very mixed reviews. The resto/healing tree - well, it's just awful.
Blizzard can never seem to make up their mind what they want druid healers to be. Every expansion or major talent shakeup our role gets totally redefined.

The new and changed talents seem to be focused heavily on pvp and even more so on raid healing in "rated" battlegrounds. In Cataclysm, each week a battleground will designated as the rated battleground, and raiders who win those matches will be awarded Arena points and given a rating. Those battles will almost assuredly be dominated by premade teams. Since this is also linked to the new guild levelling system (yes, guilds will have the ability to level as well as players) there could be considerable pressure to participate in guild pvp teams. I am not against that but I am digressing. The point is that most of the talent changes seem to be designed to improve pvp play to the detriment of pve play (ie, raid dungeons). And I don't like that. At all.

The druid tree form is gone. Although I don't like that, either, I can live with not having a "tree form" healer. However, many of the buffs provided to the rest of the raid while in that form are also gone, which reduces the druid healer's raid utility (raid utility are the things a class brings that help the raid - without them a raid leader might choose another class of healer over a druid because they bring more utility to the raid).

The replacement for tree of life is a cooldown spell that has been described as a glorified "use" trinket. And after taking away things like the 6% increase in healing across the raid and the 20% mana reduction in HoT spells (both valuable healing buffs), it provides things like reducing our movement speed by 50% and increasing our damage done. Increase our damage? We are healers, we aren't doing damage! And losing half our movement speed where "get out of the fire!" or something comparable is built into virtually every raid encounter is a great way to ensure that ability is never used. As mentioned above, it may be a great ability in pvp - but it sucks for pve raid dungeons.

Back to changing how druid's are supposed to heal, many of the healing "buffs" in the new tree are designed to be most effective when a raider's health is below 25%. Additionally, it appears they want those heals to be more dependant on critical hits (which make them less dependable since crits are randomly generated and can't be controlled). Druids are currently HoT healers, where it is important to keep your healing target topped off with high health. So now it appears we are going to be "oh my gosh!" emergency healers for when health gets low? The new buffs focus on our long cast spells, such as healing touch and nourish, on undependable crits, and panic healing.

I don't see myself using the new, broken tree of life ability; I have no interest in doing what would be pitiful damage in healing spec; and I really dislike the changes to healing style that are being forced on the class. This is still a first cut, but if this is where druid healing is headed it just may kill what I like best in this game, and that's raiding.

The changes do help in levelling, and of course I'll be levelling a toon or two to explore the world after the cataclysm, but beyond that . . . I just don't know. Ima sad drood right now.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Thursday (9 Jun) - Die Sartherion - PLEASE!

Thursday (9 Jun) - Die Sartherion - PLEASE!

The Wednesday Icecrown Citadel run became a challenge match between the two MM ICC10 groups and the FS alt ICC10. I didn't really think a third FS ICC10 raid would work, as that has not done well in the past. But FS has fielded a third raid the last three Wednesdays or so, and fielded one last night as well. The two MM ICC10 raids have also started to coalesce into two distinct teams, with healing and tanking members pretty constant and only minor changes to the DPS. The Mf led group that Wild has been in was happy to see a shaman join us for the first time. We're hoping he'll become a regular DPSer for us.

We were back to slow and slower on getting started again, and it was closing in on 7pm before we were all assembled and ready to go. A lot of that time was spent sorting out raiders and getting them assigned to the two balanced teams, so hopefully that will shorten up as raiders become "regulars" on our two respective teams and it becomes easier to make assignments. Our group was a bit embarrassed that we wiped on the first boss, Lord Marrowgar, on our first attempt. It's been weeks since that has happened, and it put us behind in our little race with the other team. The boss seemed a bit glitchy, and some of the melee raiders complained that the "white fire" cast by Marrowgar was appearing inside Marrowgar's hit box, which is where the melee stand and where the white fire is not supposed to be. But we worked around it and Marrowgar died as he was supposed to on our second attempt.

After last week's loot haul Wild's biggest gear need was a spell power trinket. Wild has one high end i264 trinket with +179 spell power, but has been using a mid level +128 int i245 trinket in the second trinket slot. Wild's gear has improved to the point that he no longer needed that extra +int and wanted to replace it with a spell power trinket. Lord Marrowgar dropped [Sliver of Pure Ice], a +158 spell power trinket that, while not best in slot (BiS), would certainly do. Wild rolled a 100 (out of a 100) and won the ilevel 251 trinket.

Lady Deathwhisper gave us no trouble and she died on our first attempt. The Gunship was mercifully free of it's usual glitches and we won that battle as well. During the Gunship battle Wild achieved Exalted rep with the Ashen Verdict, the ICC specific faction the rewards a high end ring upgrade at each rep level. Wild picked up the ring upgrade (ilevel 277) prior to the the next boss, Saurfang.

We had made up some time on the other MM ICC raid. Wild had learned that the FS altICC had already beaten Saurfang, though, and was working on Festergut. The Saurfang battle gave us trouble, too, because we forgot what we had learned the week before. Last week we kept wiping because it took too long to kill the beasts that spawn at regular intervals throughout the fight. Those were hard hitting beasts that disrupted the raid and also healed Saurfang when the beasts could do damage to raiders. We had the same trouble this week, and wiped three times before we had our belated "Aha!" moment. Last week, and this week, we started with three healers. We only need two, and when we switched to two healers (allowing the #3 healer, a priest, to switch to DPS shadowform), we killed Saurfang. Finally remembering that, we switched the priest healer to DPS again, and down Saurfang went. The other MM ICC group also killed Saurfang, but we beat them to it by a couple of minutes.

