Sunday, Part 3 (29 Jan) - Once More Through the Wringer
JB is a glutton for punishment. JB's Sunday randoms started with Well of Eternity, and some new bosses JB hadn't seen before. The group itself was very dysfunctional, with two players constantly berating each other and the tank. The tank wasn't the greatest, but it was clear that he was doing his best, learning encounters like the rest of us. It's nice to have a super tank who leads us by the nose through the dungeon, but they get to be that good getting practice when they're not. We wiped three times over the course of the run. One DPSer who was obviously struggling was razzed so bad he quit the group. We also had a healer leave, but got a better one in return.
After wiping twice on the final boss, Murozond, the loudmouths wanted to kick the tank, but JB and the healer wouldn't agree and he stayed. JB encouraged the tank by saying that we had this fight, just hold that bad boy in place. That was the problem. Nasty things were happening all around us, Murozond is deadly both in front and behind, and we needed the tank to hold him steady so the dragon wouldn't swivel and breath fire on us from whichever end faced us.
We got him on the third try. [Arrow of Time] dropped, an i378 +agi trinket. JB rolled Need on it, but it was won by the healer, who happened to be a shaman. Ninety-nine percent of the time the group would just disband and JB would lose the drop. This time, though, the healer shaman hung around snd said "What the hell do I need this arrow thing for?" He passed it over to JB. Nice guy. JB wanted to kiss him.
That said, shaman hate this trinket, because its Equip proc is haste, more useful for rogues and hunters than enhancement shaman. It does give JB 149 more agi. JB wants to use it, but we'll see. She has a lesser +hit and a lesser +exp set of trinkets that might be better to use. So far JB won't let go of her Arrow.
Last word on the weekend - JB was in game for - drum roll, please - BD'S return to the game! Our wayward guild leader and G2 raid leader popped in game Sunday night. He and JB joined a Baradin Hold run together. He says he is back and will be raiding with us this week. Woot! Bd also congratulated JB on reaching level 85 and was astonished she was already doing Baradin Hold. JB didn't tell him she'd snuck into BH even before she started doing Twilight Heroics. By the way, JB's gear score is now i360.
Monday, January 30, 2012
Saturday, Part 2 (29 Jan) - JB Refuses Gear Upgrades. Say What?
Saturday, Part 2 (29 Jan) - JB Refuses Gear Upgrades. Say What?
JB was signed up for another Twilight run on Saturday and the listed wait time was over ten minutes. JB had already done her fishing and cooking dailies (something to do while waiting in the queue). She drifted over to the Auction House and puttered about, looking for gear to buy she knew she wouldn't find. I'd recently finished researching an excellent discussion of pre-raid gear for enhancement shaman, and JB's head was full of all the possibilities. Surprisingly, one of those possibilities turned up on the AH. I'd never heard of this gear before reading that discussion, and had never seen in on the AH. Yet, there it was - [Arrowsinger Legguards]. The leg gear was an upgrade from JB's current i333 to Arrowsinger's i359. The AH cost was 3,000 gold, but that was only a third of the price usually asked for it. Happy doesn't allow JB to spend that kind of money on gear. JB didn't listen, buying it on the spot with her own gold earned from farming and selling flowers. Happy didn't like it, but it was already done. It's a lovely piece, with +hit and +mastery and two sockets to fill with precious gems. JB loved it, and joked that now that she'd finally got such a great upgrade and spent all that money the i378 legs would drop in Twilight.
The joke was on JB. The i378 [Legguards of the Legion] DID drop on JB's next Twilight run. JB loves to see her overall gear score climb, and swapping an i359 for an i378 would certainly do that. However, where the Arrowsinger pants had highly desired +hit and +mastery stats, the Legion pants had a shaman's least wanted stats - crit and haste. Despite the increase in JB's primary stat, agility, the secondary stats were so bad that JB finally had to admit that she was better off keeping the i359 Arrowsinger pants.
JB ran another Twilight heroic later in the day, and got another gear reward, this time from a quest. It was an i378 ring [Alumni's Ring]. JB had an i346 and an i359 ring, so obviously the i346 would go away. Nope. JB had the same issues with the i359 ring as she had with those pants - the secondary stats were not as good as those on the i346 ring. So, again, JB chose to replace the higher ilevel ring with Alumni's.
Finally, to wrap up JB's gear news, JB earned enough justice points from her dungoneering to buy a second T12 piece. JB could have bought the i378 T12 legs, but JB wasn't ready to give up her Arrowsinger on the same day she got it. Plus, there was a better option. JB's chest was i359, with one good and one bad secondary stat. The i378 T12 chest piece [Erupting Volcanic Cuirass] has all the right stats. With both the chest and gloves, JB now gets the two piece set bonus for the T12 set. When it was all in place, JB's new gear score was i357. The minimum ilevel to get into a Dragon Soul raid is i365. JB still has a good ways to go.
One last thing about gear. JB hates her headpiece. It's only i318, with no easy way to get a better one. Two shaman worthy i378 helms drop in Twilight, and eventually JB will get one of them. However, she did consider - just for this one slot - using a pvp helm. The i377 pvp helm runs about 1,000 gold, and of course has a lot more +agi than the beat up i318. The bad news, though, is that the secondary stats on the pvp helm (resilience and haste) are terrible. JB would lose both +hit and +mastery making that swap. JB decided against it.
Ok, just one MORE thing about gear. The Tier 12 set is called Volcanic Battlegear. It has five pieces, three of which can be purchased with JPs. Two pieces, shoulder and head, can only be acquired by getting a token drop - in the Firelands raid. The minimum ilevel to get into FL is i359. So - think about this - JB "could" get into FL - like, right now. The only problem is that I have no clue how to deal with bosses in FL as a melee, and question whether FL raids want newbies in their PUG raids. However, JB might get an invite to the weekly guild FL raids on Fri/Sat nights. Now there's an idea.
The best news out of all of this was JB's performance in the two Twilight runs she went on, before she got the new chest and ring pieces. The Shock and Awe addon was a great help, and JB felt as comfortable as she's ever been slugging it out toe-to-toe with the bad guys.
Recall that JB was doing around 10-11k dps when she started doing dungeons, and was ranking dead last in dps in the groups she was in.
In JB's first run with all the changes noted above, she blasted her way to 2nd place in dps. This was a dps enhanced dungeon so the numbers are very high anyway, but JB was really interested in how well she placed and what percentage of damage she did.
Overall:
#1: dk, 43.2 dps, 31.0% of damage
#2: JB, 35.5 dps, 25.4%
#3: priest, 34.8k dps, 24.9%
#4: tank, 22.3k dps, 16.0%
Here are specifics on the last two bosses:
Mannoroth Fight:
#1: dk, 97.6 dps, 35.2%
#2: JB, 70.9 dps, 25.6%
#3: priest, 63.2k dps, 22.8%
#4: tank, 34.2k dps, 12.4%
Queen Azshara Fight:
#1: JB, 13.8k dps, 33.1% (FIRST!)
#2: tank, 10.6k dps, 25.4%
#3: priest, 9.0k dps, 21.6%
#4: dk, 8.3k dps, 19.9%
Hang in there, Part 3 is on it's way.
JB was signed up for another Twilight run on Saturday and the listed wait time was over ten minutes. JB had already done her fishing and cooking dailies (something to do while waiting in the queue). She drifted over to the Auction House and puttered about, looking for gear to buy she knew she wouldn't find. I'd recently finished researching an excellent discussion of pre-raid gear for enhancement shaman, and JB's head was full of all the possibilities. Surprisingly, one of those possibilities turned up on the AH. I'd never heard of this gear before reading that discussion, and had never seen in on the AH. Yet, there it was - [Arrowsinger Legguards]. The leg gear was an upgrade from JB's current i333 to Arrowsinger's i359. The AH cost was 3,000 gold, but that was only a third of the price usually asked for it. Happy doesn't allow JB to spend that kind of money on gear. JB didn't listen, buying it on the spot with her own gold earned from farming and selling flowers. Happy didn't like it, but it was already done. It's a lovely piece, with +hit and +mastery and two sockets to fill with precious gems. JB loved it, and joked that now that she'd finally got such a great upgrade and spent all that money the i378 legs would drop in Twilight.
The joke was on JB. The i378 [Legguards of the Legion] DID drop on JB's next Twilight run. JB loves to see her overall gear score climb, and swapping an i359 for an i378 would certainly do that. However, where the Arrowsinger pants had highly desired +hit and +mastery stats, the Legion pants had a shaman's least wanted stats - crit and haste. Despite the increase in JB's primary stat, agility, the secondary stats were so bad that JB finally had to admit that she was better off keeping the i359 Arrowsinger pants.
JB ran another Twilight heroic later in the day, and got another gear reward, this time from a quest. It was an i378 ring [Alumni's Ring]. JB had an i346 and an i359 ring, so obviously the i346 would go away. Nope. JB had the same issues with the i359 ring as she had with those pants - the secondary stats were not as good as those on the i346 ring. So, again, JB chose to replace the higher ilevel ring with Alumni's.
Finally, to wrap up JB's gear news, JB earned enough justice points from her dungoneering to buy a second T12 piece. JB could have bought the i378 T12 legs, but JB wasn't ready to give up her Arrowsinger on the same day she got it. Plus, there was a better option. JB's chest was i359, with one good and one bad secondary stat. The i378 T12 chest piece [Erupting Volcanic Cuirass] has all the right stats. With both the chest and gloves, JB now gets the two piece set bonus for the T12 set. When it was all in place, JB's new gear score was i357. The minimum ilevel to get into a Dragon Soul raid is i365. JB still has a good ways to go.
One last thing about gear. JB hates her headpiece. It's only i318, with no easy way to get a better one. Two shaman worthy i378 helms drop in Twilight, and eventually JB will get one of them. However, she did consider - just for this one slot - using a pvp helm. The i377 pvp helm runs about 1,000 gold, and of course has a lot more +agi than the beat up i318. The bad news, though, is that the secondary stats on the pvp helm (resilience and haste) are terrible. JB would lose both +hit and +mastery making that swap. JB decided against it.
Ok, just one MORE thing about gear. The Tier 12 set is called Volcanic Battlegear. It has five pieces, three of which can be purchased with JPs. Two pieces, shoulder and head, can only be acquired by getting a token drop - in the Firelands raid. The minimum ilevel to get into FL is i359. So - think about this - JB "could" get into FL - like, right now. The only problem is that I have no clue how to deal with bosses in FL as a melee, and question whether FL raids want newbies in their PUG raids. However, JB might get an invite to the weekly guild FL raids on Fri/Sat nights. Now there's an idea.
The best news out of all of this was JB's performance in the two Twilight runs she went on, before she got the new chest and ring pieces. The Shock and Awe addon was a great help, and JB felt as comfortable as she's ever been slugging it out toe-to-toe with the bad guys.
Recall that JB was doing around 10-11k dps when she started doing dungeons, and was ranking dead last in dps in the groups she was in.
In JB's first run with all the changes noted above, she blasted her way to 2nd place in dps. This was a dps enhanced dungeon so the numbers are very high anyway, but JB was really interested in how well she placed and what percentage of damage she did.
Overall:
#1: dk, 43.2 dps, 31.0% of damage
#2: JB, 35.5 dps, 25.4%
#3: priest, 34.8k dps, 24.9%
#4: tank, 22.3k dps, 16.0%
Here are specifics on the last two bosses:
Mannoroth Fight:
#1: dk, 97.6 dps, 35.2%
#2: JB, 70.9 dps, 25.6%
#3: priest, 63.2k dps, 22.8%
#4: tank, 34.2k dps, 12.4%
Queen Azshara Fight:
#1: JB, 13.8k dps, 33.1% (FIRST!)
#2: tank, 10.6k dps, 25.4%
#3: priest, 9.0k dps, 21.6%
#4: dk, 8.3k dps, 19.9%
Hang in there, Part 3 is on it's way.
Weekend, Part 1 (29 Jan) - JB's Big Weekend
Weekend, Part 1 (29 Jan) - JB's Big Weekend
JB's time in game fell off a bit during the week, but she expected to get things ramped back up over the weekend. Queue times were pretty rough on Friday night and JB was able to get in only one dungeon run. She opted to go with the Heroic Hour of Eternity randoms since - well, she could. These Twilight heroics offered i378 gear as well as both valor and justice points. After a 15 minute wait she got into Well of Eternity, the second of the three dungeons. JB joined a group in progress. They had downed the first boss, Peroth'am, and apparently had wiped on Queen Azshara.
The Queen can be a tricky fight, and JB had never seen it. Wild has only seen it from the perspective of a healer. There are six magi that have to be killed, two at a time. JB did her best to get the right magi targeted, and while it may have been a bit messy, we killed the six magi without losing anyone.
The final battle is almost a set piece. There are some truly awesome battles, but we get a lot of help from the npc Illidan in killing armies of winged demons, a couple of named mobs, elite Capt Varo'then, and finally the boss Mannoroth. As long as you don't do anything stupid, such as die; and as long as you stay in the moonbeams when they are up, and stay out of the fires when they drop, the fight isn't too bad even for wet behind the ears JB.
JB got no gear, though, which was disappointing. There are some nice drops to be had, but only a few, and the odds are low. Her DPS was ok. The numbers are quite high because in the Mannoroth encounter the DPS is greatly boosted by the mechanics of the fight. Wild often wondered where some of those big DPS numbers came from. Now JB can say - from me!
DPS -
#1: Mage, 70.8 dps, 33.9% of all damage
#2: Hunter, 56.9k dps, 27.2%
#3: DK tank, 28.5k dps, 13.6%
#4: JB, 24.7k dps, 11.8%
#5: Pally, 17.1k dps, 8.2% (I think this was the one they must have kicked)
Glad they kept JB around, despite her low dps. JB didn't even out dps the tank. Sigh. Need to build up that gear.
JB asks for help - and Wowhead refused my topic.
Despite her victory in the Well, JB worried over her DPS. It just wasn't good enough, even taking into account her gear level. JB wanted advice, but couldn't find a guildie shaman online to ask. So JB went to the wowhead Shaman class forums to ask questions. I had problems with my wowhead account recently, and it took more than a week for them to straighten things out. Unfortunately, things were not straightened out. Wowhead refused to post JB's topic on their forum. Peeved, JB went to the Blizzard forums, which the Wild family has all but abandoned. When it comes to getting info about WoW, Wowhead is a much better site than the official Blizzard site. I didn't have a choice, though, in this case. Here is the forum post:
"I have a raiding healer main with i390 gear. Healing is all that I do. That is, until recently, when I raised an enhancement shaman for fun. I've taken her farther than I expected to, and with i353 equipped gear she just started doing Hour of Twilight runs. I hope to build her up into a raiding alt because it's been a lot of fun so far.
However, I have no idea what kind of DPS she should be doing or what I could do to improve it other than keep getting better gear. In the three Twilight runs I've done so far, my DPS has been around 11-13k, which is usually dead last in the groups I've been in. I want to assume that the other DPSers (and the tank) are just that much better geared than I am, but it still chafes to be last.
I follow the spell priorities (SS-LL-FS-UE-LB/MS-FS).
I usually drop earth, searing, healing, and windfury totems.
I buff with +90agi food and as an alchemist I have +80agi flask.
I bloodlust toward the end of boss fights.
I drop the fire elemental generally just on the final boss.
I cast Windfury on my main hand weapon and Firetongue on my off hand.
Things that lower my DPS. Sometimes I use the maelstrom proc to heal instead of DPS. Funny that I don't always trust the healer to keep me alive, but he has the tank to worry about, so if I don't get any healing love I'll take care of myself. I'm also not that experienced in targeting. I use an assist, usually on the tank, but I still find it hard to position properly, stay in range, avoid the things I need to avoid, while still keeping track of the target. This is more an issue with multiple mobs than a single boss, of course.
I've linked my gear. Any suggestions or comment on whether I'm ok with the DPS I'm doing or not would be a great help. "
I also took my own advice and went looking for more help on the forums. Surprisingly, there was a pretty good post on the WoW forums, which, as I mentioned, I've mostly abandoned in favor of wowhead. But wowhead kept being being snotty so the WoW forums got the nod.
I got a few responses. One was snotty, the others were actually pretty helpful and informative. Just for fun, here is a quote from the snotty one. He had plenty to say, but you'll get the drift from this snippet: "Your spec makes me wanna kick a puppy as i kill a kitten as i spit on a baby seal." Wut?
One responder in particular took the time to provide some thorough advice. One difficulty JB has is with the relationship of two spells which interact with each other - flame shock and unleash elements. The use of these two spells is also keyed to a proc called unleash flames. Without going into the technical details (technical details in a game? You bet), JB was doing it wrong, and that was likely the cause of a lot of lost DPS.
I also learned that my top end spell, called Feral Spirits, was actually a very poor spell that did very little DPS. That spell procs two spirit wolves that are really cool looking. I still should use them, but don't expect much improvement in DPS. Some of JB's talents were misplaced, as well. JB's picks weren't bad, but they weren't optimal. JB did a respec, making the suggested changes.
Another poster suggested that I try using the addon called Shock and Awe. Well, JB had tried that addon once before, quite a long time ago. It was so busy, and cluttered up the screen so bad, I couldn't make heads or tails about it. JB wanted to try it again, though, so I loaded it up for her to play with. The addon still had a very cluttered look to it, providing a whole lot more information than I really needed or could process in the middle of a battle. Not willing to give up completely, though, I picked through the addon functions and turned off pretty much everything I could. There was one feature that I really liked, though. The addon let me set a priority sequence for JB's spells, and while in combat displayed the next spell in the sequence for me to use. Playing around with that on the target dummy, JB discovered that the addon recognized when unleashed flames procced and even adjusted the spell priority to take that into account. Just like that, it solved JB's confusion about flame shock, unleashed elements, and unleashed flames.
How did all those changes work out? Coming up in Part 2.
JB's time in game fell off a bit during the week, but she expected to get things ramped back up over the weekend. Queue times were pretty rough on Friday night and JB was able to get in only one dungeon run. She opted to go with the Heroic Hour of Eternity randoms since - well, she could. These Twilight heroics offered i378 gear as well as both valor and justice points. After a 15 minute wait she got into Well of Eternity, the second of the three dungeons. JB joined a group in progress. They had downed the first boss, Peroth'am, and apparently had wiped on Queen Azshara.
The Queen can be a tricky fight, and JB had never seen it. Wild has only seen it from the perspective of a healer. There are six magi that have to be killed, two at a time. JB did her best to get the right magi targeted, and while it may have been a bit messy, we killed the six magi without losing anyone.
The final battle is almost a set piece. There are some truly awesome battles, but we get a lot of help from the npc Illidan in killing armies of winged demons, a couple of named mobs, elite Capt Varo'then, and finally the boss Mannoroth. As long as you don't do anything stupid, such as die; and as long as you stay in the moonbeams when they are up, and stay out of the fires when they drop, the fight isn't too bad even for wet behind the ears JB.
JB got no gear, though, which was disappointing. There are some nice drops to be had, but only a few, and the odds are low. Her DPS was ok. The numbers are quite high because in the Mannoroth encounter the DPS is greatly boosted by the mechanics of the fight. Wild often wondered where some of those big DPS numbers came from. Now JB can say - from me!
DPS -
#1: Mage, 70.8 dps, 33.9% of all damage
#2: Hunter, 56.9k dps, 27.2%
#3: DK tank, 28.5k dps, 13.6%
#4: JB, 24.7k dps, 11.8%
#5: Pally, 17.1k dps, 8.2% (I think this was the one they must have kicked)
Glad they kept JB around, despite her low dps. JB didn't even out dps the tank. Sigh. Need to build up that gear.
JB asks for help - and Wowhead refused my topic.