Both MM groups had to break up and we didn't get a chance at Festergut. The FS group gave Festergut a few tries but didn't kill him. The calibre of the bosses in ICC go up considerably once past that first wing.

The weekly frost raid was the dragon Sartherion in the Obsidium Sanctum. There were enough MM guildies around to get a group together to get that done and Wild joined them. On a straight run where we kill the trash and the three mini-bosses, this is about as easy a fight as there is to get five frost badges. However, we decided that it would be more fun to "zerg" Sartherion. The "zerg" strategy leaves all three of the mini-bosses alive, and they join in the fight once we attack Sartherion. The basic premise is to kill Sartherion before he, his three mini-dragons, and all the other nasty things that occur, wipe the raid. It's a race to see who dies last.

We agreed to give the zerg approach two chances, and if that didn't work we'd do it the regular way. Only one tank and one healer were needed, since we would be ignoring all the bad guys except for Sartherion. Since our paladin healer only had a healing spec, Wild got to switch to moonkin form for the fight. Wild was raring to go.

We made our two attempts, and we came oh so close! both times, but wiped. We agreed to take another shot. And then another. And then another. It was so danged frustrating! We could ALMOST kill him, getting the dragon to under 1% health, but just couldn't seem to muster up that last bit of DPS, or stay alive those few extra seconds needed to finish the job.

We got so single minded about it all thought of just getting it done the regular way and just getting out of there was lost in our frustration. Most of us already had the "zerg" achievement, too, so it wasn't like we were going to get anything special. It's just the weekly! But we plowed on - for more than an hour. With that determination and with that amount of time we could have killed Festergut, I'm sure, but all that effort went into our zerg obsession.

Finally, mercifully, after uncounted attempts, we threw up our hands and did it the regular way. It took less than a minute to kill Sartherion. It cost Wild more than 60 gold in repairs, and an hour's time to get those five frost badges.

Wild did get something positive out of all those attempts, though. Wild got a heck of a lot of practice DPSing a raid boss and his DPS certainly showed improvement over the course of the evening.

On the few trash mobs we had to kill to get to Sartherion the first time, Wild's numbers were right in line with all the other 8 DPSers. Wild was actually #3 with 4156 DPS. The leaders were two shaman topping out at 4581.

Over the course of the boss fights Wild finished on average fifth in damage dealing and with an average of 5364 DPS, very good for Wild. The top end average DPS was 6832. Wild's best single fight DPS was 6132. And with a full hour's practice against a living, breathing raid boss, Wild really started to feel comfortable doing raid DPS.

But PLEASE, let's not do that again!

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Monday (7 Jun) - Nothing to do Day

Monday (7 Jun) - Nothing to do Day

At least nothing to do on a maintenance day that is scheduled to last until midnight and probably later.

But there is Monday night to talk about, of course. Ando, Lao, and EZ showed up for pvp night. Ando was level 40 already, and Lao DINGED to level 40 earlier in the day. EZ had worked hard to get from level 32 to level 35, but that still wouldn't get her into the 40-49 pvp bracket. So level 42 Mery got a rare chance to come out and play. That chance was so rare it was almost like learning how to play again. "Let's see," Mery joked, "I'm a hunter, right? I should have, like, some kind of combat pet. Anyone remember where I left mine?"

Lao and Mery got in on a battleground while waiting on Ando, and then the three of them mixed it up in a second match. Both were somewhat forgettable matches with not much pizzazz on the part of either faction, it seemed. Perhaps knowing that the servers were going to go down dampened spirits.

Unhappy with the desultory results from the battlegrounds, we decided to try a random dungeon. Ando signed on as the healer with Lao and Mery the DPS. We picked up a paladin tank and a shaman ranged DPS, and learned that we were headed into Uldaman. It's a level 39-47 dungeon, right in our wheelhouse. With such a wide level range of the elite mobs in Uldaman, it was a bit hard to judge how hard to DPS and how fast to move. There are a lot of mobs in Uldaman, too, so every fight would entail three or more mobs. The paladin tank started out cautiously, perhaps a little too cautiously for our group. Uldaman is huge, and could take hours to do everything. Ando (healing) and the tank agreed that we could move faster, but even then Ando decided to help out by aggroing additional mobs to kite over to the tank. Mery used her multi-shot as often as she could to nail multiple mobs, and helping pull aggroed mobs off of Lao or Ando when necessary. Some of those pulls were huge, and sometimes Lao or the shaman would die. The tank even died on one large grouping, and Ando died once (or was it twice, Ando?) when the endangered paladin Bubbled, dropping aggro and sending all those mobs at Ando. Mery often had mobs in her face, but with the help of Sassy, her tanking gorilla, Mery managed to stay alive throughout the dungeon.

When we finished Uldaman, Lao had to call it an evening and Mery and Ando hung out in Uldaman a bit longer, poking our noses into areas we didn't get to in our quick step march with the group. When that paled it was time to bring out the bigger guns.

Sin, the level 77/78 moonkin/healer druid and shadowpriest Philly hooked up for another random normal dungeon. I think it was Gundrak, but it's hard to remember after having done so many. Philly, at level 80, had the advantage over the other DPS and figured she might have to tone down her attacks depending on how well geared and experienced the tank was.

It didn't start out so well. A small pull turned into a large pull the tank didn't pick up and a small army charged right at Philly. Sin, doing the healing, had no time to react before Philly went down. I was so surprised Philly was dead before I was able to reach for the Shield. The tank acknowledged that he had goofed, and after that things went more or less according to plan. We got a little lost at one point, although Philly couldn't be sure because she's more or less permanently lost in dungeons anyway.

We signed up for another random dungeon, and while we waited went off to kill a level 75 elite for a quest Sin was on. We never did get that second random dungeon. Right on time, we got a server message counting down the minutes until the server would go down.

See ya'll on the other side of maintenance.

Monday, June 7, 2010

Weekend Part 2 (6 Jun) - The Rest of the Weekend

Weekend Part 2 (6 Jun) - The Rest of the Weekend

Philly wanted to show off her Tier 9 shoulders, so we'll start with a photo:


According to the WoW-Heroes rating site, Philly's shadowpriest spec gearscore of 2427 is good enough to get her into Naxxramas, Onyxia, Ulduar, ToC, and barely on the edge of ICC 10 man. Surprisingly, Philly's DISC spec for healing is at 2430, which means that theoretically she could even heal those raids. Philly still has 3-4 pieces of pvp gear equipped, which would probably get her a non-invite to some PUGs, but then again maybe not.

The other big winner of the somewhat limited time over the weekend was EZ. The young shaman blazed through the Hillsbrad Foothills and then across the ocean to Thousand Needles, killing the bad guys, righting wrongs, completing quests, and, of, levelling with her fancy new pair of heirlooms acquired specifically for her. EZ went from level 32 to level 34 and more than halfway to level 35 via questing. EZ then hit the battlegrounds. The queue times were pretty long, but EZ eventually got into an Arathi Basin battle. It was a long, protracted fight. The horde team initially took three bases to the alliance one, but there was no organization at all. When the alliance fought back, half of the horde raiders just hung out at the Mines, defending that one base. Eventually that was the only base held by the horde, giving the allies a four base to one advantage. As the alliance score climbed toward the winning number, the alliance abandoned their bases and just went after kills. Horde recovered some bases but things were far too gone and we lost. A Warsong Gulch match followed that, with a horde team that was just about as bad as the AB one. A pre-made of four horde initially joined. I guess they didn't like what they saw because all four left before the match started. We started with only 8 of 10 pvpers, but soon had a full ten. It was a another long match. We had a good defensive team that made it hard (but not impossible) for the alliance to take the horde flag, but our offense just couldn't get it done. EZ was still level 34 during this match, and yet when we finally lost 3-0 EZ led all the horde in total damage. If your best DPSer in a 30-39 level bracket is a level 34, you know your team is in deep trouble.

EZ was so surprised she took a pic of the final results [PS - Note the healing numbers, too. EZ came in 2nd and EZ was not even trying to heal]:


EZ DINGED to 35 with that last match, though. She's burned up all her rested xp and will need to rest for a day or so before going back at it.

One note for tonight's (Monday) pvp night. At midnight the servers are expected to go down for a 24 hour maintenance period. Assuming we stay up that late, there may be increasing lag and perhaps disconnects as that time approaches. I think the Blizz techies start prepping well before the stated downtime, and that affects game play.

Weekend (6 Jun) - It's Just a Tournament

Weekend (6 Jun) - It's Just a Tournament

Blizzard Announcement - The Tuesday maintenance this week is going to be a full 24 hours, beginning at midnight Monday. No warcraft at all on Tuesday, and one can bet it will go longer than that. The reason is to "prepare for the expansion." Patch 3.3.5 is on the test server, but the consensus on the forums seem to be that we are not getting the patch, but more likely this is the first of many server maintenance efforts as they prepare for what they expect and hope will be a huge influx of new players come Cataclysm. What the heck am I going to do on Tuesday? Well, I'm going to vote in my local elections. And I have a doctor's appointment. Fun stuff. Not. On with the "real" stuff.

Why is there a thing called Trial of the Crusader? There is no Warcraft lore that ties such a thing to the Lich King, or the Burning Crusade, or any other aspect of the world of Azeroth. The beasts, beings and bugs that make up the Trial have little connection to the lore of the land, with a couple of exceptions.

One could say that ToC exists just so that players would have something else to do in groups and raids. But if that were the case so why not develop something that was part and parcel of the wider storyline?

Closer to the truth, though, is many players are attracted to and fascinated by the idea of gladiator style combat. It began at the beginning, with open world pvp between alliance and horde (the very foundation of the game world itself), and dueling between same faction players, and then later becoming formalized with the pvp Arena system. Gladiator type combat has always been with us.