Despite her victory in the Well, JB worried over her DPS. It just wasn't good enough, even taking into account her gear level. JB wanted advice, but couldn't find a guildie shaman online to ask. So JB went to the wowhead Shaman class forums to ask questions. I had problems with my wowhead account recently, and it took more than a week for them to straighten things out. Unfortunately, things were not straightened out. Wowhead refused to post JB's topic on their forum. Peeved, JB went to the Blizzard forums, which the Wild family has all but abandoned. When it comes to getting info about WoW, Wowhead is a much better site than the official Blizzard site. I didn't have a choice, though, in this case. Here is the forum post:
"I have a raiding healer main with i390 gear. Healing is all that I do. That is, until recently, when I raised an enhancement shaman for fun. I've taken her farther than I expected to, and with i353 equipped gear she just started doing Hour of Twilight runs. I hope to build her up into a raiding alt because it's been a lot of fun so far.
However, I have no idea what kind of DPS she should be doing or what I could do to improve it other than keep getting better gear. In the three Twilight runs I've done so far, my DPS has been around 11-13k, which is usually dead last in the groups I've been in. I want to assume that the other DPSers (and the tank) are just that much better geared than I am, but it still chafes to be last.
I follow the spell priorities (SS-LL-FS-UE-LB/MS-FS).
I usually drop earth, searing, healing, and windfury totems.
I buff with +90agi food and as an alchemist I have +80agi flask.
I bloodlust toward the end of boss fights.
I drop the fire elemental generally just on the final boss.
I cast Windfury on my main hand weapon and Firetongue on my off hand.
Things that lower my DPS. Sometimes I use the maelstrom proc to heal instead of DPS. Funny that I don't always trust the healer to keep me alive, but he has the tank to worry about, so if I don't get any healing love I'll take care of myself. I'm also not that experienced in targeting. I use an assist, usually on the tank, but I still find it hard to position properly, stay in range, avoid the things I need to avoid, while still keeping track of the target. This is more an issue with multiple mobs than a single boss, of course.
I've linked my gear. Any suggestions or comment on whether I'm ok with the DPS I'm doing or not would be a great help. "
I also took my own advice and went looking for more help on the forums. Surprisingly, there was a pretty good post on the WoW forums, which, as I mentioned, I've mostly abandoned in favor of wowhead. But wowhead kept being being snotty so the WoW forums got the nod.
I got a few responses. One was snotty, the others were actually pretty helpful and informative. Just for fun, here is a quote from the snotty one. He had plenty to say, but you'll get the drift from this snippet: "Your spec makes me wanna kick a puppy as i kill a kitten as i spit on a baby seal." Wut?
One responder in particular took the time to provide some thorough advice. One difficulty JB has is with the relationship of two spells which interact with each other - flame shock and unleash elements. The use of these two spells is also keyed to a proc called unleash flames. Without going into the technical details (technical details in a game? You bet), JB was doing it wrong, and that was likely the cause of a lot of lost DPS.
I also learned that my top end spell, called Feral Spirits, was actually a very poor spell that did very little DPS. That spell procs two spirit wolves that are really cool looking. I still should use them, but don't expect much improvement in DPS. Some of JB's talents were misplaced, as well. JB's picks weren't bad, but they weren't optimal. JB did a respec, making the suggested changes.
Another poster suggested that I try using the addon called Shock and Awe. Well, JB had tried that addon once before, quite a long time ago. It was so busy, and cluttered up the screen so bad, I couldn't make heads or tails about it. JB wanted to try it again, though, so I loaded it up for her to play with. The addon still had a very cluttered look to it, providing a whole lot more information than I really needed or could process in the middle of a battle. Not willing to give up completely, though, I picked through the addon functions and turned off pretty much everything I could. There was one feature that I really liked, though. The addon let me set a priority sequence for JB's spells, and while in combat displayed the next spell in the sequence for me to use. Playing around with that on the target dummy, JB discovered that the addon recognized when unleashed flames procced and even adjusted the spell priority to take that into account. Just like that, it solved JB's confusion about flame shock, unleashed elements, and unleashed flames.
How did all those changes work out? Coming up in Part 2.
Friday, January 27, 2012
Thursday (26 Jan) - One Step at a Time
Thursday (26 Jan) - One Step at a Time
The RG2 Thursday night raid got off to a good start. Our entire group from Wednesday's raid was back for a second run. That had to make the raid leader, Vl, very happy and proud. Not to put too good a spin on that, though, it also meant we had the same DPSers that struggled on Wednesday night. We should get better, having gotten in that practice the night before, and our lowest DPSer swapped out his shadow priest for another alt he hoped would do better.
Once we were all in the raid, Vl Summoned us all to Dragon Soul. We trickled in through the portal and arrived at the rocky open area where Morchok makes his home. Oddly, not only was Morchok not visible in the distance, there were no trash mobs hovering behind the local portal in front of me. Vl popped in with Wild, and we both tried to puzzle out what was wrong.
"Where is everybody?" Vl asked in vent.
"We're at Yor'sahj the Unsleeping, where are you?" Chr responded.
Wild and Vl looked at each other. Oh, the thought hit us at the same time. We'd killed Morchok on Wednesday. No wonder the place was deserted. We sheepishly skipped into the portal to Yor's chamber. We couldn't help but grin at each other, though. We'd killed Morchok. That was cool. Now we had Yor in our sights.
Well, long story short, it wasn't our night. We made two attempts and didn't get very far. Shg, one of our tanks, had to go. We brought in Wy, a druid with a feral cat main spec but who could also tank. She knew the fight, but it was her first time tanking Yor. Wild picked up the healing for Wy so I could get a feel for how well she handled things (ie, how hard would it be to heal her).
We did better on our third attempt, and Wy did just fine as well. We lost another raider, though, who had to see to a sick child. We could not find a replacement, and we finally had to call the raid.
Wild was hoping that with a full night to work on Yor we would bring him down. That wasn't to be, but I believe we are still in the two steps forward, one step back mode. Nobody seemed to be discouraged, so Wild is definitely looking forward to next week.
Healing:
#1: Wild, 10.3k hps, 36.8% heals
#2: Pa, 8.8k/26.4%
#3: Vl, 6.9k/21.1%
During the trash kills in Yor's chamber Wild was doing his usual thing - keeping his HoTs on the main tank and keeping him fully healed, dropping AoE heals on the raid to help Vl out, and routinely adding heals on the off tank as well. More and more it seemed that Wild was having to heal the off tank, and I started to wonder why. Pa is a good healer, Wild has confidence in her, and I'm sure Pa would do fine without Wild's help. But still, something seemed to be missing. Vl is a druid healer and she's always been given raid healing duties because of her gear level (i377). Even so, I thought Vl should be putting out more healing than she was.
In between trash mob battles, Wild asked Vl if she was keeping HoTs on the off tank. It's basic healing 101 for druid raid healers to keep a stack of lifeblooms and a rejuv on one of the tanks. Since Wild was already taking care of that for his main tank, Vl should be doing the same with the off tank, delivering consistent heals that would help Pa as well.
"Hmm, no, do you want me to?" she answered back. I had to wonder if anyone had ever set down with her and helped her improve her healing?
"Yes, pls," Wild sent back to her. She did, too. Wild checked recount after we called the raid, and her HoTs on the off tank accounted for a large part of the tank's heals. I'd like to get Vl a chance to tank heal instead of raid healing all of the time. I can't do that with Pa as paladins don't make the best raid healers, and I don't want to do it with Pl (priest) until our group is in better shape for us to experiment a bit. Vl's healing should be higher, though, so Wild intends to talk with Vl about healing and see if we get her numbers up.
Wild's LFR runs this week were both good and bad. The bad came in two parts. First, for some reason the raiders seem to getting worse instead of better. Wipes were non-existent in the first weeks Wild ran them, but this week we wiped again and again. I think raiders are getting careless - and bored. The second bad is that Wild has started to have user interface problems in the LFR. Wild keeps track of his heals using the Blizzard standard raid frames. Each type of heal has a little icon that appears on the raid frame of the raider Wild cast a heal on. In the past two weeks those little icons stopped showing up. Mostly it is Wild healing himself where it most often occurs, but it happens with other raiders as well. It appears that the heal did cast, but Wild gets no icon to show that it hit. Since so many of Wild's heals are HoTs, I NEED those icons to tell who has Hots on them and who doesn't. It is REALLY frustrating, but I have no idea what the problem is.
The good thing about the LFR is that Wild built up his valor points and bought an i397 ring, replacing an i378 ring. The addition raised Wild's gear score to i389. The pickings are getting pretty slim, now, however. Very soon there will be nothing that Wild needs that can be bought with valor points. Wild's biggest needs are a second i397 ring and new shoulders to replace his i378 ones. Neither can be bought with valor points. The ring is unique, so Wild can only buy one. The other +int ring is a +hit ring that isn't that great. And you can't buy shoulders with valor points. Sigh. Wild is almost to the point where the only way to improve his gear is full, non-LFR raiding.
And just for fun, Wild re-discovered his murloc costume and was surprised to find out that he stays in costume even when mounted. Here is Wild in murloc costume, on his flying carpet.
The RG2 Thursday night raid got off to a good start. Our entire group from Wednesday's raid was back for a second run. That had to make the raid leader, Vl, very happy and proud. Not to put too good a spin on that, though, it also meant we had the same DPSers that struggled on Wednesday night. We should get better, having gotten in that practice the night before, and our lowest DPSer swapped out his shadow priest for another alt he hoped would do better.
Once we were all in the raid, Vl Summoned us all to Dragon Soul. We trickled in through the portal and arrived at the rocky open area where Morchok makes his home. Oddly, not only was Morchok not visible in the distance, there were no trash mobs hovering behind the local portal in front of me. Vl popped in with Wild, and we both tried to puzzle out what was wrong.
"Where is everybody?" Vl asked in vent.
"We're at Yor'sahj the Unsleeping, where are you?" Chr responded.
Wild and Vl looked at each other. Oh, the thought hit us at the same time. We'd killed Morchok on Wednesday. No wonder the place was deserted. We sheepishly skipped into the portal to Yor's chamber. We couldn't help but grin at each other, though. We'd killed Morchok. That was cool. Now we had Yor in our sights.
Well, long story short, it wasn't our night. We made two attempts and didn't get very far. Shg, one of our tanks, had to go. We brought in Wy, a druid with a feral cat main spec but who could also tank. She knew the fight, but it was her first time tanking Yor. Wild picked up the healing for Wy so I could get a feel for how well she handled things (ie, how hard would it be to heal her).
We did better on our third attempt, and Wy did just fine as well. We lost another raider, though, who had to see to a sick child. We could not find a replacement, and we finally had to call the raid.
Wild was hoping that with a full night to work on Yor we would bring him down. That wasn't to be, but I believe we are still in the two steps forward, one step back mode. Nobody seemed to be discouraged, so Wild is definitely looking forward to next week.
Healing:
#1: Wild, 10.3k hps, 36.8% heals
#2: Pa, 8.8k/26.4%
#3: Vl, 6.9k/21.1%
During the trash kills in Yor's chamber Wild was doing his usual thing - keeping his HoTs on the main tank and keeping him fully healed, dropping AoE heals on the raid to help Vl out, and routinely adding heals on the off tank as well. More and more it seemed that Wild was having to heal the off tank, and I started to wonder why. Pa is a good healer, Wild has confidence in her, and I'm sure Pa would do fine without Wild's help. But still, something seemed to be missing. Vl is a druid healer and she's always been given raid healing duties because of her gear level (i377). Even so, I thought Vl should be putting out more healing than she was.
In between trash mob battles, Wild asked Vl if she was keeping HoTs on the off tank. It's basic healing 101 for druid raid healers to keep a stack of lifeblooms and a rejuv on one of the tanks. Since Wild was already taking care of that for his main tank, Vl should be doing the same with the off tank, delivering consistent heals that would help Pa as well.
"Hmm, no, do you want me to?" she answered back. I had to wonder if anyone had ever set down with her and helped her improve her healing?
"Yes, pls," Wild sent back to her. She did, too. Wild checked recount after we called the raid, and her HoTs on the off tank accounted for a large part of the tank's heals. I'd like to get Vl a chance to tank heal instead of raid healing all of the time. I can't do that with Pa as paladins don't make the best raid healers, and I don't want to do it with Pl (priest) until our group is in better shape for us to experiment a bit. Vl's healing should be higher, though, so Wild intends to talk with Vl about healing and see if we get her numbers up.
Wild's LFR runs this week were both good and bad. The bad came in two parts. First, for some reason the raiders seem to getting worse instead of better. Wipes were non-existent in the first weeks Wild ran them, but this week we wiped again and again. I think raiders are getting careless - and bored. The second bad is that Wild has started to have user interface problems in the LFR. Wild keeps track of his heals using the Blizzard standard raid frames. Each type of heal has a little icon that appears on the raid frame of the raider Wild cast a heal on. In the past two weeks those little icons stopped showing up. Mostly it is Wild healing himself where it most often occurs, but it happens with other raiders as well. It appears that the heal did cast, but Wild gets no icon to show that it hit. Since so many of Wild's heals are HoTs, I NEED those icons to tell who has Hots on them and who doesn't. It is REALLY frustrating, but I have no idea what the problem is.
The good thing about the LFR is that Wild built up his valor points and bought an i397 ring, replacing an i378 ring. The addition raised Wild's gear score to i389. The pickings are getting pretty slim, now, however. Very soon there will be nothing that Wild needs that can be bought with valor points. Wild's biggest needs are a second i397 ring and new shoulders to replace his i378 ones. Neither can be bought with valor points. The ring is unique, so Wild can only buy one. The other +int ring is a +hit ring that isn't that great. And you can't buy shoulders with valor points. Sigh. Wild is almost to the point where the only way to improve his gear is full, non-LFR raiding.
And just for fun, Wild re-discovered his murloc costume and was surprised to find out that he stays in costume even when mounted. Here is Wild in murloc costume, on his flying carpet.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Wednesday (25 Jan) - Word From a (Former?) Raid Leader
Wednesday (25 Jan) - Word From a (Former?) Raid Leader
So, raid leader and guild leader Bd came back on the radar Wednesday afternoon - sort of. Our new RG2 raid leader, Vl, finally caught up with him out of game. Where has he been? On vacation. Why didn't he tell anyone what was going on? He didn't or wouldn't say. When Vl pressed, telling him that many of us were upset at his disappearance, all he could say was that he and Lady Hunter could have handled that better.
Vl did what she had to do, and got Wild's support when she clued me in to what she had learned. Bd turned the raid lead over to her (not that we hadn't already done that). Bd also said he might come to the raid on Wednesday night, and Vl said that was fine - if we had a spot open. Vl has taken charge, and that's a good thing.
Vl and Wild were the first in game for the Wednesday night raid. The raid sign up remained a joke, with only three signed on (including Wild and Vl) and a long list of guildies (13) listing themselves as Tentative. As we approached the 6:30pm raid start time, we'd added just that one other raider that had signed up. Two of our regulars, Pl and Gv, were in game, but when Wild whispered them they said they couldn't make it. Gv's work schedule is very fluid, and work would get in the way of raiding tonight. His wife, Pl, rarely raids without her husband.
Wild was ready to throw his hands up in frustration. Vl, though, beat the bushes, cajoling and coercing and flirting with players. "I know that's Ct on that alt, get on your raiding toon and come join us!" she would say, finger pointing. Wild was whispering each and every potential raider, making them say yes or no instead of hiding behind their alts. Frankly, some were shamed into coming, and others came because they felt they should support the run, even if they weren't real excited about it. We weren't picky.
We started with three, and added two more, including a second tank. Two guildies Wild had never seen in a raid were talked into coming, and one of our regular pally DPSers, who'd begged off coming, changed her mind and came along. She even agreed to switch to healer, which she hates. I don't remember what time if was when we got our tenth raider, but it wasn't that far past our start time. Big kudos to Vl for her masterful work getting it together - it was an accomplishment worthy of the finagling of Lady Hunter.
We had a good pair of tanks and solid healing, but our DPSers were likely to be uneven at best. Without hunter Gv and with big melee pally hitter, Pa, healing on this night, the damage dealing would be a challenge. By the way, Bd never showed up.
Wild set the healing assignments, switching things up just a little. Normally, Wild prefers to heal Chr, who usually handles main tanking duties. However, last week the other tank, Shg, was so excitable that he kept jumping the gun and wound up as lead tank by default. Wild wants his HoT spells on the tank that is taking the most damage, so on this night Wild assigned himself to Shg and gave Chr to the pally healer, Pa.
The back and forth in vent was also pretty lively. Wild even got into the act - well, not exactly. Pa whispered Wild shortly before we got going, asking "Why don't you talk on vent anymore?" Wild and Pa (as Od, her first main) go back aways, so long ago she obviously forgot about Wild's status on vent. "I never talk on vent," Wild told her. "It's distracting." Wild waited a second, and then sent another whisper back to her, "But I love to listen!" That got a laugh, and we had a little back and forth.
Pa - I'm going to be good tonight
Wild - No youre not :P
Pa - yes I am!
Wild - for how long?
Pa - I try to be all the time
Wild - LOL, wasn't that you talking trash to Chr?
Pa - i just asked if i could play with his big stick
After that things got really interesting ... oh yea, we had to start killing things, too.
Our first boss was Morchok, and we wiped on our first attempt as our newer raiders settled in. As feared, our DPS was low and we hit the enrage timer. On our second attempt, the DPS made a great leap forward and down went Morchok. I know it isn't much, but I am declaring that Morchok is on farm, even with our grab bag collection of raiders.
Raid Leader Vl selected Yor'sahj the Unsleeping for our second boss, which we all agreed with. Our other choice is much tougher. Yor summons oozes every minute or so. They are large and colorful, and come in sets of three, each entering from a different spot in the large cavern. The color coded oozes are killed in a specific order from most dangerous to least dangerous. In the LFR raiders can make a lot of mistakes and still down Yor without a lot of effort. In regular ten man, small mistakes can get you - and often others - killed.
Wild has done this fight many times, killing Yor often in the LFR but so far never in regular ten man. There are like eight different kinds of oozes, and Wild admittedly hadn't committed all of their various abilities to memory. On this night Wild had his epiphany, where it all came together. It was so simple, too, but Wild hadn't seen it and no one ever explained it. Here it is. Rule #1 is ALWAYS collapse to the tank; ie, stack up. Most oozes are best handled that way. Rule #2 is that there is one exception to Rule #1. Green oozes are most deadly when raiders are packed together, so stay outside the four foot radius circle that conveniently pops up on it's own when a green ooze is active. This is the ONLY time not to stack up. Rule #3 is that if there is a purple ooze active - don't heal! Healing gets other raiders killed. There is another ooze (blue?) that temporarily causes mana to go to near zero, but be careful and patient and all mana will be returned. Follow those simple rules to avoid doing stupid things.
Our first attempt was forgettable. On our second attempt we got Yor down to 47%, the best we had ever done. We practiced some more on attempts three and four. On our fifth attempt we dragged Yor down to 20% before hitting the enrage timer. We still had thirty minutes of raid time left, but Vl had been getting some whispers that a few raiders had other things to do. Rather than force a continuance on raiders who had not been 100% on board joining the raid to begin with, we decided to call it. We'll have a whole evening on Thursday to tackle that pesky ooze miester. I hope. If we can scrounge up ten raiders again.
Wild is trying hard to be optimistic about this raid. There are really only four of us (Wild, Vl, Gv, Pl) seriously trying to make the raid a success, and two of them have real life scheduling issues. Our fifth raider, Chr, is hard to pin down. He usually comes on the raid, but only after being talked into it. As for the rest it is always a challenge and it's never the same group of guildies.
Healing Numbers:
#1: Wild, 13.5k hps, 36.0% heals
#2: Pa, 12.4k/32.7%
#3: Vl, 8.4k/19.1%
The DPS was, frankly, under whelming. Only one DPSer broke over 21k dps, the rest dropped precipitously to around 17k and then all the way to 12k. We couldn't blame them; they did the best they could.