If it was popular for pvp, why not for pve as well? I can't recall if there was a gladiator style area in the vanilla WoW days of two continents and no pre-expansion pack. None come to mind, anyway. However, with the Burning Crusade expansion and the creation of Outland, the zone of Nagrand featured not one, but two such places. In one area of Nagrand controlled by ogres, there is a gladiator style questline where a series of Champions must be defeated. It was extremely popular and both guilds and random 5 player groups could almost always be found waiting their turn at the tournament, hoping to get the very nice goodies that could be won. The weapon Wild won at that tournament lasted him through several levels. There was also the Ring of Trials, a pvp zone within Nagrand for gladiator style combat.

The second expansion and the creation of Northrend brought two more gladiator style areas that I can think of, one in Grizzly Hills and one in Zul'Drak. Both of these are 5 man group based pve contests against a series of Champions.

There are probably other such events as well that I've forgotten about.

So I guess it was inevitable that there would be more such contests, and on a grander scale. And so we have Trial of the Crusader, which features for the first time raid level gladiator contests.

When ToC was the "latest thing" it was very popular for the high end i232 (10 man) and i245 (25 man) loot that was offered. It is still farmed regularly by PUGs bridging the gap in gear between heroics and raiding, but I think that the 5 man ICC raids are now the more popular for that and ToC is fading.

So, on Saturday Philly was kind of surprised to see that someone was trying to get a ToC25 raid together. The raid leader was asking in trade chat for one healer, and a few ranged DPS. Philly has never been on a ToC25 raid, and has only been in on a ToC 5 man once (which is actually called Trial of the Champion). On a whim Philly requested an invite, offering both healing and shadow specs, depending on which one he wanted. "Shadow please" was the quick response, and Philly got an invite.

With the exception of some pvp gear and one badge reward, Philly had no gear better than i226. All of the loot in ICC25 was ilevel 245. A great opportunity for Philly if in fact this raid could accomplish anything. Watching raid chat and checking out those that had been invited, it was clear that this was at least a partial guild run. Perhaps some guildies of the raid leader were bored and decided to try to run ToC25. A further sign of good organization was that the raid leader asked for everyone in the raid to get on his guild's vent channel. He was not belligerent about it, but kept encouraging folks to log in to vent to help make assignments and run a smoother raid. The very fact that he accepted Philly into the raid was a strike against the raid, as Philly was not likely to put up very good numbers. However, Philly assumed it was because he needed a shadow priest. Yet even when he got a second, and better geared, shadow priest to join the raid, there was no request for Philly to leave.

Philly had other disadvantages that she vowed to correct if she survived the raid. Philly's "consummables" were not the best. All level 80 raiders should have as a minimum one high end food buff and one high end drink buff, and enough of both to last throughout the whole raid. Wild uses Flask of the Frost Wyrm (drink) and Firecracker Salmon (food) for increased spell power. Philly has gotten along with lesser items, but even worse, she came to the ToC25 raid with no food buffs at all. In most raids, even PUGs, someone has a food buff called Fish Feast which is sharable to everyone in the raid. No one felt the need to use a Fish Feast for ToC25, and Philly's DPS contribution would be the lesser for it. Philly plans a fishing expedition to catch the glacial salmon for the food buff and bugging JB to make her some flasks for future opportunities.

After making sure everyone was inside the Coliseum and buffed, tank and healing assignments were made along with some very general guidance to remind folks of major things that might result in a wipe if forgotten. Philly had her own private assignment. To help her with her always troubling targeting when playing shadowpriest, Philly set her focus not to the tank, but to the other shadowpriest in the raid. That way if Philly got confused she could always target the same mob as the other shadowpriest. The first encounter was the Northrend Beasts.

Gormok was the first of three assaults, and from a healing perspective it is a straight tank and spank. From a DPS perspective, however, Philly had to deal not only with the boss, Gormok, but with snobolds, mobs that Gormok tosses onto random raiders. Healers were almost never targeted, but ranged DPS was a favorite target of snobold tossing. In addition, it was the job of ranged DPS to kill the snobolds as quickly as possible. Philly was glad to have had the other shadowpriest set as focus, as he was nearly always faster at setting his target on a snobold. Philly didn't get "snobolded," and we brought Gormok down. Philly was having a lot of fun. Then the pair of frost wyrms, Acidmaw and Dreadscale, slithered through the Coliseum doors. Wave 2 of Northrend Beasts was beginning.

Philly knew enough to target the mobile Acidmaw at the start of the fight, but once the two wyrms submerged and re-entered a couple of times Philly sort of lost track who she should be shooting at. The other shadowpriest seemed to be going back and forth, most likely DoTing both and then focus firing one until the Dots wore off. That was just a guess, though, even as Philly tried to follow suit. So many of Philly's spells, though, require her to be standing still and it was tough keeping a good spell rotation together. Philly nearly died when she wandered into frontal range of Dreadscale and got hit by a knockback. Philly was keeping a Shield on herself full time, and that blunted the attack enough for a healer to save her. Philly felt a little of the love a DPSer must feel for a healer who saves their bacon like that. We brought down Acidmaw and Dreadscale.

Icehowl came next. The only comment before we engaged was "please don't get in the way of Icehowl's Trample." Several times during the fight Icehowl will knock the entire raid up against the outer wall, stunning us. He'll then target a random raider and then, as the stun wears off, Charges in the direction of that raider. The target and anyone in the path of the Charging Icehowl is pretty much killed instantly. Worse, it means that Icehowl didn't stun himself by ramming his head against the wall, and we'd lose precious seconds we could have been attacking him while stunned. Everybody stayed out of his way, and Icehowl fell.

"well, we didn't wipe," mused the raid leader. Philly was getting the definite impression that he's run this raid more than a few times. The loot rules were pretty broad. Everyone was allowed to roll on one main spec, one Trophy, one treasure (crusader orb), and as many off specs as we wanted. Philly rolled on [Barb of Tarasque], a DPS caster +hit dagger that Philly could have used all the way to ICC. She didn't win the roll, however. A [Trophy of the Crusader] token drops for each encounter, which, along with triumph emblems, will buy a Tier 9 piece. Philly rolled on that, too, and won it.

Lord Jaraxxus was Summoned in for the next battle. This fight is a pain for healers since Jaraxxus has some special DoTs just to push healers to the max and also summons some very nasty adds. For DPSer Philly, though, Jaraxxus was a lot of fun. Philly kept target on Jaraxxus, and then switched to kill the Mistress of Pain add and then to the infernals that are summoned by miniature volcanoes. Philly delivered some decent damage (2746 DPS, ok for her gear level) on Jaraxxus.

Pleased with the raid's progress, the raid leader moved us all back to the door for the next encounter with the Faction Champions. Ten hostile npcs faced off against 25 raiders in arena pvp style combat. The first four to be attacked were marked in the order they were to be killed. After that the raid leader called and marked the next target as the prior one died. Philly flitted about the room, keeping a Shield up and tossing instant DoTs on the prime target while on the run. Standing still got her attacked, so it was hard to get off more than one non-instant spell before having to break away from an attacker. Nothing could save her, though, when a whirlwinding warrior chased Philly in circles around the room until she died. Well, at least I kept him out of the way of other raiders for a few seconds. Philly was already the third to die, but it was Philly the raid leader asked to be battle rezzed. Back in action, Philly spun, ran, and Feared herself out of trouble, but after the fifth hostile npc went down that dadblamed warrior was after Philly again. "You're pretty popular with that warrior," the raid leader quipped. Philly died again, and watched the rest of the battle from her corpse. Throughout the frantic battle, the raid leader calmly called for this or that raider to crowd control, switch targets, battle rez, dispell, etc, always in a mild voice. When something went awry, such as when he called for the rogue to be focus fired, but marked the mage instead, you could practically hear the shrug and he'd say, "Ok, the mage will do." We lost seven raiders even after all the battle rezzes were used up, but all ten hostile npcs died.

The most difficult fight for Philly was Fjola and Eydis, also known as the Lightbane and Darkbane twins. Philly again compared the fight to Wild's healing experience. Healing the fight was pretty straightforward, with healers rarely having to "change colors" during the fight and always knowing who to heal. For the DPS, that target - Lightbane or Darkbane - depended on a number of factors, including color changes based on the type of casts the twins were doing. Attack the wrong boss, and I believe no damage (or less damage) is done than by attacking the right twin at the right time. Miss a color change, and it's likely an instant death. Philly probably wasn't hitting the right target every time, but from what I could tell the other shadowpriest was miss-targeting on occasion as well. Philly must have gotten some good crits in as she upped her DPS to 2880 for this fight. We were very happy to see them die.

Remember that earlier in the week Philly was in the weekly raid to kill Anub'arak? Well, as paraphrased from the ToC strat guide, "Anub'arak's death was merely a setback." Anub was back as the final boss in ToC. There are so many prominent figures in WoW that reappear elsewhere when they have supposedly been killed that someone suggested there should be a "Death was just a Setback" Achievement award.

The battle with Anub started with the Coliseum floor breaking beneath our feet. We fell a long way into a lake. Swimming out and shaking off the water, we walked a short distance to Anub's lair. Anub is a straight tank and spank with adds, livened up by Anub submerging under the floor periodically and also sending out lines of spikes that are quite deadly if the front of the wave hits a raider who is not standing on permafrost. Of course, there is no permafrost on the floor of the chamber. Balls of it float about in the air over our heads.

"Uh, Philly, if you're listening (the raid leader always prefaced his requests with "if you're listening") could you take care of shooting down the permafrost?" Sure, Philly told him, having never done that chore before. The raid leader added, "a Pain and a Death is probably enough to bring them down." Those were shadowpriest spells, Shadow Word: Pain, and Shadow Word: Death. Philly was aware how low on the DPS chart she was, DPS that would hardly be missed, which was why she was perfect for the job. Philly didn't mind; without permafrost raiders would die. Dropping those balls throughout the fight was important.

Once the battle started, Philly circled the chamber continuously, targeting the balls of permafrost and bringing them down. Philly was just a little short of spell power to bring down a ball with just the two spells, Pain and Death, but a quick hit with her Mind Flay was enough to finish it off. Philly was pleased with the coverage of permafrost she was able to keep on the floor, since it started dissipating as soon as it splashed down. Of course, not being able to DPS the boss played havoc with her DPS numbers, but Philly wasn't going to be leading any charts anyway.

Anub went down, and Philly had her first clear of ToC25. Philly rolled on a really, really nice ring as main spec, but two other casters out rolled her. However, both of them had already won main spec rolls, and Philly was awarded the ring. Counting the Trophy, which will be used to buy shoulder gear, Philly will replace two i200 items with i245 items, significant upgrades for her. Even if she still dreamed about that dagger that she didn't win.