But we are making progress all the same. If we can only keep it going.
PS - Seven of us headed into the Fall of Deathwing lfr after the raid. It was a nightmare. I'd never seen such a terrible group. We wiped four times and only got three of four bosses, failing to complete the run. It was fun running with guildies, but the raid itself was a big mess. One fun addition, too. One of our guildies has started raiding with another guild, even moving his main to that guild. He still keeps a raiding alt with MM2. He was on his main in the same lfr run that we were in, and Wild commented on that in raid chat. He saw the chat, but didn't understand what I was saying. So I whispered him that there were seven MM2 guildies in the raid with him. That got a smile and a laugh. He was healing on his druid, too, and he and Wild had battled each other for lead healer. Surprisingly, we both lost out to another druid healer (three druid healers meant no loot for Wild) who is also in MM2. Wild just had to look him up. His gear is i381, whereas Wild's is i387. How did he outheal me!? Stats-wise, Wild way out gears him in spirit and haste, and has 12k more mana. He seems to have put all his eggs into mastery, which is much higher than Wild's. He's not hast capped, either, but he uses an i359 Mastery trinket! I don't get it, but he still beat out Wild.
So, raid leader and guild leader Bd came back on the radar Wednesday afternoon - sort of. Our new RG2 raid leader, Vl, finally caught up with him out of game. Where has he been? On vacation. Why didn't he tell anyone what was going on? He didn't or wouldn't say. When Vl pressed, telling him that many of us were upset at his disappearance, all he could say was that he and Lady Hunter could have handled that better.
Vl did what she had to do, and got Wild's support when she clued me in to what she had learned. Bd turned the raid lead over to her (not that we hadn't already done that). Bd also said he might come to the raid on Wednesday night, and Vl said that was fine - if we had a spot open. Vl has taken charge, and that's a good thing.
Vl and Wild were the first in game for the Wednesday night raid. The raid sign up remained a joke, with only three signed on (including Wild and Vl) and a long list of guildies (13) listing themselves as Tentative. As we approached the 6:30pm raid start time, we'd added just that one other raider that had signed up. Two of our regulars, Pl and Gv, were in game, but when Wild whispered them they said they couldn't make it. Gv's work schedule is very fluid, and work would get in the way of raiding tonight. His wife, Pl, rarely raids without her husband.
Wild was ready to throw his hands up in frustration. Vl, though, beat the bushes, cajoling and coercing and flirting with players. "I know that's Ct on that alt, get on your raiding toon and come join us!" she would say, finger pointing. Wild was whispering each and every potential raider, making them say yes or no instead of hiding behind their alts. Frankly, some were shamed into coming, and others came because they felt they should support the run, even if they weren't real excited about it. We weren't picky.
We started with three, and added two more, including a second tank. Two guildies Wild had never seen in a raid were talked into coming, and one of our regular pally DPSers, who'd begged off coming, changed her mind and came along. She even agreed to switch to healer, which she hates. I don't remember what time if was when we got our tenth raider, but it wasn't that far past our start time. Big kudos to Vl for her masterful work getting it together - it was an accomplishment worthy of the finagling of Lady Hunter.
We had a good pair of tanks and solid healing, but our DPSers were likely to be uneven at best. Without hunter Gv and with big melee pally hitter, Pa, healing on this night, the damage dealing would be a challenge. By the way, Bd never showed up.
Wild set the healing assignments, switching things up just a little. Normally, Wild prefers to heal Chr, who usually handles main tanking duties. However, last week the other tank, Shg, was so excitable that he kept jumping the gun and wound up as lead tank by default. Wild wants his HoT spells on the tank that is taking the most damage, so on this night Wild assigned himself to Shg and gave Chr to the pally healer, Pa.
The back and forth in vent was also pretty lively. Wild even got into the act - well, not exactly. Pa whispered Wild shortly before we got going, asking "Why don't you talk on vent anymore?" Wild and Pa (as Od, her first main) go back aways, so long ago she obviously forgot about Wild's status on vent. "I never talk on vent," Wild told her. "It's distracting." Wild waited a second, and then sent another whisper back to her, "But I love to listen!" That got a laugh, and we had a little back and forth.
Pa - I'm going to be good tonight
Wild - No youre not :P
Pa - yes I am!
Wild - for how long?
Pa - I try to be all the time
Wild - LOL, wasn't that you talking trash to Chr?
Pa - i just asked if i could play with his big stick
After that things got really interesting ... oh yea, we had to start killing things, too.
Our first boss was Morchok, and we wiped on our first attempt as our newer raiders settled in. As feared, our DPS was low and we hit the enrage timer. On our second attempt, the DPS made a great leap forward and down went Morchok. I know it isn't much, but I am declaring that Morchok is on farm, even with our grab bag collection of raiders.
Raid Leader Vl selected Yor'sahj the Unsleeping for our second boss, which we all agreed with. Our other choice is much tougher. Yor summons oozes every minute or so. They are large and colorful, and come in sets of three, each entering from a different spot in the large cavern. The color coded oozes are killed in a specific order from most dangerous to least dangerous. In the LFR raiders can make a lot of mistakes and still down Yor without a lot of effort. In regular ten man, small mistakes can get you - and often others - killed.
Wild has done this fight many times, killing Yor often in the LFR but so far never in regular ten man. There are like eight different kinds of oozes, and Wild admittedly hadn't committed all of their various abilities to memory. On this night Wild had his epiphany, where it all came together. It was so simple, too, but Wild hadn't seen it and no one ever explained it. Here it is. Rule #1 is ALWAYS collapse to the tank; ie, stack up. Most oozes are best handled that way. Rule #2 is that there is one exception to Rule #1. Green oozes are most deadly when raiders are packed together, so stay outside the four foot radius circle that conveniently pops up on it's own when a green ooze is active. This is the ONLY time not to stack up. Rule #3 is that if there is a purple ooze active - don't heal! Healing gets other raiders killed. There is another ooze (blue?) that temporarily causes mana to go to near zero, but be careful and patient and all mana will be returned. Follow those simple rules to avoid doing stupid things.
Our first attempt was forgettable. On our second attempt we got Yor down to 47%, the best we had ever done. We practiced some more on attempts three and four. On our fifth attempt we dragged Yor down to 20% before hitting the enrage timer. We still had thirty minutes of raid time left, but Vl had been getting some whispers that a few raiders had other things to do. Rather than force a continuance on raiders who had not been 100% on board joining the raid to begin with, we decided to call it. We'll have a whole evening on Thursday to tackle that pesky ooze miester. I hope. If we can scrounge up ten raiders again.
Wild is trying hard to be optimistic about this raid. There are really only four of us (Wild, Vl, Gv, Pl) seriously trying to make the raid a success, and two of them have real life scheduling issues. Our fifth raider, Chr, is hard to pin down. He usually comes on the raid, but only after being talked into it. As for the rest it is always a challenge and it's never the same group of guildies.
Healing Numbers:
#1: Wild, 13.5k hps, 36.0% heals
#2: Pa, 12.4k/32.7%
#3: Vl, 8.4k/19.1%
The DPS was, frankly, under whelming. Only one DPSer broke over 21k dps, the rest dropped precipitously to around 17k and then all the way to 12k. We couldn't blame them; they did the best they could.
But we are making progress all the same. If we can only keep it going.
PS - Seven of us headed into the Fall of Deathwing lfr after the raid. It was a nightmare. I'd never seen such a terrible group. We wiped four times and only got three of four bosses, failing to complete the run. It was fun running with guildies, but the raid itself was a big mess. One fun addition, too. One of our guildies has started raiding with another guild, even moving his main to that guild. He still keeps a raiding alt with MM2. He was on his main in the same lfr run that we were in, and Wild commented on that in raid chat. He saw the chat, but didn't understand what I was saying. So I whispered him that there were seven MM2 guildies in the raid with him. That got a smile and a laugh. He was healing on his druid, too, and he and Wild had battled each other for lead healer. Surprisingly, we both lost out to another druid healer (three druid healers meant no loot for Wild) who is also in MM2. Wild just had to look him up. His gear is i381, whereas Wild's is i387. How did he outheal me!? Stats-wise, Wild way out gears him in spirit and haste, and has 12k more mana. He seems to have put all his eggs into mastery, which is much higher than Wild's. He's not hast capped, either, but he uses an i359 Mastery trinket! I don't get it, but he still beat out Wild.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Tuesday (24 Jan) - The End of Cataclysm
Tuesday (24 Jan) - The End of Cataclysm
There was no maintenance on Tuesday, but lo and behold we get an eight hour maintenance on Wednesday, a day out of sync. The rumor is that Blizz planned to release patch 4.3.2 on Tuesday, but discovered a massive bug and had to slip it a day.
Patch 4.3.2 is now officially here. It's a small patch with some minor class tweaking. The big announcement with this patch is the ability to form same-faction raids across multiple realms among Real ID users. Yawn. They also fixed a raid loot problem when two pieces of the same loot drop. Players were able to roll and win both pieces. Now, you can still roll on both, but if you win one you become ineligible for the second one.
Finally, this patch will also bring the nerf stick to Dragon Soul. The bleeding will be a bit slower than in past raid nerfs, an expected 5% reduction in the health and damage of the denizens of DS. DS will continue to be regularly nerfed another 5% periodically. Guilds that want to combat DS at full strength have the option to turn off the nerf stick.
And that's it for the patch.
The really big news on the heels of this little patch is that Patch 4.3.2 is the LAST PATCH for Cataclysm. There will be no more new content between now and when the next expansion, Mists of Pandaria (MoP), is released "later in the year."
At the time patch 4.3 came out, I wondered aloud if there would be new content between then and MoP, opining that Dragon Soul would be a stripped carcass long before MoP arrives. Apparently, we will all have to feed off the DS corpse longer than we wanted.
For Wild, grinding random Hour of Twilight raids and dungeons through the finders is more fun than the morass of Cata Heroics that Wild hated (and hates), so Wild will likely continue to grind his valor points and improve on his gear.
The nerfs didn't bother Wild with Icecrown Citadel, since it was the only way Wild would get to see the content with his raid-challenged guild. Wild's raid group never got anywhere with Firelands. Wild was forced to get his fix through another guild. Wild got to see 6/7 bosses in FL, leaving out only the end game boss, Ragnaros. Wild just shrugs that off. Wild has defeated Ragnaros before, in Molten Core.
Things are different with DS, though. Wild has already seen all of the content through the raid finder runs. Wild has killed the DS end game boss, Deathwing. Ideally, Wild would love to conquer normal mode DS at it's full strength ... however, it's not realistic. Wild's guild is still sitting at 2/8 bosses in normal mode DS. We'll need the nerfs to bring down the rest of the content and get our i397 gear, which will likely be mandatory to succeed in MoP.
The end game boss story suddenly struck me:
Icecrown Citadel's Lich King - Nerf sticked to the max, but our guild grimly kept after him, going toe to toe 70+ times before killing him. We never gave up, and we brought him down. A grand accomplishment.
Fireland's Ragnaros - Dysfunctional raids, warring guilds, and absent raid leaders made a mess of things. Ragnaros never fell even though the Mf raid still tilts at that windmill once in awhile. A failure.
Dragon Soul's Deathwing - Dead on the same day Wild first stepped into DS via the raid finder. As for the guild raid, it's hard to see how either raid group will be able to beat even the nerfed content, or whether the guild will even care.
Wild thinks about what it would be like to be in a guild where raid progression was something to get excited about.
There was no maintenance on Tuesday, but lo and behold we get an eight hour maintenance on Wednesday, a day out of sync. The rumor is that Blizz planned to release patch 4.3.2 on Tuesday, but discovered a massive bug and had to slip it a day.
Patch 4.3.2 is now officially here. It's a small patch with some minor class tweaking. The big announcement with this patch is the ability to form same-faction raids across multiple realms among Real ID users. Yawn. They also fixed a raid loot problem when two pieces of the same loot drop. Players were able to roll and win both pieces. Now, you can still roll on both, but if you win one you become ineligible for the second one.
Finally, this patch will also bring the nerf stick to Dragon Soul. The bleeding will be a bit slower than in past raid nerfs, an expected 5% reduction in the health and damage of the denizens of DS. DS will continue to be regularly nerfed another 5% periodically. Guilds that want to combat DS at full strength have the option to turn off the nerf stick.
And that's it for the patch.
The really big news on the heels of this little patch is that Patch 4.3.2 is the LAST PATCH for Cataclysm. There will be no more new content between now and when the next expansion, Mists of Pandaria (MoP), is released "later in the year."
At the time patch 4.3 came out, I wondered aloud if there would be new content between then and MoP, opining that Dragon Soul would be a stripped carcass long before MoP arrives. Apparently, we will all have to feed off the DS corpse longer than we wanted.
For Wild, grinding random Hour of Twilight raids and dungeons through the finders is more fun than the morass of Cata Heroics that Wild hated (and hates), so Wild will likely continue to grind his valor points and improve on his gear.
The nerfs didn't bother Wild with Icecrown Citadel, since it was the only way Wild would get to see the content with his raid-challenged guild. Wild's raid group never got anywhere with Firelands. Wild was forced to get his fix through another guild. Wild got to see 6/7 bosses in FL, leaving out only the end game boss, Ragnaros. Wild just shrugs that off. Wild has defeated Ragnaros before, in Molten Core.
Things are different with DS, though. Wild has already seen all of the content through the raid finder runs. Wild has killed the DS end game boss, Deathwing. Ideally, Wild would love to conquer normal mode DS at it's full strength ... however, it's not realistic. Wild's guild is still sitting at 2/8 bosses in normal mode DS. We'll need the nerfs to bring down the rest of the content and get our i397 gear, which will likely be mandatory to succeed in MoP.
The end game boss story suddenly struck me:
Icecrown Citadel's Lich King - Nerf sticked to the max, but our guild grimly kept after him, going toe to toe 70+ times before killing him. We never gave up, and we brought him down. A grand accomplishment.
Fireland's Ragnaros - Dysfunctional raids, warring guilds, and absent raid leaders made a mess of things. Ragnaros never fell even though the Mf raid still tilts at that windmill once in awhile. A failure.
Dragon Soul's Deathwing - Dead on the same day Wild first stepped into DS via the raid finder. As for the guild raid, it's hard to see how either raid group will be able to beat even the nerfed content, or whether the guild will even care.
Wild thinks about what it would be like to be in a guild where raid progression was something to get excited about.
Monday, January 23, 2012
Weekend (22 Jan) - Dungeon Drums and Twilight Fancies
Weekend (22 Jan) - Dungeon Drums and Twilight Fancies
JB lived and breathed Cata dungeons over the weekend. On Friday night she swept through five normal dungeons, building up enough justice points for her first T12 (i378) pair of gloves. Adding that piece of gear moved her up to an i351 gear score.
The dungeon runs were mostly forgettable, particularly since the "randomness" factor seemed to be stuck on just two dungeons - the Lost City and Halls of Origination (HOO). JB did get Grim Batol once, though. The final dungeon of the night put JB in a dungeon already in progress. The group had apparently wiped and either lost or kicked one of the DPS. That DPSer must have been particularly bad, since the others never got above 7.8k DPS. JB banged out 10.9k dps, beating even the tank, who was not one of the over-geared ones JB often sees.
The next time JB went to select a random dungeon she noticed an extra option that hadn't been there before. The Hour of Twilight Heroic Dungeons now showed as available to JB. JB wasn't quite ready to try the patch 4.3 dungeons, and was a little surprised JB was eligible to sign up for them. Sometime this weekend, though, she's going to give it a whirl. The worst that can happen is the group will kick her out.
Saturday - Saturday was more of the same. JB maxed out her dungeon runs for the week, a feat Wild has never come close to achieving (JB sticks her tongue out at Wild). The normal dungeons and their i333 gear have no treasures left for JB, but the justice points are still quite valuable.
Sunday - Heroic End Time
End Time is the first of three dungeons in Hour of Twilight. Technically, JB does not have the minimum gear level (i353) required for these dungeons. JB's equipped gear score is i351. BUT - the dungeon finder only looks at overall gear, which in JB's case means that her set of i377 pvp healing gear will get JB into these dungeons, even though she won't be using any of that gear. Hey, I don't make the rules.
Even though she can get into the dungeons, JB still worried about her hit and expertise ratings, since they were not optimized and meant JB's attacks could miss, be deflected, blocked, parried, etc. JB made one concession to her DPS gear, swapping out a +234 agi trinket for a +252 hit trinket, and hoped that it would be good enough.
Wild tried to give JB some advice about the dungeon, but Wild had only run the dungeon once and that was six weeks ago. JB pretty much had to learn the dungeon all on her own, as Wild's own memory drew a complete blank.
When the portal opened JB found herself in a dark cavern with groups of mobs in every direction. There were only two of us at the portal exit. Two others were at opposite ends of where we were, and the fifth, our healer, was dead. For what seemed like more than five minutes, we meandered around, none of us sure what we supposed to do or where we should be. JB wanted to rally with the tank, but the dang tank wouldn't stay put. Trying to catch him got JB killed when I didn't edge far enough away from a group of mobs. The good news out of that is that the healer came around to rezz JB and the rest of the group rallied around her. Finally, we were all together.
Wild remembered that he only had to kill two of the "Echo's" bosses. Wild's memory is suspect, though. The first boss, Echo of Baine, is on a rocky platform in the middle of a lava lake. JB didn't know that the rest of the group had to fan out on two other islands of rock, as those islands sometimes broke up. JB, being melee, simply stuck to the tank, going wherever he went when we had to change islands. I guess Baine also throws a spear that has to be hurled back at him. Again, JB was clinging to the tank and it was the ranged that had to deal with the spear.
Remember that these bosses are Heroic, not the wimpy elites in normal dungeons, and even deadlier than the cata heroic bosses, too. JB and the other DPSers had to whale on Baine for quite a bit of time before we finally sent his echo back into the past where it belonged.
After killing Baine, we moved back to the portal and took it to Echo of Jaina. Well, JB knew nothing about this fight - she could have used a grounding totem to help reduce damage, there are mobs that can cause trouble, and she Blinks (teleports) around the area frequently. The teleporting was really all that JB saw. Jaina is a giant, and JB didn't get to see much other than her sizable rump. Flarecore embers should be detonated around the room, but JB was ignorant of that as well. No matter, we brought her down.
The third boss is Sylvanas. I read the strategy for this boss, and, ya know, I think Wild was right. JB could not have fought Sylvanas; JB should have witnessed some part of that fight, but nothing sounded familiar. The same went for the Tyrande fight - JB didn't see this fight, either.
Ok, so Wild was right about ony two of four bosses showed up. But, making JB admit she was wrong is probably going to come back to haunt Wild.
The final boss is Murozond. Basically, time rewinds itself whenever someone in the group uses the Hourglass. JB died twice, and both times reappeared in full health and all her spells off cooldown and ready to go. The number of times the Hourglass can be used is limited, though, so one can't die TOO many times. Murozond eventually died.
The dungeon was not as bad as JB had feared, and with fewer mob groups to deal with JB's targeting and positioning were in better shape as well. As for JB's dps, she finished last, not counting the healer. Her 10.6k DPS was consistent with what she has been getting in the other dungeons, so she was pleased that she kept up against nastier bosses and despite an almost 8% miss rate on her melee attacks. The other three did 18.1 dps, 14.0 dps (tank), and 13.2 dps.
It was a lot of fun. The only down side was that the End Time dungeon loot drops really suck for shaman. She did get one i378 drop - gloves. Sigh. JB spent 1650 JPs to get the i378 Tier 12 gloves, which she was wearing. So JB got no loot she could use.