By the way, the raid leader said at the end that he runs ToC25 almost every Saturday around 2pm server, for anyone who's interested. Yep, Philly might want to get into that again.

Philly's overall numbers for the evening was near the bottom (#18) at 2309 DPS. Her counterpart, the other shadowpriest, did 4714 DPS and finished 9th. The top caster (a mage) finished third with 7129 DPS. There were some powerful DPSers out there. Fortunately, nobody minded us lesser types as long as we contributed as well as we could.

The ToC25 was the major action over the weekend, but there were plenty of other things going on. More to follow.

Friday, June 4, 2010

Tuesday (1 Jun) - Mayhem in Icecrown Citadel

Tuesday (1 Jun) - Mayhem in Icecrown Citadel

[Note: It was pointed out to me that I had posted part 2 of the ICC when I hadn't posted part 1. Ooops. Here it is.]

For the second week in a row the MM guild had the happy problem of having too many raiders wanting in on the ICC10 raid. Last week we threw everyone into an ICC25 raid, which was fun, even though we did not get very far - as in, we got no where at all, failing at the first boss. Numbers alone do not a good raid make. We topped out at 29 raiders in game Tuesday night, but the decision this time was to field two ten mans. It took awhile to sort out who was going on what raid and getting the right mix together. Wild ended up in the Mf led raid. Bd, who Wild usually raids with, led the other raid. Both raids were underway before 7pm, which is progress of a sort as it usually takes longer. Someone actually suggested that raid invites be moved up to 530pm so we could get started earlier. It's not the scheduled start time that's the problem, it's that no one shows up on time, because of RL time issues (for some) and because no one insists on being on time.

Once we got started, the first wing of ICC fell, one boss after another. Lord Marrowgar collapsed in a pile of broken bones; Deathwhisper's curses were silenced; the Gunship raised it's flag in victory; and, after two miss-steps, even Saurfang succumbed. We learned on Saurfang that three healers were too many. Or, more accurately, that three healers made us one DPS short. On our third attempt we switched a healer to a DPS, and that made the difference.

We even had time for one attempt on Festergut in the second wing, which most of the raiders had yet to defeat. It was a very good attempt, too, getting Festergut to 26% before wiping. I'm pretty sure we'll get him down Wednesday night.

The best news for Wild was that he was finally able to get rid of the last piece of i232 gear on his healing set. [Soulcleave Pendant] dropped, an i251 necklace to replace the old one Wild has been forced to use for so long.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Wednesday (2 Jun) - ICC Mayhem Squared

Wednesday (2 Jun) - ICC Mayhem Squared

It was a pleasant surprise that not only did we again field two ICC10 raids on Wednesday night, we even started those raids in the neighborhood of 6pm. Ok, so it was closer to 6:30pm, but at least it was earlier than 7pm. We had nine raiders in the Mf raid by 6:10pm, but that 10th raider took a long time getting in game.

The evening started off somewhat comically. Since we had not killed Festergut the night before, the trash mobs leading up to him had respawned. The first mobs are three Valkyrie, white winged humanoids that are tough but no match for our raid. That is, as long as we only aggro one at a time. The valkyries fly around a central chamber and can each be pulled into an antechamber to be killed. Our druid tank sort of forgot to pull the valkyrie into the antechamber, and soon the other two joined in the battle. These mobs can stun, and with three of them more than half the raid found themselves stunned. We were all laughing and making hay at the druid tank's expense. With tongue firmly in cheek the tank blamed the rest of us for not being "leet enuf" to handle all three.

Once through the trash mobs, we took up where we had left off the night before, which was Festergut. We took a practice shot at him, and then brought him down on our second try.

After Festergut was Rotface. I think this is where prior MM ICC10 raids ran into serious trouble. In discussing the strategy there were a lot of input about what failed and few who had been successful. Rotface has beaten Wild's butt any number of times, and I'll admit that Wild has caused wipes on more than one occasion in the FS raids while I was learning that fight. A typical attempt Wednesday night went like this:

Buffed and ready, the main tank loped into the center of the chamber to engage Rotface. The rest of the raid followed close behind, giving the tank enough room to turn Rotface away from us, then crowding up close under his legs and into one foul stench coming from the mass of animated dead flesh that was Rotface. Rotface immediately started vomiting, and Wild and the rest of those beneath that flow hurriedly ducked between Rotface's legs to get out of the way. Rotface cast mutation on a random raider, a small damage spell that also causes a small ooze to form a few seconds later. Wild, seeing that he was the target, started looking around frantically for the off tank. The off tank is a blood elf paladin, and is hard to spot as he moves around the room in a counter-clockwise direction. Wild trotted out to the outer edge of the room, hoping to catch sight of the off tank. Behind Wild, that little ooze was practically glued to Wild with very high threat. Wild very much wanted to get the thing off his tail and over to the off tank. The off tank has never been in this role before and the exchange is painfully hard. Wild nearly died, but finally made the exchange. More mutations are cast and more small oozes are created, and more raiders go looking for a frantic looking off tank. When a pass off is successful, the small oozes merged into one larger ooze, to be kited by the off tank. Wild was the off tank healer, and the damage done each time that big ooze got too close was really putting pressure on Wild's healing.