JB lived and breathed Cata dungeons over the weekend. On Friday night she swept through five normal dungeons, building up enough justice points for her first T12 (i378) pair of gloves. Adding that piece of gear moved her up to an i351 gear score.
The dungeon runs were mostly forgettable, particularly since the "randomness" factor seemed to be stuck on just two dungeons - the Lost City and Halls of Origination (HOO). JB did get Grim Batol once, though. The final dungeon of the night put JB in a dungeon already in progress. The group had apparently wiped and either lost or kicked one of the DPS. That DPSer must have been particularly bad, since the others never got above 7.8k DPS. JB banged out 10.9k dps, beating even the tank, who was not one of the over-geared ones JB often sees.
The next time JB went to select a random dungeon she noticed an extra option that hadn't been there before. The Hour of Twilight Heroic Dungeons now showed as available to JB. JB wasn't quite ready to try the patch 4.3 dungeons, and was a little surprised JB was eligible to sign up for them. Sometime this weekend, though, she's going to give it a whirl. The worst that can happen is the group will kick her out.
Saturday - Saturday was more of the same. JB maxed out her dungeon runs for the week, a feat Wild has never come close to achieving (JB sticks her tongue out at Wild). The normal dungeons and their i333 gear have no treasures left for JB, but the justice points are still quite valuable.
Sunday - Heroic End Time
End Time is the first of three dungeons in Hour of Twilight. Technically, JB does not have the minimum gear level (i353) required for these dungeons. JB's equipped gear score is i351. BUT - the dungeon finder only looks at overall gear, which in JB's case means that her set of i377 pvp healing gear will get JB into these dungeons, even though she won't be using any of that gear. Hey, I don't make the rules.
Even though she can get into the dungeons, JB still worried about her hit and expertise ratings, since they were not optimized and meant JB's attacks could miss, be deflected, blocked, parried, etc. JB made one concession to her DPS gear, swapping out a +234 agi trinket for a +252 hit trinket, and hoped that it would be good enough.
Wild tried to give JB some advice about the dungeon, but Wild had only run the dungeon once and that was six weeks ago. JB pretty much had to learn the dungeon all on her own, as Wild's own memory drew a complete blank.
When the portal opened JB found herself in a dark cavern with groups of mobs in every direction. There were only two of us at the portal exit. Two others were at opposite ends of where we were, and the fifth, our healer, was dead. For what seemed like more than five minutes, we meandered around, none of us sure what we supposed to do or where we should be. JB wanted to rally with the tank, but the dang tank wouldn't stay put. Trying to catch him got JB killed when I didn't edge far enough away from a group of mobs. The good news out of that is that the healer came around to rezz JB and the rest of the group rallied around her. Finally, we were all together.
Wild remembered that he only had to kill two of the "Echo's" bosses. Wild's memory is suspect, though. The first boss, Echo of Baine, is on a rocky platform in the middle of a lava lake. JB didn't know that the rest of the group had to fan out on two other islands of rock, as those islands sometimes broke up. JB, being melee, simply stuck to the tank, going wherever he went when we had to change islands. I guess Baine also throws a spear that has to be hurled back at him. Again, JB was clinging to the tank and it was the ranged that had to deal with the spear.
Remember that these bosses are Heroic, not the wimpy elites in normal dungeons, and even deadlier than the cata heroic bosses, too. JB and the other DPSers had to whale on Baine for quite a bit of time before we finally sent his echo back into the past where it belonged.
After killing Baine, we moved back to the portal and took it to Echo of Jaina. Well, JB knew nothing about this fight - she could have used a grounding totem to help reduce damage, there are mobs that can cause trouble, and she Blinks (teleports) around the area frequently. The teleporting was really all that JB saw. Jaina is a giant, and JB didn't get to see much other than her sizable rump. Flarecore embers should be detonated around the room, but JB was ignorant of that as well. No matter, we brought her down.
The third boss is Sylvanas. I read the strategy for this boss, and, ya know, I think Wild was right. JB could not have fought Sylvanas; JB should have witnessed some part of that fight, but nothing sounded familiar. The same went for the Tyrande fight - JB didn't see this fight, either.
Ok, so Wild was right about ony two of four bosses showed up. But, making JB admit she was wrong is probably going to come back to haunt Wild.
The final boss is Murozond. Basically, time rewinds itself whenever someone in the group uses the Hourglass. JB died twice, and both times reappeared in full health and all her spells off cooldown and ready to go. The number of times the Hourglass can be used is limited, though, so one can't die TOO many times. Murozond eventually died.
The dungeon was not as bad as JB had feared, and with fewer mob groups to deal with JB's targeting and positioning were in better shape as well. As for JB's dps, she finished last, not counting the healer. Her 10.6k DPS was consistent with what she has been getting in the other dungeons, so she was pleased that she kept up against nastier bosses and despite an almost 8% miss rate on her melee attacks. The other three did 18.1 dps, 14.0 dps (tank), and 13.2 dps.
It was a lot of fun. The only down side was that the End Time dungeon loot drops really suck for shaman. She did get one i378 drop - gloves. Sigh. JB spent 1650 JPs to get the i378 Tier 12 gloves, which she was wearing. So JB got no loot she could use.
Friday, January 20, 2012
Thursday (19 Jan) - A Real Raid Night
Thursday (19 Jan) - A Real Raid Night
The plan for our Thursday night raid was to get our ten raiders, wrap up the Ulduar raid we had started on Wednesday, and then dive into Dragon Soul.
We didn't quite achieve the first part. We came up one raider short of ten. Wild was encouraged, though, that we had seven of nine raiders from Wednesday return for the second night. We lost both our tanks, one who we knew was gone (retired from WoW) while our other tank (on an alt) was called on to tank with his main raid. Our missing tank from Wednesday did show up on Thursday, though, and Vl had already gotten another tank to come. I'm hoping these two tanks, Chr and Shg, will be our regular tanks. We actually had a full ten raiders, but one of them had joined Mf's raid on Tuesday and had forgotten she was locked out, unable to join our raid. Another hopeful thought is that this raider will join us next week as a regular instead of being a fill-in with Mf's raid. Bit by bit we are getting a stable raid together.
As planned, we began our night in Ulduar with nine raiders. We intended to drop the last two bosses, get our Achievement, find a tenth raider, and head into DS. The final two bosses are located in "The Descent Into Madness" area. We killed General Vezax in a spirited fight that was very challenging for the healers. There is a mechanism that doesn't allow mana to regen and makes Wild's innervate and mana potions impotent. Few of us had seen this boss before and we wiped once as all the healers went out of mana. We researched quickly, and figured out the process for attaining more mana and killed him on our second try. Unfortunately, we could not bring down the final boss, Yogg-Saron, in the two tries we had time for. Only one raider had ever seen this fight, and this multi-phase battle has many special conditions that must be accomplished and managed that have nothing to do with how over-geared we were. We didn't understand the mechanics, and we didn't have time to figure them out.
We had picked up a tenth raider and we were anxious to change our location from Ulduar to Dragon Soul.
Our two tanks are quite the free spirits, and on trash mobs we giggled through every fight. Raid checks, mob marking, and Go! commands fell by the wayside. While it may have looked chaotic, it kept everyone on their toes and intent on what we were doing. We needed to get pumped up, and the craziness certainly did that.
We attacked the first boss, Morchok, barely slowing down. We fought well and no one died early throughout a very long battle. A little too long, it turned out, as Morchok went into Enrage and wiped us. We had him down to 3% health. The DPS pressed harder and Morchok went down on our second attempt. Wild whispered Vl, "Gratz! Your first boss kill as a raid leader!"
Normally, the second boss is Warlord Zon'ozz, Vl opted to go after Yor'sahj the Unsleeping next. I hadn't known we could pick from the two of them. There are two dragons in the main chamber of DS that fly raiders to some of the bosses, and Wild learned for the first time that either dragon (one going to Oz and the other going to Yor) could be used. Yor is an easier boss than Oz, so it was a good choice.
We made three attempts on Yor, getting some practice on this boss, but didn't bring him down.
On the whole, it was an excellent night. After three weeks of no raiding, getting a group together two nights in a row is a major accomplishment. Our rookie raid leader is now blooded in Dragon Soul and has a kill to her credit. Wild dubbed the raid the revived G2 (RG2). We are a long way to stability, but we've got a toehold in DS and I hope that encourages more participation.
With at least a stable set of three healers, raid leader Vl (who is a druid healer, herself) turned over healing assignments to Wild. Wild named himself main tank healer, with priest Pl on the off tank and Vl raid healing. Here is the DS results:
Healing -
#1: Wild, 10.7k hps, 34.7%
#2: Pl, 10.2k, 30.3%
#3: Vl, 7.2k, 20.4%
DPS -
#1: Hunter Gv, 20.3k, 18.4%
#2: Hunter Sn, 18.9k, 17.1%
#3: Paladin Pal, 17.3k, 15.6%
#4: Warlock Lc, 14.8k, 13.4%
#5: Mage Tr, 14.7k, 13.3%
In local guild news, guild leaders Happy and Lost felt it was necessary to demote players that have been absent for more than a month. Those players are still guild members in good standing, but will have only the minimum guild perks while in a non-active capacity.
The plan for our Thursday night raid was to get our ten raiders, wrap up the Ulduar raid we had started on Wednesday, and then dive into Dragon Soul.
We didn't quite achieve the first part. We came up one raider short of ten. Wild was encouraged, though, that we had seven of nine raiders from Wednesday return for the second night. We lost both our tanks, one who we knew was gone (retired from WoW) while our other tank (on an alt) was called on to tank with his main raid. Our missing tank from Wednesday did show up on Thursday, though, and Vl had already gotten another tank to come. I'm hoping these two tanks, Chr and Shg, will be our regular tanks. We actually had a full ten raiders, but one of them had joined Mf's raid on Tuesday and had forgotten she was locked out, unable to join our raid. Another hopeful thought is that this raider will join us next week as a regular instead of being a fill-in with Mf's raid. Bit by bit we are getting a stable raid together.
As planned, we began our night in Ulduar with nine raiders. We intended to drop the last two bosses, get our Achievement, find a tenth raider, and head into DS. The final two bosses are located in "The Descent Into Madness" area. We killed General Vezax in a spirited fight that was very challenging for the healers. There is a mechanism that doesn't allow mana to regen and makes Wild's innervate and mana potions impotent. Few of us had seen this boss before and we wiped once as all the healers went out of mana. We researched quickly, and figured out the process for attaining more mana and killed him on our second try. Unfortunately, we could not bring down the final boss, Yogg-Saron, in the two tries we had time for. Only one raider had ever seen this fight, and this multi-phase battle has many special conditions that must be accomplished and managed that have nothing to do with how over-geared we were. We didn't understand the mechanics, and we didn't have time to figure them out.
We had picked up a tenth raider and we were anxious to change our location from Ulduar to Dragon Soul.
Our two tanks are quite the free spirits, and on trash mobs we giggled through every fight. Raid checks, mob marking, and Go! commands fell by the wayside. While it may have looked chaotic, it kept everyone on their toes and intent on what we were doing. We needed to get pumped up, and the craziness certainly did that.
We attacked the first boss, Morchok, barely slowing down. We fought well and no one died early throughout a very long battle. A little too long, it turned out, as Morchok went into Enrage and wiped us. We had him down to 3% health. The DPS pressed harder and Morchok went down on our second attempt. Wild whispered Vl, "Gratz! Your first boss kill as a raid leader!"
Normally, the second boss is Warlord Zon'ozz, Vl opted to go after Yor'sahj the Unsleeping next. I hadn't known we could pick from the two of them. There are two dragons in the main chamber of DS that fly raiders to some of the bosses, and Wild learned for the first time that either dragon (one going to Oz and the other going to Yor) could be used. Yor is an easier boss than Oz, so it was a good choice.
We made three attempts on Yor, getting some practice on this boss, but didn't bring him down.
On the whole, it was an excellent night. After three weeks of no raiding, getting a group together two nights in a row is a major accomplishment. Our rookie raid leader is now blooded in Dragon Soul and has a kill to her credit. Wild dubbed the raid the revived G2 (RG2). We are a long way to stability, but we've got a toehold in DS and I hope that encourages more participation.
With at least a stable set of three healers, raid leader Vl (who is a druid healer, herself) turned over healing assignments to Wild. Wild named himself main tank healer, with priest Pl on the off tank and Vl raid healing. Here is the DS results:
Healing -
#1: Wild, 10.7k hps, 34.7%
#2: Pl, 10.2k, 30.3%
#3: Vl, 7.2k, 20.4%
DPS -
#1: Hunter Gv, 20.3k, 18.4%
#2: Hunter Sn, 18.9k, 17.1%
#3: Paladin Pal, 17.3k, 15.6%
#4: Warlock Lc, 14.8k, 13.4%
#5: Mage Tr, 14.7k, 13.3%
In local guild news, guild leaders Happy and Lost felt it was necessary to demote players that have been absent for more than a month. Those players are still guild members in good standing, but will have only the minimum guild perks while in a non-active capacity.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Tuesday Afternoon (17 Jan) - The Smoldering Darkness
Tuesday Afternoon (17 Jan) - The Smoldering Darkness
JB was still smiling from her Baradin Hold raid victory when Gv, a guild hunter who runs in the same guild raid as Wild, pleaded for help. He and his wife (on Pl) were in the Molten Front. They were confronting a rare, deadly spider named Deth'tilac. It's not hard to kill, but Gv didn't want it killed - he wanted to tame it. Deth'tilac is a rare spawn, and Gv happened to be around when it decided to make an appearance. Rare spawns disappear as randomly as they appear, so Deth'tilac could go on it's way at any moment.
JB offered to come help. She got all the way to Mount Hyjal and halfway to Sulfuron Spire before she realized that she hadn't done the quest chain yet that would open the portal she needed to get to where Gv and Pl were. Wild was needed. Be quick, Gv pleaded once again. JB left, Wild came in game. Wild made the same trip JB did, and got to the portal (which is at the Sanctuary of Malorne, not the Sulfuron Spire - silly shaman). Once inside Malfurion's Breach, Wild couldn't figure out how to get to the Molten Front. Wild staggered about, and found them by blind luck. Deth'tilac was still there. Wild's job was pretty simple. When Gv gave the word, Wild was to attack the spider - and let it kill him. Every time the spider killed someone, it lost 10% of it's health - that was the only way to bring down it's health to the point where Gv could tame it.
We failed on our first try, and Deth'tilac reset to full health. On our second attempt, we got into a groove. Pl, who is a priest, and Wild, took turns dying and resurrecting each other while Gv kept up the taming. Twice the spider got too close, close enough to one shot Gv, but Gv was very quick on the draw with his Feign Death and saved himself both times. Wild was in healing spec and gear, so it took several hits with Moonfire before the spider would even acknowledge Wild's existence - but once it did, Wild was dead meat. And that was a good thing for Gv, who won Deth'tilac over, and now has a very rare combat pet.
Wednesday - Vl got our Wed/Thurs raid on the calendar on Monday. All of those who had raided with us before were invited, as well as every raid level player in the guild. So far only five have signed up - two death knights (one of which is a tank) and three druids. Wild is certain that Gv and Pl will show up, even though they never sign up on the calendar for some reason. Bd signed up as tentative, but that's a long hot. Wild has twenty views of his "Where are you?" post on the guild website, but no responses. The Bd/Lady Hunter situation remains a mystery.
Meanwhile, Wild spent his Wednesday afternoon preparing for the evening raid. Wild needed one LFR DS run to have enough valor points to earn his third T13 piece. Wild intended that piece to be the chest piece, which cost the max 2200 VPs. The T13 chest is a zone drop in DS, so it could drop from any boss. Wild had never seen it drop, so it was time to buy it.
Wild joined a Siege of Dragon Soul raid. We had a kick happy raid leader. Four times he tried to kick raiders, once for rolling need on a BoE drop (the player was a feral druid and it was a leather feral item so he had every right to Need it), but the raid leader kicked him anyway. The attempts to kick raiders "who weren't DPSing well enough" failed. Wild voted no all four times. We weren't having any problems killing bosses, so who cared what the DPS numbers were.
On the second boss, the Chest of the Vanquished dropped. It was the first time Wild had seen one drop that he could roll on. Wild rolled Need. Now, remember how fussy the raid loot system is. Wild and a priest (who probably rolled on a priesty item) waited patiently by the dead boss to make sure the loot was awarded. The rest of the raid had already moved on to the next encounter, but Wild was willing to get kicked rather than lose a chance at that chest token. The chest dropped, Wild saw in chat that Wild had won it, and with damage starting to pop up on the raid screen, Wild hustled through the portal to help heal.
We had beaten down the third boss before Wild remembered to check on that chest piece. Wild opened his bags and - no chest token. No! Not again! Wild knew it had been awarded - but it never made it into his bags. Crap! Or Crab! as my 12 year old niece says.
A seething Wild moved on to the 4th boss, downing him as well, although it was a little ticklish as five DPSers died. Stupid people stand in the wall of ice spikes and die. Anyway, once we were done, Wild made his way back through the portals to the second boss. Maybe, just maybe, Wild would get lucky. When Wild arrived the dead boss was still there. The body sparkled. There was still loot there. Wild checked, and there was his chest token.
Well, now that Wild had the T13 chest from DS, he didn't need to buy it with those valor points. Instead, Wild upgraded his i378 relic to i397. Wild could also have bought the upgraded valor bracers with valor points, but chose to tweak Happy's stout nose by spending 5k gold instead of VPs to get them. That saved 1250 VPs Wild will use somewhere else. Eventually, Wild will use VPs to upgrade from the LFR i384 T13s to the i397 T13s. That's for a later time. Wild's gear is now at i387.
Just before logging off at around 3:30pm, Vl came in game and we chatted a little bit about the night's coming run. Vl had found us a second tank, although only for this one night. So, we had our two tanks, and we had our three healers, and perhaps two DPS. We were still three short, and hoping we could come up with them at raid time. Vl was nervous about leading her first raid, but Wild assured her it would go smoothly. Anyone who has done an LFR knows how to handle the first boss. The second boss is much trickier, but everything about that fight depends on the tanks. Wild will be happy if we kill the first boss. Killing the second one would be amazing. If we get past the very tough second boss - well, we might actually bring down four.
The Raid - Wild tried to keep his expectations in check. This raid group hasn't run in more than three weeks. We've been without our two raid leaders all that time as well. We have a very game, but rookie, raid leader putting a raid together for the first time. We still had only five signed up, but I knew that two others would definitely show (Gv and Pl, who never use the raid calendar). That would make seven. What we got when invites first went out was six. The missing 7th was our tank. Vl brought her own tank, a close friend and well geared DK, named Gr, who was quitting WoW to play SWOTOR. This was his swan song. That put us back to seven. One of our DPSers had a tank toon and so he switched to tank. We cajoled, pleaded, bribed, and coerced, but as 6:15pm turned to 6:30pm and wound it's inevitable way to 6:45pm we stalled at nine raiders. Wild suggested a PUG for the tenth. That was voted down. It would be a full guild raid or not at all.
Gr made a suggestion. Since the most important part of our night was to get "something" going with our raid, he suggested a transmorg run in a raid dungeon we could nine man. I liked the idea. We needed to accomplish something as a team. That would encourage ourselves as well as help interest others. We decided on Ulduar.
Ulduar is a long, 14 boss raid. We were massively over geared for the Wrath era raid, but that didn't mean there weren't tricky parts we had to be careful of. There are many, many achievements to be had in Ulduar, and that was our primary goal. For Wild, it had special significance since Wild never finished that place. For our raid leader, Vl, it was her first visit to Ulduar since she didn't start playing until well after Ulduar was mothballed.
We had a blast in Ulduar. Wild had downed nine bosses during the Ulduar raiding days. On this night, Wild added two more, Miriam and Thorim. Thorim was a real challenge, and some of us died (Wild? Yep.).