We were already in trouble, with loose small oozes attacking raiders and merging into larger uncontrolled oozes, when the fifth small ooze joined with the big ooze. The big ooze froze in place, and that was our signal to hightail it to the outer edge of the chamber and away from the frozen ooze. The big ooze exploded, sending chunks itself into the air, each one aimed at the spot a raider was standing at the time of the explosion. Anyone still standing under one of those chunks when it came down pretty much died instantly. Almost as an afterthought, we also had to avoid spewing goo coming from four points around the room.

We wiped seven times, with our best attempt being our fifth attempt, when we got him down to 30%. We were tired of Rotface, and started looking at what else we could try. Wild suggested the Princes.

Well, if we were inexperienced against Rotface, we were downright raw rookies against the Blood Prince Council, which is the first encounter in the third wing. The raid leader had never seen the fight. Wild and one other raider were the only ones who'd ever engaged this encounter. But I think it's an easier fight than Rotface, and plus it would give everyone a chance to see it.

The trash mobs are a nasty gut check to get into the third wing, but our confidence grew the better we did on the trash and the farther we got away from Rotface. We arrived at another chamber that Wild immediately recognized as the Blood Prince Council. The three council bosses were currently corpses. In Wild's experience they were already standing up on the dias, so that was a bit confusing. Behind the three corpses was Blood Queen Lana'thel. Folks were confused. I was sure this was the right chamber, and said so, but was told no, it's the Blood Queen chamber. Apparently, and I'm guessing a bit, is that the princes begin as corpses, but as soon as the encounter is started the three princes come to life. The actual battle doesn't start until we move into aggro range of the princes. When we actually decided to engage, the princes appeared and the battle began. We made two attempts, giving everyone a good look at the fight, but wiped both times.

It was a tough but good night. The two MM raid groups are hoping to hold together and we are planning on running again next week. Wild wishes he and Bd were in the same raid, but Wild is happy with the team he's on and is looking forward to our next assault on ICC.

Wild didn't win any loot from ICC, but things did come together for him later when he signed up for the weekly frost raid, Anub in Naxxramas. When Wild signed up for the Naxx25 raid he was only the third raider invited. Fifteen minutes later when there were only eight of us I was wondering whether signing up for this was a good idea. I was still wound up from the ICC run, though, so Wild hung in there. The raid started filling. We got to 20 raiders and Wild was still the only healer. The raid leader, who was also the main tank, whispered Wild, "Hey, Wild, think you can solo heal this?" Uh, is he asking Wild to solo heal a 25 man raid, which usually has five healers? Well, Anub is the first boss and a rather easy fight, sooooo . . . Wild whispered back, "Never tried it but if I'm all you got and you're that good of a tank, then sure."

We did end up getting a priest as a second healer. The raid leader/tank asked the priest to keep him healed and asked Wild to heal the other 24 raiders. When it was all over and Anub was dead Wild had done more than 90% of the healing, had saved the tank at least twice, delivered twice the healing to the tank than the priest did, and no one died. "Nice heals, Wild," the raid leader passed along to Wild on raid chat. Wild saluted the raid leader's tanking.

Wild has been laboriously collecting badges the hard way, through the weekly raid and through heroics, since he is no longer in an ICC25. Wild hasn't exactly been that regular in getting a heroic done each day for the two frost badges, so imagine his surprise when he realized that he had 93frost badges in inventory. Wild needed 95 frost badges to purchase his next piece of i264 gear. Wild hadn't done a heroic yet that day, and those two badges beckoned. Wild switched to moonkin spec and dialed up the random heroic dungeon finder. It took so long to get a group that Wild was weighing whether to just go to bed and try again tomorrow or switch to heals to shorten the queue. Wild spent the time converting triumph badges into heroism badges to buy a new heirloom item, a four step process that Wild had to repeat forty times. What a pain, but it passed the time, and Wild finally got his group.

The destination was Halls of Lightning, the five man dungeon at Ulduar, so it was one of the newer and more challenging of the heroics. There usually isn't much to say about heroics, other than it got done, sometimes smoothly, sometimes sloppily. This one, though, was pretty entertaining because the pally tank was constantly challenged by a fury warrior who kept doing everything he could to pull aggro off the tank. Wild and the lock in the group weren't helping, either, as we blasted away with our AoE attacks and daring mobs to aggro on us. The pally seemed to enjoy the challenge and we made amazing progress, burning through bosses almost as fast as the trash.

Fate finally caught up with us against a crush of large, high health mobs that took out the shaman healer as well as the fury warrior, who finally pulled a little more aggro than he could handle. The warlock was smart enough to pull back his attack to let the paladin tank get full control of the three mobs, and Wild dropped out of moonkin and started healing. The pally held the mobs, the lock stepped up the attack, and Wild kept the three of us alive until the three mobs went down. We high fived each other and then rezzed the dead ones and finished the dungeon. By the way, on the final boss in HoL, Loken, Wild did 6289 DPS, his best ever on a boss.