We ran out of time with three bosses still to go, but we are going after them on Thursday night. We're also hoping to get a full ten to take on Dragon Soul after we close out Ulduar.
By the way, Wild got a boatload of achievements - 22 in all.
JB was still smiling from her Baradin Hold raid victory when Gv, a guild hunter who runs in the same guild raid as Wild, pleaded for help. He and his wife (on Pl) were in the Molten Front. They were confronting a rare, deadly spider named Deth'tilac. It's not hard to kill, but Gv didn't want it killed - he wanted to tame it. Deth'tilac is a rare spawn, and Gv happened to be around when it decided to make an appearance. Rare spawns disappear as randomly as they appear, so Deth'tilac could go on it's way at any moment.
JB offered to come help. She got all the way to Mount Hyjal and halfway to Sulfuron Spire before she realized that she hadn't done the quest chain yet that would open the portal she needed to get to where Gv and Pl were. Wild was needed. Be quick, Gv pleaded once again. JB left, Wild came in game. Wild made the same trip JB did, and got to the portal (which is at the Sanctuary of Malorne, not the Sulfuron Spire - silly shaman). Once inside Malfurion's Breach, Wild couldn't figure out how to get to the Molten Front. Wild staggered about, and found them by blind luck. Deth'tilac was still there. Wild's job was pretty simple. When Gv gave the word, Wild was to attack the spider - and let it kill him. Every time the spider killed someone, it lost 10% of it's health - that was the only way to bring down it's health to the point where Gv could tame it.
We failed on our first try, and Deth'tilac reset to full health. On our second attempt, we got into a groove. Pl, who is a priest, and Wild, took turns dying and resurrecting each other while Gv kept up the taming. Twice the spider got too close, close enough to one shot Gv, but Gv was very quick on the draw with his Feign Death and saved himself both times. Wild was in healing spec and gear, so it took several hits with Moonfire before the spider would even acknowledge Wild's existence - but once it did, Wild was dead meat. And that was a good thing for Gv, who won Deth'tilac over, and now has a very rare combat pet.
Wednesday - Vl got our Wed/Thurs raid on the calendar on Monday. All of those who had raided with us before were invited, as well as every raid level player in the guild. So far only five have signed up - two death knights (one of which is a tank) and three druids. Wild is certain that Gv and Pl will show up, even though they never sign up on the calendar for some reason. Bd signed up as tentative, but that's a long hot. Wild has twenty views of his "Where are you?" post on the guild website, but no responses. The Bd/Lady Hunter situation remains a mystery.
Meanwhile, Wild spent his Wednesday afternoon preparing for the evening raid. Wild needed one LFR DS run to have enough valor points to earn his third T13 piece. Wild intended that piece to be the chest piece, which cost the max 2200 VPs. The T13 chest is a zone drop in DS, so it could drop from any boss. Wild had never seen it drop, so it was time to buy it.
Wild joined a Siege of Dragon Soul raid. We had a kick happy raid leader. Four times he tried to kick raiders, once for rolling need on a BoE drop (the player was a feral druid and it was a leather feral item so he had every right to Need it), but the raid leader kicked him anyway. The attempts to kick raiders "who weren't DPSing well enough" failed. Wild voted no all four times. We weren't having any problems killing bosses, so who cared what the DPS numbers were.
On the second boss, the Chest of the Vanquished dropped. It was the first time Wild had seen one drop that he could roll on. Wild rolled Need. Now, remember how fussy the raid loot system is. Wild and a priest (who probably rolled on a priesty item) waited patiently by the dead boss to make sure the loot was awarded. The rest of the raid had already moved on to the next encounter, but Wild was willing to get kicked rather than lose a chance at that chest token. The chest dropped, Wild saw in chat that Wild had won it, and with damage starting to pop up on the raid screen, Wild hustled through the portal to help heal.
We had beaten down the third boss before Wild remembered to check on that chest piece. Wild opened his bags and - no chest token. No! Not again! Wild knew it had been awarded - but it never made it into his bags. Crap! Or Crab! as my 12 year old niece says.
A seething Wild moved on to the 4th boss, downing him as well, although it was a little ticklish as five DPSers died. Stupid people stand in the wall of ice spikes and die. Anyway, once we were done, Wild made his way back through the portals to the second boss. Maybe, just maybe, Wild would get lucky. When Wild arrived the dead boss was still there. The body sparkled. There was still loot there. Wild checked, and there was his chest token.
Well, now that Wild had the T13 chest from DS, he didn't need to buy it with those valor points. Instead, Wild upgraded his i378 relic to i397. Wild could also have bought the upgraded valor bracers with valor points, but chose to tweak Happy's stout nose by spending 5k gold instead of VPs to get them. That saved 1250 VPs Wild will use somewhere else. Eventually, Wild will use VPs to upgrade from the LFR i384 T13s to the i397 T13s. That's for a later time. Wild's gear is now at i387.
Just before logging off at around 3:30pm, Vl came in game and we chatted a little bit about the night's coming run. Vl had found us a second tank, although only for this one night. So, we had our two tanks, and we had our three healers, and perhaps two DPS. We were still three short, and hoping we could come up with them at raid time. Vl was nervous about leading her first raid, but Wild assured her it would go smoothly. Anyone who has done an LFR knows how to handle the first boss. The second boss is much trickier, but everything about that fight depends on the tanks. Wild will be happy if we kill the first boss. Killing the second one would be amazing. If we get past the very tough second boss - well, we might actually bring down four.
The Raid - Wild tried to keep his expectations in check. This raid group hasn't run in more than three weeks. We've been without our two raid leaders all that time as well. We have a very game, but rookie, raid leader putting a raid together for the first time. We still had only five signed up, but I knew that two others would definitely show (Gv and Pl, who never use the raid calendar). That would make seven. What we got when invites first went out was six. The missing 7th was our tank. Vl brought her own tank, a close friend and well geared DK, named Gr, who was quitting WoW to play SWOTOR. This was his swan song. That put us back to seven. One of our DPSers had a tank toon and so he switched to tank. We cajoled, pleaded, bribed, and coerced, but as 6:15pm turned to 6:30pm and wound it's inevitable way to 6:45pm we stalled at nine raiders. Wild suggested a PUG for the tenth. That was voted down. It would be a full guild raid or not at all.
Gr made a suggestion. Since the most important part of our night was to get "something" going with our raid, he suggested a transmorg run in a raid dungeon we could nine man. I liked the idea. We needed to accomplish something as a team. That would encourage ourselves as well as help interest others. We decided on Ulduar.
Ulduar is a long, 14 boss raid. We were massively over geared for the Wrath era raid, but that didn't mean there weren't tricky parts we had to be careful of. There are many, many achievements to be had in Ulduar, and that was our primary goal. For Wild, it had special significance since Wild never finished that place. For our raid leader, Vl, it was her first visit to Ulduar since she didn't start playing until well after Ulduar was mothballed.
We had a blast in Ulduar. Wild had downed nine bosses during the Ulduar raiding days. On this night, Wild added two more, Miriam and Thorim. Thorim was a real challenge, and some of us died (Wild? Yep.).
We ran out of time with three bosses still to go, but we are going after them on Thursday night. We're also hoping to get a full ten to take on Dragon Soul after we close out Ulduar.
By the way, Wild got a boatload of achievements - 22 in all.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Tuesday (17 Jan) - Sneaking into Baradin Hold
Tuesday (17 Jan) - Sneaking into Baradin Hold
JB remained front and center so far this week. She picked up an i333 pair of pants from the last Lost City run on Monday night, and Happy came up with an affordable i359 necklace to go along with it. The new gear improved her gear score to i346. Enough had changed that she had to do another full reforge.
JB is thinking about trying to get into a Baradin Hold raid. She has the gear level for it, but raid leaders probably won't let her into their raid since higher geared DPSers are plentiful. JB is also not hit capped yet. However, she might be able to achieve that another way. More on that when JB tries it out. She needs to go kill some dragons, first.
Later ... Ok, JB had a plan on how to improve her +hit so that she could sneak past PUG raid leaders to get into a Baradin Hold (BH) raid. First, she would swap out her +agi trinket for a +hit trinket. Then she was going to use a +hit elixir (which she can already make herself) and eat +hit buff food. The buff food is where hunting dragons come in. In Deepholm there are dragons that drop the meat that JB needs.
JB didn't have the recipe for the buff food, but she still had a few tokens she could use to buy it. That's when JB hit her first snag. Her Cooking skill had to be at least 500 to be able to use the recipe. JB was at 474. Ok, that meant doing some fishing to skill up. The best place to fish for the type of fish she could use for skill ups are in the Twilight Highlands. That's when she hit her second snag. For reasons that will probably never be known, JB had not completed the quests that opened the portal from Orgrimmar to the Twilight Highlands. How could that be? JB went in search of quests I might have missed - the Bulletin Board on Org didn't have the starter quest. Our great leader Grommash didn't have any quests for TH, either. Those were where JB would have had to have started from, so it was likely she had already done those.
There were a series of quests in Azshara that were tied to the opening of the portal, so JB went looking there, but no luck, either. Finally, JB traveled all the way to the Twilight Highlands the long way. At Dragonmaw Port JB discovered two quests that she had neglected to do, "Cementing our Victory" and "Muddied Waters." Once JB completed those quests, the portal on the Highlands side opened up, allowing JB to portal back to Org, and also sent her to Grommash. Once JB talked to Grommash, the Org portal opened as well. Twilight Highlands was now completely open to JB.
I guess JB had better get her fishing pole and some worms and get to work.
But wait! While JB was mucking about in TH, the Horde has captured Tol Barad. Baradin Hold was open! On the trade channel someone started up a raid. He wanted a 25 man. JB had to make a quick decision. Did she have time? JB raced to the Alchemist shop for some bottles to make her +hit elixir. She couldn't make her +hit food, but she dashed to the Auction House to see if any were for sale. They were. JB bought a stack. Then JB had to race to the bank to grab her +hit trinket.
JB's +hit was still not capped, but it was a lot closer than it was sixty seconds ago. JB asked for an invite to BH25. The invite came, and JB accepted. It was a ten man. Well, the good news is that JB got accepted into the raid. The question was whether she could do enough DPS in a ten man to get the boss down. Looked like JB was going to find out.
Wild whispered tips into JB's ear as she readied herself for battle. When the boss, Alizabal, casts Seething Hate, collapse together as a group. When the boss starts the Blade Dance, stay far, far away. Follow those tips or die.
The battle started, and JB happily whaled away at the boss, not really caring anymore about her +hit or her ticking totems or the feral spirits she'd dropped to rip and tear at the boss. JB was in a CATA RAID! JB remembered all her spells, and even dropped her fire elemental once the boss was below 50%. Bloodlust also came in handy. Two good healers kept us going, and Alizabal died.
No shaman gear dropped. That was probably asking for too much, but JB checked anyway.
As for her DPS, JB was ecstatic that she WASN'T LAST! Here is how the DPS shook out:
#1: 26.7k, 19.1%
#2: 23.5k, 16.8%
#3: 22.9k, 16.4%
#4: 21.1k, 15.1%
#5: 14.9k, 10.6%
#6: 11.3k, 8.1% (!!!! JB !!!!)
#7: 11.1k, 8.0% (LAST! poor feral druid)
Killing Alizabal was an absolute blast! And Wild can no longer claim that he's the only raider in the family. :-D
JB remained front and center so far this week. She picked up an i333 pair of pants from the last Lost City run on Monday night, and Happy came up with an affordable i359 necklace to go along with it. The new gear improved her gear score to i346. Enough had changed that she had to do another full reforge.
JB is thinking about trying to get into a Baradin Hold raid. She has the gear level for it, but raid leaders probably won't let her into their raid since higher geared DPSers are plentiful. JB is also not hit capped yet. However, she might be able to achieve that another way. More on that when JB tries it out. She needs to go kill some dragons, first.
Later ... Ok, JB had a plan on how to improve her +hit so that she could sneak past PUG raid leaders to get into a Baradin Hold (BH) raid. First, she would swap out her +agi trinket for a +hit trinket. Then she was going to use a +hit elixir (which she can already make herself) and eat +hit buff food. The buff food is where hunting dragons come in. In Deepholm there are dragons that drop the meat that JB needs.
JB didn't have the recipe for the buff food, but she still had a few tokens she could use to buy it. That's when JB hit her first snag. Her Cooking skill had to be at least 500 to be able to use the recipe. JB was at 474. Ok, that meant doing some fishing to skill up. The best place to fish for the type of fish she could use for skill ups are in the Twilight Highlands. That's when she hit her second snag. For reasons that will probably never be known, JB had not completed the quests that opened the portal from Orgrimmar to the Twilight Highlands. How could that be? JB went in search of quests I might have missed - the Bulletin Board on Org didn't have the starter quest. Our great leader Grommash didn't have any quests for TH, either. Those were where JB would have had to have started from, so it was likely she had already done those.
There were a series of quests in Azshara that were tied to the opening of the portal, so JB went looking there, but no luck, either. Finally, JB traveled all the way to the Twilight Highlands the long way. At Dragonmaw Port JB discovered two quests that she had neglected to do, "Cementing our Victory" and "Muddied Waters." Once JB completed those quests, the portal on the Highlands side opened up, allowing JB to portal back to Org, and also sent her to Grommash. Once JB talked to Grommash, the Org portal opened as well. Twilight Highlands was now completely open to JB.
I guess JB had better get her fishing pole and some worms and get to work.
But wait! While JB was mucking about in TH, the Horde has captured Tol Barad. Baradin Hold was open! On the trade channel someone started up a raid. He wanted a 25 man. JB had to make a quick decision. Did she have time? JB raced to the Alchemist shop for some bottles to make her +hit elixir. She couldn't make her +hit food, but she dashed to the Auction House to see if any were for sale. They were. JB bought a stack. Then JB had to race to the bank to grab her +hit trinket.
JB's +hit was still not capped, but it was a lot closer than it was sixty seconds ago. JB asked for an invite to BH25. The invite came, and JB accepted. It was a ten man. Well, the good news is that JB got accepted into the raid. The question was whether she could do enough DPS in a ten man to get the boss down. Looked like JB was going to find out.
Wild whispered tips into JB's ear as she readied herself for battle. When the boss, Alizabal, casts Seething Hate, collapse together as a group. When the boss starts the Blade Dance, stay far, far away. Follow those tips or die.
The battle started, and JB happily whaled away at the boss, not really caring anymore about her +hit or her ticking totems or the feral spirits she'd dropped to rip and tear at the boss. JB was in a CATA RAID! JB remembered all her spells, and even dropped her fire elemental once the boss was below 50%. Bloodlust also came in handy. Two good healers kept us going, and Alizabal died.
The Proof of JB's First Cata Boss Kill
No shaman gear dropped. That was probably asking for too much, but JB checked anyway.
As for her DPS, JB was ecstatic that she WASN'T LAST! Here is how the DPS shook out:
#1: 26.7k, 19.1%
#2: 23.5k, 16.8%
#3: 22.9k, 16.4%
#4: 21.1k, 15.1%
#5: 14.9k, 10.6%
#6: 11.3k, 8.1% (!!!! JB !!!!)
#7: 11.1k, 8.0% (LAST! poor feral druid)
Killing Alizabal was an absolute blast! And Wild can no longer claim that he's the only raider in the family. :-D
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Monday (16 Jan) - More Cata Dungeons
Monday (16 Jan) - More Cata Dungeons
JB got her dailies done and then dialed up a random dungeon. It was the Halls of Origination (HOO), one of two normal dungeons that give reputation for the Ramkahen faction. JB was wearing her Ramkahen tabard in order to get the rep. JB was fortunate again to have a great tank. The priest healer was pretty good, too. JB's DPS competition was a death knight and a shadow priest.
JB spent some time before the dungeon run playing with /assist macros. Thinking about how /assist worked hurt my head, but when I asked Shevils to join JB and actually use it, it made a lot more sense. Using assist comes in two parts. First, JB decides what player is going to be the assist player, and then marks that player with /assist. The second part was what I was having trouble with. How do you get the target of the assist player to be JB's target with one stroke? Well, I'm sure there was a macro that would do it, but instead I settled on an addon called SimpleAssist. SA let's me set the assit player with one button, and then use a second button as the target button, which always set's JB's target to whatever target the assist player has.
JB tried it out on trash mobs in HOO. It worked, but I had not placed my assist target button very well and it was awkward. Second, in a random five man who knows what the other DPSers are doing? JB tried using the DK as the assist player, but many times teh DK wasn't targeting anything, or was looking at the tank (probably so he could pick up the tank's target). Despite the problem of tanks switching targets for aggro reasons, JB decided that setting the assist on the tank was her best bet. The trick was whenever JB started getting hit, she'd re-target her assist to stick with whatever mob the tank was attacking. It's going to take some practice.
Back to HOO, it's a longish dungeon, but we cleared it pretty quickly. JB and the healer were the only deaths, and that occurred outside combat. We were on the center platform, which is also an elevator with no sides. Let's just say that there was a bit of confusion about which direction to go, we wandered about, and the elevator unexpectedly moved - the tank, healer, and JB fell off the platform - and to our deaths. Well, the tank survived it. JB reincarnated and then rezzed the healer, and we all had a good laugh at each other.
The rest of the run was uneventful. JB got some more practice and it showed in her numbers:
#1: tank, 11.7k dps, 34.3% of damage
#2: JB, 9.0k/26.3%
#3: dk, 7.3k/21.3%
#4: sp, 6.0k/17.6%
I think the tanks are coming in with DPS gear instead of their tanking gear.
JB remembered her totems this time and even sent in her fire elemental totem on the final boss. JB totally forgot about her berserk and bloodlust spells, though.
Later -
JB's final run of the night was another Lost City random dungeon. That gave JB a direct comparison between her first Lost City run and the second one. JB was more confident and decisive after three dungeon runs. JB again finished second in DPS with 9.2k, compared to the 8.0k dps JB got on the first Lost City run. It was a more balanced group with all of the DPS coming in over 8k dps and the tank DPSing like a tank.
JB wanted a fourth run, but the evening was getting late. JB waited twenty minutes, but no new run popped and she called it a night.
JB got her dailies done and then dialed up a random dungeon. It was the Halls of Origination (HOO), one of two normal dungeons that give reputation for the Ramkahen faction. JB was wearing her Ramkahen tabard in order to get the rep. JB was fortunate again to have a great tank. The priest healer was pretty good, too. JB's DPS competition was a death knight and a shadow priest.
JB spent some time before the dungeon run playing with /assist macros. Thinking about how /assist worked hurt my head, but when I asked Shevils to join JB and actually use it, it made a lot more sense. Using assist comes in two parts. First, JB decides what player is going to be the assist player, and then marks that player with /assist. The second part was what I was having trouble with. How do you get the target of the assist player to be JB's target with one stroke? Well, I'm sure there was a macro that would do it, but instead I settled on an addon called SimpleAssist. SA let's me set the assit player with one button, and then use a second button as the target button, which always set's JB's target to whatever target the assist player has.
JB tried it out on trash mobs in HOO. It worked, but I had not placed my assist target button very well and it was awkward. Second, in a random five man who knows what the other DPSers are doing? JB tried using the DK as the assist player, but many times teh DK wasn't targeting anything, or was looking at the tank (probably so he could pick up the tank's target). Despite the problem of tanks switching targets for aggro reasons, JB decided that setting the assist on the tank was her best bet. The trick was whenever JB started getting hit, she'd re-target her assist to stick with whatever mob the tank was attacking. It's going to take some practice.
Back to HOO, it's a longish dungeon, but we cleared it pretty quickly. JB and the healer were the only deaths, and that occurred outside combat. We were on the center platform, which is also an elevator with no sides. Let's just say that there was a bit of confusion about which direction to go, we wandered about, and the elevator unexpectedly moved - the tank, healer, and JB fell off the platform - and to our deaths. Well, the tank survived it. JB reincarnated and then rezzed the healer, and we all had a good laugh at each other.
The rest of the run was uneventful. JB got some more practice and it showed in her numbers:
#1: tank, 11.7k dps, 34.3% of damage
#2: JB, 9.0k/26.3%
#3: dk, 7.3k/21.3%
#4: sp, 6.0k/17.6%
I think the tanks are coming in with DPS gear instead of their tanking gear.
JB remembered her totems this time and even sent in her fire elemental totem on the final boss. JB totally forgot about her berserk and bloodlust spells, though.
Later -
JB's final run of the night was another Lost City random dungeon. That gave JB a direct comparison between her first Lost City run and the second one. JB was more confident and decisive after three dungeon runs. JB again finished second in DPS with 9.2k, compared to the 8.0k dps JB got on the first Lost City run. It was a more balanced group with all of the DPS coming in over 8k dps and the tank DPSing like a tank.
JB wanted a fourth run, but the evening was getting late. JB waited twenty minutes, but no new run popped and she called it a night.
Monday, January 16, 2012
Special Note - It's "Rest in Peace" For Two Grand Experiments
Special Note - It's "Rest in Peace" For Two Grand Experiments
One of the great experiments in the earlier days of the Wild family was the fostering of Philly on the distant realm of The Scryer's. It was a life experience that Philly holds very dear, but that dream could not be sustained, and the family she had grown up with eventually dispersed, seeking their own fortunes. At the end, Philly came home to Silvermoon and the Wild family.
With Philly's experience in mind, it is with some sadness that I have to report that the team of pvp hunters known as Hunter Fortress is no more. It's not official, but there is little doubt. The core of Hunter Fortress was Speak, See, Hear(Shevils), and Bean. The Fortress had visiting pvpers on occasion, but none became regular members. The last time Hunter Fortress battled the alliance as a team was on 13 Oct, 2011. For those counting, that is three months ago almost to the day. There is no single reason for it's demise. The four core members were no longer able to rally together with any consistency, and that, simply, spelled the end.
The great emigration experiment of the Four Families from Silvermoon to Boulderfist has also appeared to have reached it's end. The five emigres - Tea, Eowyn, Congou, BB, and Sista - are still around, but each have taken different paths to pursue their own dreams. Even the guild they share is undergoing it's own transformation, to what end is still unclear.
The real life folks behind the toons have taken less active roles as well: one is spending greater time with a new MMO, SWTOR; one has deactivated his WoW account and may not return to the game; a third has greatly reduced her participation; and the fourth is busy with a new career and a second level 85 toon. And of course, Real Life trumps all.
The Wild Family wishes the best to all, Hunter Fortress and Boulderfist relations as well. May the Gods of WoW grant your greatest wishes.
One of the great experiments in the earlier days of the Wild family was the fostering of Philly on the distant realm of The Scryer's. It was a life experience that Philly holds very dear, but that dream could not be sustained, and the family she had grown up with eventually dispersed, seeking their own fortunes. At the end, Philly came home to Silvermoon and the Wild family.
With Philly's experience in mind, it is with some sadness that I have to report that the team of pvp hunters known as Hunter Fortress is no more. It's not official, but there is little doubt. The core of Hunter Fortress was Speak, See, Hear(Shevils), and Bean. The Fortress had visiting pvpers on occasion, but none became regular members. The last time Hunter Fortress battled the alliance as a team was on 13 Oct, 2011. For those counting, that is three months ago almost to the day. There is no single reason for it's demise. The four core members were no longer able to rally together with any consistency, and that, simply, spelled the end.
The great emigration experiment of the Four Families from Silvermoon to Boulderfist has also appeared to have reached it's end. The five emigres - Tea, Eowyn, Congou, BB, and Sista - are still around, but each have taken different paths to pursue their own dreams. Even the guild they share is undergoing it's own transformation, to what end is still unclear.
The real life folks behind the toons have taken less active roles as well: one is spending greater time with a new MMO, SWTOR; one has deactivated his WoW account and may not return to the game; a third has greatly reduced her participation; and the fourth is busy with a new career and a second level 85 toon. And of course, Real Life trumps all.
The Wild Family wishes the best to all, Hunter Fortress and Boulderfist relations as well. May the Gods of WoW grant your greatest wishes.
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Weekend (15 Jan) - JB's First Cata Five Man Dungeon
Weekend (15 Jan) - JB's First Cata Five Man Dungeon
JB decided that this would be the weekend where she starts doing normal dungeons. She has an i343 gear level. She needed enchants, but they did not have to be top of the line since it was only dungeons (not raids) and her gear will be changing too quick to spend great gobs of cash on. Wild provided JB with enchants for cape, chest, bracers, gloves, and boots. JB bought the level 80 leg armor, the belt buckle for the extra gem, and the rep enchant for the shoulders. JB doesn't have enough rep to get the head enchant, yet. I then followed the advice of the AskMrRobot site to reforge her gear. I used the "5 man" setting, not raiding. Even so, JB's buffed melee hit was only at 11.89%, well short of the 17% needed to ensure JB didn't miss.
After getting all of that done, JB packed up her gear and headed for the Target Dummy. There are two types of target dummies - one for raids and one for level 85 mobs. I'm not sure which is more appropriate for dungeon level mobs, but JB knew that she would be missing quite a bit no matter which she used.
JB started practicing, trying different things and making sure to remember all of her spell priorities. With the spell cooldowns (cd), it's impossible to cast spells continuously. Sometimes every spell is on cd and there is nothing to do but stand there and do white damage. In real combat JB could self-heal when that dead time hits. She could even throw in a long cast spell like Lava Burst, but long cast spells can easily delay getting to higher damage spells coming off their cd.
JB initially was doing just under 8k DPS. She had forgotten to use Lightning Bolt during her Maelstrom procs and with that and further practice she pushed her DPS up over 10k. Finally, JB started mixing in Lava Burst when she hit a dead spot, and her DPS went up again, to 11.6k.
JB did remember to use her Searing Totem and her Feral Spirits, two spells that have longer cds and you need to make sure to cast them as soon as the cd is up. JB didn't drop either of her elemental totems, though, which would have increased her DPS further. Those totems are on a ten minute cd, so can only be used once per boss fight. She also did not use any flasks or buff food, which would also increase JB's damage dealing.
OH! She forgot to drop her normal dungeon totems! Ok, one more time at the target dummy.
So, after hitting up both the raiding dummy and the 85 dummy, using all normal totems and every spell except the elemental totem, here is how it shook out:
Raiding Dummy: 8.7k DPS
85 Dummy : 13.6k DPS
It was late Saturday night that JB joined the Looking for Dungeon (LFD) queue for the very first time. Even though she was signed up as a DPS, JB only had to wait about five minutes. The random choice of normal cata dungeon was the Lost City of Tol'vir. One quick comment about Cata dungeons. Wild has been in every one of them, but it's been quite awhile and Wild's memory of them is not very good. Wild was healing those dungeons, of course, which is also different from JB's melee DPS role.
The five of us gathered up, got our buffs, and waited for the tank to lead us in. JB picked up two dungeon quests. The tank took his time getting started, even commenting about the DPS paladin that he noted was in pvp gear. I thought it was a positive sign that the tank bothered to check our gear before launching. The tank laughed and said that it should be a cakewalk anyway.
We cleared some trash without any issues. As always, targeting was a challenge for JB, particularly when dealing with a group of mobs. The initial target was usually obvious, but after the first target died there were no marks or other way to know who to attack next. The tank routinely switched targets to maintain aggro so JB couldn't really use him to focus on. No one was assigned as main assist, either, so I just hammered at whatever mob was in JB's face.
The first boss was General Husam. Wild didn't remember the fight so wasn't much help to JB. JB avoided what looked bad and managed not to die as we took the General down. There were plenty more mobs between each of the bosses. I think we skipped one boss. The tank led us across rooftops and into a stream directly to the third boss, the alligator Lockmaw. So, we never encountered High Prophet Barim. Wild remembered Lockmaw. In Wild's days of cata dungeons we used a trick to avoid spawning mobs by standing on a ledge near Lockmaw. No one bothered with that in JB's group and Lockmaw died before I saw any spawning adds.
We had a healer change in mid-stream, one druid replacing another. The new healer didn't seem to like healing much, and our group was rarely at full health as the tank kept plowing forward. There didn't seem to be a mana issue, either, but JB was forced to self heal several times when she got down to around 25% health and still hadn't gotten any heals from the healer.
The final boss was Siamat, and that fight started coming back to me as things happened. Several types of adds spawn, but Wild vaguely remembered that the three largest ones were the key to the fight. Siamat is mostly immune to damage until those three mobs are killed. When Wild was doing this fight, players could be easily be thrown off the platform by Siamat's Wailing Winds during the second phase. JB was hit by that, but JB was just tossed around a bit at the edge of the platform and was never actually thrown off, so that part of the fight was likely nerfed at some point.
When Siamat fell, JB had her first clear of the Lost City. Normal Cata dungeons drop level i333 gear. JB still had four pieces of gear worse than that going into the dungeon. When she came out she had a new i333 ring to replace her i318 ring.
JB's DPS was nothing to rave about. Here is the order by DPS:
#1: tank, 10.6k DPS
#2: pally, 10.2k DPS
#3: JB, 8.0k DPS
#4: shdw priest, 5.8k DPS
JB's melee attacks missed about 12% of the time, but AskMrRobot did a good job getting JB's spell hit right. She never missed with her spells, even against the bosses.
Given JB's 8.7k DPS on the raiding dummy, I'd say JB's real 8.0k DPS in the dungeon was about right for her gear and skill level.
I think it's just going to take practice for JB to figure the best way to target, remembering to attack from behind (or, more specifically, to the side of) the targeted mob, and using all her abilities at the right time. JB used her Bloodlust only once, on the last boss. She should have used it on every boss. I still don't really understand how to use Assist. I know what it is, and what it's for, but the practical application of it still eludes me. JB and Wild are going to group up and play around with the /assist command and with some assist macros to see if I can make some sense out of it.
I do like being a DPS. When a target is in JB's sights, the dual blades are slashing, the spell casting is ablaze, and the blood is flowing, there is a kind of peaceful, worry-free fury. Someone else is keeping me alive, and my only responsibilities are to kill my target and try not to do anything stupid that the healer can't save me from. On this night that worked well enough.
JB decided that this would be the weekend where she starts doing normal dungeons. She has an i343 gear level. She needed enchants, but they did not have to be top of the line since it was only dungeons (not raids) and her gear will be changing too quick to spend great gobs of cash on. Wild provided JB with enchants for cape, chest, bracers, gloves, and boots. JB bought the level 80 leg armor, the belt buckle for the extra gem, and the rep enchant for the shoulders. JB doesn't have enough rep to get the head enchant, yet. I then followed the advice of the AskMrRobot site to reforge her gear. I used the "5 man" setting, not raiding. Even so, JB's buffed melee hit was only at 11.89%, well short of the 17% needed to ensure JB didn't miss.
After getting all of that done, JB packed up her gear and headed for the Target Dummy. There are two types of target dummies - one for raids and one for level 85 mobs. I'm not sure which is more appropriate for dungeon level mobs, but JB knew that she would be missing quite a bit no matter which she used.
JB started practicing, trying different things and making sure to remember all of her spell priorities. With the spell cooldowns (cd), it's impossible to cast spells continuously. Sometimes every spell is on cd and there is nothing to do but stand there and do white damage. In real combat JB could self-heal when that dead time hits. She could even throw in a long cast spell like Lava Burst, but long cast spells can easily delay getting to higher damage spells coming off their cd.
JB initially was doing just under 8k DPS. She had forgotten to use Lightning Bolt during her Maelstrom procs and with that and further practice she pushed her DPS up over 10k. Finally, JB started mixing in Lava Burst when she hit a dead spot, and her DPS went up again, to 11.6k.
JB did remember to use her Searing Totem and her Feral Spirits, two spells that have longer cds and you need to make sure to cast them as soon as the cd is up. JB didn't drop either of her elemental totems, though, which would have increased her DPS further. Those totems are on a ten minute cd, so can only be used once per boss fight. She also did not use any flasks or buff food, which would also increase JB's damage dealing.
OH! She forgot to drop her normal dungeon totems! Ok, one more time at the target dummy.
So, after hitting up both the raiding dummy and the 85 dummy, using all normal totems and every spell except the elemental totem, here is how it shook out:
Raiding Dummy: 8.7k DPS
85 Dummy : 13.6k DPS
It was late Saturday night that JB joined the Looking for Dungeon (LFD) queue for the very first time. Even though she was signed up as a DPS, JB only had to wait about five minutes. The random choice of normal cata dungeon was the Lost City of Tol'vir. One quick comment about Cata dungeons. Wild has been in every one of them, but it's been quite awhile and Wild's memory of them is not very good. Wild was healing those dungeons, of course, which is also different from JB's melee DPS role.
The five of us gathered up, got our buffs, and waited for the tank to lead us in. JB picked up two dungeon quests. The tank took his time getting started, even commenting about the DPS paladin that he noted was in pvp gear. I thought it was a positive sign that the tank bothered to check our gear before launching. The tank laughed and said that it should be a cakewalk anyway.
We cleared some trash without any issues. As always, targeting was a challenge for JB, particularly when dealing with a group of mobs. The initial target was usually obvious, but after the first target died there were no marks or other way to know who to attack next. The tank routinely switched targets to maintain aggro so JB couldn't really use him to focus on. No one was assigned as main assist, either, so I just hammered at whatever mob was in JB's face.
The first boss was General Husam. Wild didn't remember the fight so wasn't much help to JB. JB avoided what looked bad and managed not to die as we took the General down. There were plenty more mobs between each of the bosses. I think we skipped one boss. The tank led us across rooftops and into a stream directly to the third boss, the alligator Lockmaw. So, we never encountered High Prophet Barim. Wild remembered Lockmaw. In Wild's days of cata dungeons we used a trick to avoid spawning mobs by standing on a ledge near Lockmaw. No one bothered with that in JB's group and Lockmaw died before I saw any spawning adds.
We had a healer change in mid-stream, one druid replacing another. The new healer didn't seem to like healing much, and our group was rarely at full health as the tank kept plowing forward. There didn't seem to be a mana issue, either, but JB was forced to self heal several times when she got down to around 25% health and still hadn't gotten any heals from the healer.
The final boss was Siamat, and that fight started coming back to me as things happened. Several types of adds spawn, but Wild vaguely remembered that the three largest ones were the key to the fight. Siamat is mostly immune to damage until those three mobs are killed. When Wild was doing this fight, players could be easily be thrown off the platform by Siamat's Wailing Winds during the second phase. JB was hit by that, but JB was just tossed around a bit at the edge of the platform and was never actually thrown off, so that part of the fight was likely nerfed at some point.
When Siamat fell, JB had her first clear of the Lost City. Normal Cata dungeons drop level i333 gear. JB still had four pieces of gear worse than that going into the dungeon. When she came out she had a new i333 ring to replace her i318 ring.
Siamat Falls
JB's DPS was nothing to rave about. Here is the order by DPS:
#1: tank, 10.6k DPS
#2: pally, 10.2k DPS
#3: JB, 8.0k DPS
#4: shdw priest, 5.8k DPS
JB's melee attacks missed about 12% of the time, but AskMrRobot did a good job getting JB's spell hit right. She never missed with her spells, even against the bosses.
Given JB's 8.7k DPS on the raiding dummy, I'd say JB's real 8.0k DPS in the dungeon was about right for her gear and skill level.
I think it's just going to take practice for JB to figure the best way to target, remembering to attack from behind (or, more specifically, to the side of) the targeted mob, and using all her abilities at the right time. JB used her Bloodlust only once, on the last boss. She should have used it on every boss. I still don't really understand how to use Assist. I know what it is, and what it's for, but the practical application of it still eludes me. JB and Wild are going to group up and play around with the /assist command and with some assist macros to see if I can make some sense out of it.
I do like being a DPS. When a target is in JB's sights, the dual blades are slashing, the spell casting is ablaze, and the blood is flowing, there is a kind of peaceful, worry-free fury. Someone else is keeping me alive, and my only responsibilities are to kill my target and try not to do anything stupid that the healer can't save me from. On this night that worked well enough.
Friday, January 13, 2012
Thursday (12 Jan) - A Raid'n We Will Go ... Maybe
Thursday (12 Jan) - A Raid'n We Will Go ... Maybe
Wild was in game Thursday afternoon and caught up with one of the regular Wed/Thurs night raiders, the priest healer, Pl. I asked if the raid had run on Wednesday. The answer was no. We both agreed that the situation was unacceptable and that it's time something was done about it. No one seems to be able to figure out what is happening with our raid leaders, Bd and Lady Hunter. On a real life level we hope there is nothing serious keeping them away. They are good friends and we worry about them. On a game level everyone involved is very frustrated at not raiding, and having raids scheduled where the raid leader(s) never shows up. Frankly, many regulars in the raid have stopped bothering to come, signing up as Tentative instead of Accepted, which further discourages those of us who actually show up.
I decided to post a "Where are you?" message on the guild website. Few in the guild bother to go to the website, but I know that Bd checks it since he responds to every post on the rare occasions one is posted. I'll have to wait and see if he responds.
Pl and Wild also talked about perhaps getting a new raid leader. Both Bd and Tala have always encouraged guildies take a leadership role if the notion takes them, and several have stepped forward in the past, although the raids have been fun runs and old school raids, nothing current. Bd for sure would be happy to turn the reins over to a new raid leader ... the harder issue is whether anyone wants the job.
In two hours or so Wild will be back in game. Pl and Wild plan to ask for a conference on vent with whoever shows up for our raid. It would be nice to have a raid leader there, too. Should one show up.
Update - Wild met with four other members of our raid Thursday night. No raid leaders showed up, despite both having Accepted the calendar invite. Those who did show, in addition to Wild, was Pl (priest) and her husband Gv (hunter), Sn (hunter), and Vl (druid). All but Sn are regular raiders. Sn has been a floater, going with whatever raid group needed her. We asked her to become a regular with our group. We then built a list of all the guildies who typically raided with Bd and Lady Hunter. Based on that list, we believe we can fill the DPS slots. We already have three healers. We have only one tank on the list, though, and will have to find a second. Vl volunteered to lead future raids on the condition that she would defer to Bd and/or Lady Hunter - if they showed up. Vl has never been a raid leader and openly admitted she was no expert at the strategies. She got a vote of confidence from the rest of us, and we agreed that everyone should study strats this week the way a raid leader would. The key is still going to be the tanks. The one tank we can depend on, Ct (a DK), is very good. We need another. Vl has access to the raid calendar and will post our raid for Wed/Thurs next week. I believe the other regulars will come if they have some assurance that we are, in fact, raiding again. Wild is hopeful.
In other, non-guild related news, Wild has decided to save his valor points to pick up the i397 chest piece should the Tier piece still elude him. Wild will have 1850 VPs once he sweeps through the LFR DS this week. If Wild gets really ambitious and runs four Heroics, he'll earn enough VPs for the chest this week. If not, he'll be able to get it on Tuesday.
Wild also decided to try the advice of a site called AskMrRobot. This site provides gear guidance. It's main feature is suggesting the optimum reforging strategy. JB has been using it somewhat blindly, since I'm not as familiar with the nuances of melee shaman gear as I am with Wild's gear. The main difference between Wild's current gear strategy and what askmrrobot recommends is basically how much spirit vs mastery to have. Wild has tried to keep his spirit as low as possible while still being able to heal without going out of mana. In the LFR this works fine. In real 10/25 mans, though, Wild fears that mana will become a serious issue. The site also recommends a much higher level of spirit than Wild currently has, and Wild decided to take that advice for his latest reforging.