Afterward, Wild took his 95 frost badges to the Frost emblem vendor to collect my new goodie. Wild could have picked up a T10 piece, which would make it his third T10. However, the druid T10 set is a rather poor set. Wild had his two piece T10 set bonus, and was another 95 badges away from a 4th T10 and the four piece set bonus. Worse, it would only be an i251 T10 since it would take a drop in ICC25 to upgrade that to i264. To put the nail in the T10 coffin, a new chest piece was Wild's biggest need, and his biggest stat need was +haste, and the vendor had for sale a non-T10 i264 chest piece with over +100 haste on it. For his 95 badges, Wild got [Vestments of Spruce and Fir], replacing his current i245 chest piece. Wild is much happy.

Mery and EZ should be happy, too, because Wild, feeling magnanimous, is going to bless both with new heirlooms more fitting their armor class of leather/mail than the cloth items they are sharing now, and with stats more fitting of a hunter and shaman than the caster stats. EZ in particular is excited. She'd thought her pvp game time would be greatly diminished as the 30s pvp team moved into the 40s bracket, but her friend and mentor Lao lobbied hard for her, and EZ will still get her in game time and some levelling time as well. Mery would seem to be the odd girl out, but she has her own rooting section with Ando, and will also get game time. Somehow Wild will have to work all this out.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Monday (31 May) - Happy's Dreams Come True

Monday (31 May) - Happy's Dreams Come True

I know what you're thinking, but no, Happy has not decided to leave Silvermoon City, nor has he decided to start levelling. He would be horrified and dismayed if told to do either. That's not what you were thinking? Well, no, he hasn't decided to shack up with that cute blood elf bank alt that keeps wanting to dance with him, either. But ... well, never mind that.

Happy has a certain glow of glee, though, and his sudden exuberance is due to a quite unexpected turn of events. It was Wildshard who actually discovered it, but for Wild it was kinda "Eh". Wild mentioned it casually to Happy, though, thinking it might be useful.

"Useful!!" Bellowed Happy when he heard about it. "Get it for me NOW!"

Wild was kicking around on the WoW Armory website, checking the calendar to see if there were ICC10 raids planned for this week. There are, the expected Tues/Wed MM raids and what FS is calling an altICC10 raid on Wednesday (the attempt to get a third ICC10 group started). Anyway, Wild noticed a tab that I don't remember seeing before. Maybe it's been there and I never noticed, but anyway I digress.

The tab said "Auction House." Looking at the pull down menu, there were selections for Summary, Browse Auctions, My Bids, My Auctions, and Create Auctions. The summary showed how many items were up for sale, how many bids had been won, how much gold had been earned, and how full the mailbox was. Dig a little deeper and you can check on what specific items have sold and get the complete list of everything listed for sale. This is from the wow website, not in game. Happy practically wet himself with joy. Even when Happy isn't even in game, he can still check on his precious Auction House.

For example, as I am writing this I can see that the five flasks of frost wyrm Happy had posted this morning have all just sold. This item is very price sensitive and over the course of the day will get underbid, lowering the price each time. So Happy posts these flasks in small groups of five or less, underbidding the current posts, hoping to catch the sales before Happy's own price gets underbid. Seeing the sales, Happy used the website to create new auctions for five more flasks, keeping the current buyout price since Happy hadn't yet been underbid. Normally Happy wouldn't find out about the sales for hours, when the price of the flasks will have dropped. This is just Awesome! as Happy would put it.

Of course, the Mrs had a slightly different take: "I see, so now you can play the game even when you aren't playing the game?" Uh, yea, I guess you could look at it that way. She's so cute when she rolls her eyes like that.

There was a little bit of Monday night pvp, but we all seemed a bit tired and under the weather after the long weekend. After Sin, Sis, and Philly completed a quest chain of arena style combat in Zul'Drak, the 30's bracket team of Lao, Ando, and EZ rounded up alliance in Warsong Gulch and soundly trounced them. The single pvp match gave EZ enough xp to reach level 32, where she finally got her big DPS spell, Chain Lightning. EZ's chances to use it greatly diminished, though, as Ando DINGED to level 40, taking her from being King of the 30s bracket at level 39 to being a noob at level 40 in the 40-49 bracket. Sis remains a level 39, but should reach level 40 soon. EZ acknowledged her fate and congratulated Mery. Mery, a level 42 hunter, is the likely choice to join Ando and Sis in the 40s bracket. The war with the alliance will continue.

An unmarked envelope mysteriously showed up on the publisher's desk, mixed in with the input for the day's posts. Whoever took the photos inside that envelope took great pains to hide their identity. The subject of these photos obviously did not want to be recognized, either. At the risk of putting lives at risk, these photos are being published for the public good (and the profits of the publisher, of course).

Who this might be is complete speculation, but one theory is that this is Naithipe, seeking to return to anonymity with a Barbershop makeover after her recent appearances. Another, more sinister theory, is that Naithipe is so secretive because she has an enemy, an enemy that has now been revealed in these photos. The shots were taken in the Cleft of Shadow barbershop in Orgrimmar and at the Cantrips and Crows in Dalaran.

The well dressed stranger is caught standing outside the barbershop

Inside the shop, the stranger and the shopkeeper haggle over the price, emphasized by the drawn blades


Settling down in the chair, and a rare closeup


This last shot is taken at the Cantrips and Crows Inn. Are the two talking to each other? Is the bartender involved?