The only wrinkle in the site's recommendations concern haste. Common practice for well geared resto druids is to have 2005 rating, or as close to it as you can without going below it. This assumes that Wild is in a raid and that someone in the raid is providing the 5% haste buff that is common in most raids. The site, however, recommends a lot more than that, which would seriously cramp Wild's mastery stats and would seem to contradict the standing guidance. I thought the site was trying to get Wild to the unbuffed (no 5%) haste rating, but that number is 2745, and Wild can only squeeze out a max of 2246 with his current gear. Yet, another site says that 2440 haste rating (unbuffed) is what's required (which Wild would still be short of).
I've read everything I can find on this and still can't get a clean answer. I stayed with the 2005 haste rating when reforging. I took the rest of the advice, and Wild improved his spirit total from 2276 to 2607. Wild will have to test that out and do a before-after comparison.
Wild was in game Thursday afternoon and caught up with one of the regular Wed/Thurs night raiders, the priest healer, Pl. I asked if the raid had run on Wednesday. The answer was no. We both agreed that the situation was unacceptable and that it's time something was done about it. No one seems to be able to figure out what is happening with our raid leaders, Bd and Lady Hunter. On a real life level we hope there is nothing serious keeping them away. They are good friends and we worry about them. On a game level everyone involved is very frustrated at not raiding, and having raids scheduled where the raid leader(s) never shows up. Frankly, many regulars in the raid have stopped bothering to come, signing up as Tentative instead of Accepted, which further discourages those of us who actually show up.
I decided to post a "Where are you?" message on the guild website. Few in the guild bother to go to the website, but I know that Bd checks it since he responds to every post on the rare occasions one is posted. I'll have to wait and see if he responds.
Pl and Wild also talked about perhaps getting a new raid leader. Both Bd and Tala have always encouraged guildies take a leadership role if the notion takes them, and several have stepped forward in the past, although the raids have been fun runs and old school raids, nothing current. Bd for sure would be happy to turn the reins over to a new raid leader ... the harder issue is whether anyone wants the job.
In two hours or so Wild will be back in game. Pl and Wild plan to ask for a conference on vent with whoever shows up for our raid. It would be nice to have a raid leader there, too. Should one show up.
Update - Wild met with four other members of our raid Thursday night. No raid leaders showed up, despite both having Accepted the calendar invite. Those who did show, in addition to Wild, was Pl (priest) and her husband Gv (hunter), Sn (hunter), and Vl (druid). All but Sn are regular raiders. Sn has been a floater, going with whatever raid group needed her. We asked her to become a regular with our group. We then built a list of all the guildies who typically raided with Bd and Lady Hunter. Based on that list, we believe we can fill the DPS slots. We already have three healers. We have only one tank on the list, though, and will have to find a second. Vl volunteered to lead future raids on the condition that she would defer to Bd and/or Lady Hunter - if they showed up. Vl has never been a raid leader and openly admitted she was no expert at the strategies. She got a vote of confidence from the rest of us, and we agreed that everyone should study strats this week the way a raid leader would. The key is still going to be the tanks. The one tank we can depend on, Ct (a DK), is very good. We need another. Vl has access to the raid calendar and will post our raid for Wed/Thurs next week. I believe the other regulars will come if they have some assurance that we are, in fact, raiding again. Wild is hopeful.
In other, non-guild related news, Wild has decided to save his valor points to pick up the i397 chest piece should the Tier piece still elude him. Wild will have 1850 VPs once he sweeps through the LFR DS this week. If Wild gets really ambitious and runs four Heroics, he'll earn enough VPs for the chest this week. If not, he'll be able to get it on Tuesday.
Wild also decided to try the advice of a site called AskMrRobot. This site provides gear guidance. It's main feature is suggesting the optimum reforging strategy. JB has been using it somewhat blindly, since I'm not as familiar with the nuances of melee shaman gear as I am with Wild's gear. The main difference between Wild's current gear strategy and what askmrrobot recommends is basically how much spirit vs mastery to have. Wild has tried to keep his spirit as low as possible while still being able to heal without going out of mana. In the LFR this works fine. In real 10/25 mans, though, Wild fears that mana will become a serious issue. The site also recommends a much higher level of spirit than Wild currently has, and Wild decided to take that advice for his latest reforging.
The only wrinkle in the site's recommendations concern haste. Common practice for well geared resto druids is to have 2005 rating, or as close to it as you can without going below it. This assumes that Wild is in a raid and that someone in the raid is providing the 5% haste buff that is common in most raids. The site, however, recommends a lot more than that, which would seriously cramp Wild's mastery stats and would seem to contradict the standing guidance. I thought the site was trying to get Wild to the unbuffed (no 5%) haste rating, but that number is 2745, and Wild can only squeeze out a max of 2246 with his current gear. Yet, another site says that 2440 haste rating (unbuffed) is what's required (which Wild would still be short of).
I've read everything I can find on this and still can't get a clean answer. I stayed with the 2005 haste rating when reforging. I took the rest of the advice, and Wild improved his spirit total from 2276 to 2607. Wild will have to test that out and do a before-after comparison.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Wednesday - (11 Jan) Life Goes On
Wednesday - (11 Jan) Life Goes On
Wild's confidence that the second guild raid group is ever going to be viable again has diminished week by week to the point of wishful thinking. Wild can no longer hope that Bd will suddenly re-emerge from his many real life issues and again lead our raid. Lady Hunter has again taken over the helm, scheduling raids for the past last three weeks. The response has been tepid at best and not enough raiders have showed up to actually raid. This week looks to be more of the same - there are many signed up as "tentative" but only two Accepted the raid invite. Wild wasn't there Wednesday night as we have a dinner engagement. Wild will dutifully appear on Thursday, but there is little hope that a raid will be run. On the other hand, The Mf/G1 group continues to field a raid Mon/Tues each week. On Tuesday they finally killed the second boss in Dragon Soul, Yor'sahj the Unsleeping. Wild cheered when he saw that, as he wants them to succeed. Wild's personal raid wishes remain unfulfilled. Wild hasn't heard back from the MM guild, which, as reported last week, is merging with another guild to improve their raiding team. Wild expressed interest in being a part of that, but my gut says it won't happen. There are deep rifts between MM and MM2. Wild might be welcomed personally by MM, but, as part of the cabal in MM2, seeming to court Wild could spark drama that MM wants no part of. Wild was also stunned when he checked the MM website, trying to get more info on the merger. I was able to find my login information and Wild still had access to the site. It's a dead site. At least the forums are dead. There hasn't been a post on that site since Jan of 2011, and Wild has access to the Private forums as well as the public ones. MM has a new Guild Master, too, Ld, who I know. The old GM, Wb, is still in the guild as the #2. My best guess is that the guild known as MM will not survive the merger. Either the merged guilds will use the other guild's name, or they will start a new guild with a fresh name. I'll be watching both Ld and Wb to see if their guild name changes.
Wild's troubles are good news for JB, who has been getting lots of in game time. JB has kept Happy content by earning gear upgrades through questing and rep rewards without incurring heavy costs. So far. JB's melee gear is now at i338, a remarkable accomplishment for her. There is no longer any reason JB shouldn't be taking on normal Cata dungeons to gain group experience, practice her arts, and learn the dungeons on normal mode to be prepared for Heroics. JB says she's not yet ready. She wants gear that are high enough quality it's worth the cost to enchant them. Enchants are expensive; even the many that Wild can make himself have high mat costs these days. JB hasn't reached the rep to get a head enchant, yet, either. Good reasons, or just excuses?
JB keeps checking the AH, too, for gear bargains, but they have been hard to come by. It's a bit frustrating. Wild, being a healer, is always on the lookout for good bargains as well. The druid healer gear is always a lot more expensive that the feral gear (the +agi gear). With JB it is just the opposite. The shaman healing gear is very cheap compared to the +agi melee gear; but it's the agi gear that JB needs. Sigh.
As chance would have it, Thursday morning a pair if i359 agi boots popped up on the AH. JB had the 400g to buy it, and buy it she did. That was an upgrade from an i312 pair and jumped her gear level to i341. Wow.
Philly has gotten some game time, too. With JB's activity, the family felt it was time for Philly to put some effort into her jewelcrafting to defray some of those costs. Philly is doing her JC dailies now, and has learned both the +40 int gem cut Wild uses most often, and the +40 agi gem cut that JB most needs.
Wild's confidence that the second guild raid group is ever going to be viable again has diminished week by week to the point of wishful thinking. Wild can no longer hope that Bd will suddenly re-emerge from his many real life issues and again lead our raid. Lady Hunter has again taken over the helm, scheduling raids for the past last three weeks. The response has been tepid at best and not enough raiders have showed up to actually raid. This week looks to be more of the same - there are many signed up as "tentative" but only two Accepted the raid invite. Wild wasn't there Wednesday night as we have a dinner engagement. Wild will dutifully appear on Thursday, but there is little hope that a raid will be run. On the other hand, The Mf/G1 group continues to field a raid Mon/Tues each week. On Tuesday they finally killed the second boss in Dragon Soul, Yor'sahj the Unsleeping. Wild cheered when he saw that, as he wants them to succeed. Wild's personal raid wishes remain unfulfilled. Wild hasn't heard back from the MM guild, which, as reported last week, is merging with another guild to improve their raiding team. Wild expressed interest in being a part of that, but my gut says it won't happen. There are deep rifts between MM and MM2. Wild might be welcomed personally by MM, but, as part of the cabal in MM2, seeming to court Wild could spark drama that MM wants no part of. Wild was also stunned when he checked the MM website, trying to get more info on the merger. I was able to find my login information and Wild still had access to the site. It's a dead site. At least the forums are dead. There hasn't been a post on that site since Jan of 2011, and Wild has access to the Private forums as well as the public ones. MM has a new Guild Master, too, Ld, who I know. The old GM, Wb, is still in the guild as the #2. My best guess is that the guild known as MM will not survive the merger. Either the merged guilds will use the other guild's name, or they will start a new guild with a fresh name. I'll be watching both Ld and Wb to see if their guild name changes.
Wild's troubles are good news for JB, who has been getting lots of in game time. JB has kept Happy content by earning gear upgrades through questing and rep rewards without incurring heavy costs. So far. JB's melee gear is now at i338, a remarkable accomplishment for her. There is no longer any reason JB shouldn't be taking on normal Cata dungeons to gain group experience, practice her arts, and learn the dungeons on normal mode to be prepared for Heroics. JB says she's not yet ready. She wants gear that are high enough quality it's worth the cost to enchant them. Enchants are expensive; even the many that Wild can make himself have high mat costs these days. JB hasn't reached the rep to get a head enchant, yet, either. Good reasons, or just excuses?
JB keeps checking the AH, too, for gear bargains, but they have been hard to come by. It's a bit frustrating. Wild, being a healer, is always on the lookout for good bargains as well. The druid healer gear is always a lot more expensive that the feral gear (the +agi gear). With JB it is just the opposite. The shaman healing gear is very cheap compared to the +agi melee gear; but it's the agi gear that JB needs. Sigh.
As chance would have it, Thursday morning a pair if i359 agi boots popped up on the AH. JB had the 400g to buy it, and buy it she did. That was an upgrade from an i312 pair and jumped her gear level to i341. Wow.
Philly has gotten some game time, too. With JB's activity, the family felt it was time for Philly to put some effort into her jewelcrafting to defray some of those costs. Philly is doing her JC dailies now, and has learned both the +40 int gem cut Wild uses most often, and the +40 agi gem cut that JB most needs.
Monday, January 9, 2012
Weekend - (8 Jan) It's the Weekend! Mostly Yawn ...
Weekend - (8 Jan) It's the Weekend! Mostly Yawn ...
JB was front and center this weekend. On Friday she upgraded her relic from i316 to i346, moving her gear score up another notch to i327. JB can now use the Dungeon Finder for both normal and Heroic Cata dungeons. Her first priority is to continue the rep grind. However, she also wants to fit in dungeon runs, too. The plan is to get comfortable with normal dungeon runs, maybe get a few gear upgrades, but more importantly, build up the justice points to get two pieces of T11 gear (i378). That would give JB a nice two piece set bonus, and by then she may be ready to start on the Heroic dungeons and valor points. We're talking a minimum of four weeks, probably five. That is, if JB doesn't come down with the same OHNO!-itis Wild has in regard to Cata dungeon runs.
Speaking of Wild, JB was curious about when Wild reached the i325 gear level, which opened the Heroic dungeons to him. Hmmm, Wild?
Wild thought about it. Well, he mused, I know when I entered my first Cata Heroic. It was Throne of the Tides, on 19 Jan 2011, but Wild's gear was already at i346. Getting the exact point that Wild hit i325 was a bit more challenging, but Wild has extensive records, and finally found it - 2 Jan, 2011. Wild noticed another interesting milestone - at the time Wild was getting his gear score to i346 and entering cata Heroics, JB DINGED to - level 81. It took her almost a year longer to reach level 85.
Saturday/Sunday - JB has continued to make progress on her gear, and is now at i331. This has come from mostly small upgrades from questing, and rep upgrades now that she has achieved Revered with the Therazane faction. That faction offers six dailies every day, which help her not only with faction rep, but with gold and rep with the guild. She is almost to Friendly with the guild. At Friendly, JB can get a guild tabard that increases rep awards by 50%.
JB has run into a problem, however. JB needs Ramkahen faction rep in order to get access to the +agi head enchant. The Ramkahen faction is based in Uldum. Normally JB would earn rep through questing in Uldum and doing dailies. Well, JB has done a ton of Uldum quests over the weekend, and they yield no Ramkahen rep at all. JB doesn't get much guild rep, either. JB was resigned to grinding dailies to get the rep, but the Ramkahen faction only has two dailies. Two! The faster way to earn Ramkahen rep is running dungeons while wearing the Ramkahen tabard. JB may be pressed into dungeon runs sooner than she wanted.
JB spent most of Sunday night in Uldum, completing the Raiders of the Lost Ark quest chain that is my favorite all time. I wish there were a way to experience that quest chain without having to level a new character to level 85 each time. It is a blast! and JB had as much fun doing them as Wild did when he did them. JB took a screenshot at the end of the quest chain:
When JB retired for the night she had reached Friendly with the guild and had improved her gear score to i335.
JB was front and center this weekend. On Friday she upgraded her relic from i316 to i346, moving her gear score up another notch to i327. JB can now use the Dungeon Finder for both normal and Heroic Cata dungeons. Her first priority is to continue the rep grind. However, she also wants to fit in dungeon runs, too. The plan is to get comfortable with normal dungeon runs, maybe get a few gear upgrades, but more importantly, build up the justice points to get two pieces of T11 gear (i378). That would give JB a nice two piece set bonus, and by then she may be ready to start on the Heroic dungeons and valor points. We're talking a minimum of four weeks, probably five. That is, if JB doesn't come down with the same OHNO!-itis Wild has in regard to Cata dungeon runs.
Speaking of Wild, JB was curious about when Wild reached the i325 gear level, which opened the Heroic dungeons to him. Hmmm, Wild?
Wild thought about it. Well, he mused, I know when I entered my first Cata Heroic. It was Throne of the Tides, on 19 Jan 2011, but Wild's gear was already at i346. Getting the exact point that Wild hit i325 was a bit more challenging, but Wild has extensive records, and finally found it - 2 Jan, 2011. Wild noticed another interesting milestone - at the time Wild was getting his gear score to i346 and entering cata Heroics, JB DINGED to - level 81. It took her almost a year longer to reach level 85.
Saturday/Sunday - JB has continued to make progress on her gear, and is now at i331. This has come from mostly small upgrades from questing, and rep upgrades now that she has achieved Revered with the Therazane faction. That faction offers six dailies every day, which help her not only with faction rep, but with gold and rep with the guild. She is almost to Friendly with the guild. At Friendly, JB can get a guild tabard that increases rep awards by 50%.
JB has run into a problem, however. JB needs Ramkahen faction rep in order to get access to the +agi head enchant. The Ramkahen faction is based in Uldum. Normally JB would earn rep through questing in Uldum and doing dailies. Well, JB has done a ton of Uldum quests over the weekend, and they yield no Ramkahen rep at all. JB doesn't get much guild rep, either. JB was resigned to grinding dailies to get the rep, but the Ramkahen faction only has two dailies. Two! The faster way to earn Ramkahen rep is running dungeons while wearing the Ramkahen tabard. JB may be pressed into dungeon runs sooner than she wanted.
JB spent most of Sunday night in Uldum, completing the Raiders of the Lost Ark quest chain that is my favorite all time. I wish there were a way to experience that quest chain without having to level a new character to level 85 each time. It is a blast! and JB had as much fun doing them as Wild did when he did them. JB took a screenshot at the end of the quest chain:
JB with "Harrison Jones" and his "Father"
When JB retired for the night she had reached Friendly with the guild and had improved her gear score to i335.
Friday, January 6, 2012
Thursday (5 Jan) - At Least JB Had Fun
Thursday (5 Jan) - At Least JB Had Fun
JB is having fun doing her dailies and practicing her melee combat skills. She has pretty much cleared Deepholm and has started on Uldum (another zone where she needs to earn faction reputation). Wild had a blast in Uldum, and I hope JB does, too. On the gear front I really thought that JB could take a shortcut via the Auction House, at least up to around the i359 level. Sure, there are some nice BoE pieces that JB would love to have, but Happy has been adamant that the prices are too high. One area where I really thought we could make headway on is her weapons. She dual wields, so she needs two weapons. She's had her current i333 pair of fist weapons for a very long time (given to JB courtesy of Philly's jewelcrafting skills). Now level 85, JB now had her eye on a pair of [Tremendous Tankard O' Terror] maces at i365. The problem was that the sellers refused to drop prices below 2500 gold, and Happy knew - KNEW! - that they could be had for less. Happy couldn't deliver, though, and JB turned to her alliance cousin, Lost.
Lost came to the rescue, securing two tankards at 950g each on the Alliance AH. It was a lucky stroke, too, because shortly after making the purchases four more tankards went up for sale at over 2k gold each.
JB now had her new weapons, an upgrade that jumped her gear score from i321 to i325. She wasn't, done, though. The two weapons still needed enchants. JB's fist weapons had been enchanted with Avalanche, a good enchant for melee shamans, but not the best. Avalanche could be had for under a 100g. The best weapon enchant for JB's weapons, though, is Landslide. Landslide enchants cost 2,000 gold each on the AH. Did enchanter Wild have that recipe? No, Wild didn't. But for five Maelstrom crystals (about 750g) he could buy the enchant from the local vendor in Orgrimmar. The mats for that enchant, though, were very expensive as well. When all was said and done, Wild got his new enchanting spell, and used his own mats to craft JB a pair of Landslides. Happy calculated the total cost at 3200g, plus 750g for the recipe, or almost double what the weapons themselves cost. JB is grinning from ear to ear.
Wild's fun ended when he finished helping JB. The Thursday evening scheduled raid with Lady Hunter never got off the ground, and Lady Hunter never showed up. Wild has to admit that there is no G2/Lady Hunter/Bd raid anymore (Bd having not been seen in more than a week). Wild also has to admit that the Mf led G1 raid has no spot for him, either. Mf has a solid core of raiders, and I give them credit for getting in their two-nights a week raids. They don't have much to show for it, though. They spend their first night still trying to kill Ragnaros in the Firelands. The second night is in Dragon Soul, where they have yet to kill the second boss.
Wild is going to be looking for a PUG DS 10 or 25 over the weekend.
JB is having fun doing her dailies and practicing her melee combat skills. She has pretty much cleared Deepholm and has started on Uldum (another zone where she needs to earn faction reputation). Wild had a blast in Uldum, and I hope JB does, too. On the gear front I really thought that JB could take a shortcut via the Auction House, at least up to around the i359 level. Sure, there are some nice BoE pieces that JB would love to have, but Happy has been adamant that the prices are too high. One area where I really thought we could make headway on is her weapons. She dual wields, so she needs two weapons. She's had her current i333 pair of fist weapons for a very long time (given to JB courtesy of Philly's jewelcrafting skills). Now level 85, JB now had her eye on a pair of [Tremendous Tankard O' Terror] maces at i365. The problem was that the sellers refused to drop prices below 2500 gold, and Happy knew - KNEW! - that they could be had for less. Happy couldn't deliver, though, and JB turned to her alliance cousin, Lost.
Lost came to the rescue, securing two tankards at 950g each on the Alliance AH. It was a lucky stroke, too, because shortly after making the purchases four more tankards went up for sale at over 2k gold each.
JB now had her new weapons, an upgrade that jumped her gear score from i321 to i325. She wasn't, done, though. The two weapons still needed enchants. JB's fist weapons had been enchanted with Avalanche, a good enchant for melee shamans, but not the best. Avalanche could be had for under a 100g. The best weapon enchant for JB's weapons, though, is Landslide. Landslide enchants cost 2,000 gold each on the AH. Did enchanter Wild have that recipe? No, Wild didn't. But for five Maelstrom crystals (about 750g) he could buy the enchant from the local vendor in Orgrimmar. The mats for that enchant, though, were very expensive as well. When all was said and done, Wild got his new enchanting spell, and used his own mats to craft JB a pair of Landslides. Happy calculated the total cost at 3200g, plus 750g for the recipe, or almost double what the weapons themselves cost. JB is grinning from ear to ear.
Wild's fun ended when he finished helping JB. The Thursday evening scheduled raid with Lady Hunter never got off the ground, and Lady Hunter never showed up. Wild has to admit that there is no G2/Lady Hunter/Bd raid anymore (Bd having not been seen in more than a week). Wild also has to admit that the Mf led G1 raid has no spot for him, either. Mf has a solid core of raiders, and I give them credit for getting in their two-nights a week raids. They don't have much to show for it, though. They spend their first night still trying to kill Ragnaros in the Firelands. The second night is in Dragon Soul, where they have yet to kill the second boss.
Wild is going to be looking for a PUG DS 10 or 25 over the weekend.
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Tuesday (3 Jan) - Jezzibael DINGS!
Tuesday (3 Jan) - Jezzibael DINGS!
JB wrapped up her campaign in Deepholm on Tuesday night, reaching level 85 around midnight. There were a few guildies still in game, and JB got some congratulations for the achievement, although I doubt anyone knew that JB was related to Wild.
Where she goes from here is still somewhat up in the air. JB is keeping her enhancement spec as her main spec, with healing as her off-spec. Her healing off-spec might only be for pvp, however. JB's equipped gear score is i321, and she'll have her work cut out for her to build on that. JB intends to start doing dailies to raise the faction reputation required to get key enchantments only available through those factions, as well as some gear upgrades.
Stats-wise JB must work on increasing expertise to the cap as a priority, which lowers the percent chance a mob will dodge or parry a blow. JB is currently ok with +hit with a 634 hit rating, which exceeds the required minimum 615 hit rating for dungeon bosses. JB will have to get her hit rating all the way to 1742 for raid bosses. Once hit and expertise stats reach the cap, the goal is maximizing +Agi and +Mastery.
I had to do a complete restructuring of JB's user interface. She has had so many different specs there were spells scattered all over the place. For leveling all I did was clean up her attack spell priorities and set them into keyboard shortcuts. Now it was time to fix the rest of it. It seemed pretty overwhelming at first - shaman have SO MANY spells! However, JB has an addon called Totem Timer, and that greatly helped organize JB's totems into the three castable groups as well as a "by type" grouping so JB could find individual totems without having to clutter up buttons/bars. JB also needed some macros to support AoE DPS functions. I wanted them separate from the mouseover macros I was using for single target attacks. JB worried about aggroing things that she shouldn't be. JB still has to go out and test some the changes to make sure they all work as expected.
JB is also looking for a mentor to help her prepare for dungeon runs as a melee player. It's one thing to read about spell priorities and general do's and don'ts; it's quite another to learn and understand an enhancement shaman's full role and duties in a group of players. JB has been a loner her whole life; playing nice with others is a whole 'nother ball game.
Here is what JB has come up with on her own. But she wonders what she's missing.
1 - JB's single target attacks are properly prioritized and ready to rock
2 - AoE macros should help JB maximize their effectiveness
3 - JB's Interrupt is Wind Shear, which is good only on stopping spell casting. JB will need to learn when to use it.
4 - JB has two spells to temporarily take mobs out of the action: (1) Hex affects beasts and humans, turning them into frogs; (2) Bound Elementals immobilizes elementals, obviously.
5 - JB has a separate bar with her single and AoE heal spells, should they be needed.
Next up is to lay out what reputation she needs to start grinding.
JB wrapped up her campaign in Deepholm on Tuesday night, reaching level 85 around midnight. There were a few guildies still in game, and JB got some congratulations for the achievement, although I doubt anyone knew that JB was related to Wild.
Where she goes from here is still somewhat up in the air. JB is keeping her enhancement spec as her main spec, with healing as her off-spec. Her healing off-spec might only be for pvp, however. JB's equipped gear score is i321, and she'll have her work cut out for her to build on that. JB intends to start doing dailies to raise the faction reputation required to get key enchantments only available through those factions, as well as some gear upgrades.
Stats-wise JB must work on increasing expertise to the cap as a priority, which lowers the percent chance a mob will dodge or parry a blow. JB is currently ok with +hit with a 634 hit rating, which exceeds the required minimum 615 hit rating for dungeon bosses. JB will have to get her hit rating all the way to 1742 for raid bosses. Once hit and expertise stats reach the cap, the goal is maximizing +Agi and +Mastery.
I had to do a complete restructuring of JB's user interface. She has had so many different specs there were spells scattered all over the place. For leveling all I did was clean up her attack spell priorities and set them into keyboard shortcuts. Now it was time to fix the rest of it. It seemed pretty overwhelming at first - shaman have SO MANY spells! However, JB has an addon called Totem Timer, and that greatly helped organize JB's totems into the three castable groups as well as a "by type" grouping so JB could find individual totems without having to clutter up buttons/bars. JB also needed some macros to support AoE DPS functions. I wanted them separate from the mouseover macros I was using for single target attacks. JB worried about aggroing things that she shouldn't be. JB still has to go out and test some the changes to make sure they all work as expected.
JB is also looking for a mentor to help her prepare for dungeon runs as a melee player. It's one thing to read about spell priorities and general do's and don'ts; it's quite another to learn and understand an enhancement shaman's full role and duties in a group of players. JB has been a loner her whole life; playing nice with others is a whole 'nother ball game.
Here is what JB has come up with on her own. But she wonders what she's missing.
1 - JB's single target attacks are properly prioritized and ready to rock
2 - AoE macros should help JB maximize their effectiveness
3 - JB's Interrupt is Wind Shear, which is good only on stopping spell casting. JB will need to learn when to use it.
4 - JB has two spells to temporarily take mobs out of the action: (1) Hex affects beasts and humans, turning them into frogs; (2) Bound Elementals immobilizes elementals, obviously.
5 - JB has a separate bar with her single and AoE heal spells, should they be needed.
Next up is to lay out what reputation she needs to start grinding.
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Recapping the Year 2011 Part 2 - Family Business
Recapping the Year 2011 Part 2 - Family Business
At the start of 2011 the Alliance pvp team of Sista, Maiy, and Kire had just started out. Sista and Maiy were the first of the Worgen race to join the families and they were very excited to become a part of the team in the level 10-14 battlegrounds. With the sometime help of Rakta, who mostly operates the transfer of goods between the Alliance and Horde on the neutral AH, there were battles galore as well as trips into Ragefire Cavern and Deadmines.
Happy, the entrepreneur of the Horde Auction House, had a radical makeover for the New Year, deciding that he was tired of being a troll and transformed himself into a Goblin. Goblins are the money makers of Azeroth, and Happy felt it was only fitting that he be one. Ya gotta like those big ears, too. Happy also wanted to include a special Thank You! to Lao in this recap. In April a conversation between Lao and Happy resulted in Happy starting to stock Cata enchanting material, which until then he had not been interested in. On Lao's advice, Happy began trading those mats, and have been thousands and thousands of gold happier ever since.
JB has been an on again off again project. She didn't know who she wanted to be. From Jan 2011: "JB used to be enhancement, and used to be elemental, and used to be restoration. She used to be pve before she was pvp. She had gear from all three specs as well as pvp gear cluttering up her bags and her bank." JB was still level 80 and only just starting to explore the new areas of Northrend, primarily to pick flowers for her Alchemy profession.
Did you know that JB was the second character to join the Wild family? Even before Happy? JB was born on May 19, 2005. She started as a miner and skinner. The background and history of most of our family members was explored in this post, for those interested:
Special Report - What's in a Name
JB wasn't the only family member undergoing a mini-crisis. Mery had leveled to 56 but had the gear of a level 40. She would continue to struggle throughout the year, having to fight for game time with Wild, JB, and Sista.
In the DER family warlock Daeth was busy leveling like a madman, eventually winning the Four Family award for adding the most levels in a single year. See the report on all of the level grinding for the year at the bottom of the post.
In February Hunter Fortress exploded onto the scene: "The Hunter Fortress, or "Four Tresses" if one prefers, wasn't a fly by night operation. There were days of planning and preparation by Seenoevil, Hearnoevils (Shevils), Speaknoevil, and Beanoevil - weapons, gear, flasks, enchants, etc, were all laid out. Each hunter had to battle through their home zones and break free from those bonds." These four hunters would wage serious war on the alliance throughout the year, wearing their trademark guild tabards and blue lumberjack shirts. Here is one estimate of their earliest experience:
"Speak - veteran of many battles (two so far), and lots of experience with kinfolk
See - another veteran with experience, but his first time as a hunter
Beano - a raw recruit, eager to show her mettle
Shevils - AWOL, who knows if this girl can tie her own shoelaces"
It was Bean who proved the most impressive in that first great battle in Warsong Gulch when she earned the Wrecking Ball achievement for getting 20 killing blows without dying. Want to see the results of that battle? Check out
Wrecking Ball
Hunter Fortress continued to attract new recruits, such as pvpers Unbleached and Pong, as well as guest pvpers like Jocy.
Naithipe came and went throughout the year, as silent and secretive as ever ... except once, when DER drew her out of the shadows with a challenge. For that momentous exchange, see
Naithipe and DER Sparring
When Sista joined the alliance family, her older brother Java was suddenly the odd man out. In March, though, Java started getting game time for pvp. Dungeon runs followed. All of this leveling effort was done solo, too. Java liked working on his own, but a partner was so much better. In April Java finally leveled high enough for Kire to join him the dungeon runs. They were a blast and both leveled swiftly.
In June of 2011 the Three Families became the Four Families. Lao was a card carrying Horde member of the Order of the Dragon guild. But Lao had a secret . . . in the wee hours of an ordinary June day Lao pulled a trifecta, slipping into a secretive guise as, not Horde, but Alliance, and not Silvermoon, but Boulderfist. She came to a new guild in the remarkable disguise of a Gnome instead of her natural blood elf self, and her new name was Tea. We can only hope that her disguise is never compromised.
Tea (alias Lao) made herself at home in her new guild, GoH, and made friends of a sort with DER's cousin Eowyn, also in GoH. There was talk that Java should join them, but Java had never gotten over seeing Sista being the favorite. Java declined. So, in August, a new death knight escaped her prison over the Plaguelands and the twosome became a threesome in Boulderfist, welcoming BB to the team and the guild. Soon after that the Silvermoon Alliance family made their own farewell to Sista, who crossed realms as Tea did to join BB. Java and his sister, Chaitee, had a fond reunion and live quietly in Stormwind.
The Wild Family is not all about pvp and raiding and leveling and gear, however ... well, maybe raiding ... ahem. There is also sometimes pure fun with no ulterior motive. That was the case when about half of Wild's family had a blast playing a fun and frustrating game within a game Wild dubbed
Lawn of the Dead
And that is the full report. As promised, though, below is the complete list of toons associated with the Four Families: Wild, DER, Sis, and Silver, on two realms, Silvermoon and Boulderfist. Should any of this recap be wrong, it's not my fault! And by the way, Happy New Year!
The Wildshard clan
2010 level (2011 level)
(++) = has passed on and is no longer with us
(??) = uncertain
85 (85) - Wild
80 (84) - JB
80 (82) - Philly
63 (63) - Melasahnd
32 (61) - Java (alliance)
56 (60) - Mery
46 (47) - EZ
23 (27) - Jocey
22 (23) - Happy
20 (21) - Chaitee (alliance)
16 (16) - Hap
13 (13) - Rakta (alliance)
11 (12) - Lost (alliance)
11 (++) - Slash
11 (++) - Deth
?? (??) - Naithipe (she's still shy about her level)
The DER/Sis/Silver clans (I can't tell with some toons who was with who so ya'll get lumped together)
80 (85) - Sis
80 (85) - Sin the Elder
80 (80) - DER
59 (59) - Myst
59 (59) - Red
48 (++) - Ando
30 (71) - Daeth (alliance)
29 (33) - Unbleached (alliance)
29 (29) - Sin the Hunter (alliance)
28 (++) - Sin the Warlock (alliance)
28 (++) - Sin the Younger
28 (28) - Esor (alliance)
20 (20) - El
20 (++) - Andro
14 (14) - Neek (alliance)
11 (11) - Jab
Newcomers in Boulderfist
85 - Silver (Silver Family)
72 (85) - Tea (formerly Lao, Sis Family)
70 - Eowyn (DER Family)
70 - Congou (Sis Family)
63 - BB (Wild Family)
60 - Sista (Wild Family)
Other Newcomers
32 - Speak (DER family)
30 - Hear/Shevils (Wild Family)
30 - See (Sis Family)
30 - Pong (DER family, MM2)
29 - Acid (Family ?)
25 - Bean (Wild Family)
Based on the above, the "Best Leveler" awards go to:
Daeth: 30 --> 71 (41 levels)
Java: 32 --> 61 (29 levels)
Tea: 72 --> 85 (13 levels)
Additionally, special mention goes to the newcomers born in 2011 who made huge leaps in leveling (sorry, DKs don't count): Eowyn (70), Congou (70), and Sista (60).
At the start of 2011 the Alliance pvp team of Sista, Maiy, and Kire had just started out. Sista and Maiy were the first of the Worgen race to join the families and they were very excited to become a part of the team in the level 10-14 battlegrounds. With the sometime help of Rakta, who mostly operates the transfer of goods between the Alliance and Horde on the neutral AH, there were battles galore as well as trips into Ragefire Cavern and Deadmines.
Happy, the entrepreneur of the Horde Auction House, had a radical makeover for the New Year, deciding that he was tired of being a troll and transformed himself into a Goblin. Goblins are the money makers of Azeroth, and Happy felt it was only fitting that he be one. Ya gotta like those big ears, too. Happy also wanted to include a special Thank You! to Lao in this recap. In April a conversation between Lao and Happy resulted in Happy starting to stock Cata enchanting material, which until then he had not been interested in. On Lao's advice, Happy began trading those mats, and have been thousands and thousands of gold happier ever since.
JB has been an on again off again project. She didn't know who she wanted to be. From Jan 2011: "JB used to be enhancement, and used to be elemental, and used to be restoration. She used to be pve before she was pvp. She had gear from all three specs as well as pvp gear cluttering up her bags and her bank." JB was still level 80 and only just starting to explore the new areas of Northrend, primarily to pick flowers for her Alchemy profession.
Did you know that JB was the second character to join the Wild family? Even before Happy? JB was born on May 19, 2005. She started as a miner and skinner. The background and history of most of our family members was explored in this post, for those interested:
Special Report - What's in a Name
JB wasn't the only family member undergoing a mini-crisis. Mery had leveled to 56 but had the gear of a level 40. She would continue to struggle throughout the year, having to fight for game time with Wild, JB, and Sista.
In the DER family warlock Daeth was busy leveling like a madman, eventually winning the Four Family award for adding the most levels in a single year. See the report on all of the level grinding for the year at the bottom of the post.
In February Hunter Fortress exploded onto the scene: "The Hunter Fortress, or "Four Tresses" if one prefers, wasn't a fly by night operation. There were days of planning and preparation by Seenoevil, Hearnoevils (Shevils), Speaknoevil, and Beanoevil - weapons, gear, flasks, enchants, etc, were all laid out. Each hunter had to battle through their home zones and break free from those bonds." These four hunters would wage serious war on the alliance throughout the year, wearing their trademark guild tabards and blue lumberjack shirts. Here is one estimate of their earliest experience:
"Speak - veteran of many battles (two so far), and lots of experience with kinfolk
See - another veteran with experience, but his first time as a hunter
Beano - a raw recruit, eager to show her mettle
Shevils - AWOL, who knows if this girl can tie her own shoelaces"
It was Bean who proved the most impressive in that first great battle in Warsong Gulch when she earned the Wrecking Ball achievement for getting 20 killing blows without dying. Want to see the results of that battle? Check out
Wrecking Ball
Hunter Fortress continued to attract new recruits, such as pvpers Unbleached and Pong, as well as guest pvpers like Jocy.
Naithipe came and went throughout the year, as silent and secretive as ever ... except once, when DER drew her out of the shadows with a challenge. For that momentous exchange, see
Naithipe and DER Sparring
When Sista joined the alliance family, her older brother Java was suddenly the odd man out. In March, though, Java started getting game time for pvp. Dungeon runs followed. All of this leveling effort was done solo, too. Java liked working on his own, but a partner was so much better. In April Java finally leveled high enough for Kire to join him the dungeon runs. They were a blast and both leveled swiftly.
In June of 2011 the Three Families became the Four Families. Lao was a card carrying Horde member of the Order of the Dragon guild. But Lao had a secret . . . in the wee hours of an ordinary June day Lao pulled a trifecta, slipping into a secretive guise as, not Horde, but Alliance, and not Silvermoon, but Boulderfist. She came to a new guild in the remarkable disguise of a Gnome instead of her natural blood elf self, and her new name was Tea. We can only hope that her disguise is never compromised.
Tea (alias Lao) made herself at home in her new guild, GoH, and made friends of a sort with DER's cousin Eowyn, also in GoH. There was talk that Java should join them, but Java had never gotten over seeing Sista being the favorite. Java declined. So, in August, a new death knight escaped her prison over the Plaguelands and the twosome became a threesome in Boulderfist, welcoming BB to the team and the guild. Soon after that the Silvermoon Alliance family made their own farewell to Sista, who crossed realms as Tea did to join BB. Java and his sister, Chaitee, had a fond reunion and live quietly in Stormwind.
The Wild Family is not all about pvp and raiding and leveling and gear, however ... well, maybe raiding ... ahem. There is also sometimes pure fun with no ulterior motive. That was the case when about half of Wild's family had a blast playing a fun and frustrating game within a game Wild dubbed
Lawn of the Dead
And that is the full report. As promised, though, below is the complete list of toons associated with the Four Families: Wild, DER, Sis, and Silver, on two realms, Silvermoon and Boulderfist. Should any of this recap be wrong, it's not my fault! And by the way, Happy New Year!
The Wildshard clan
2010 level (2011 level)
(++) = has passed on and is no longer with us
(??) = uncertain
85 (85) - Wild
80 (84) - JB
80 (82) - Philly
63 (63) - Melasahnd
32 (61) - Java (alliance)
56 (60) - Mery
46 (47) - EZ
23 (27) - Jocey
22 (23) - Happy
20 (21) - Chaitee (alliance)
16 (16) - Hap
13 (13) - Rakta (alliance)
11 (12) - Lost (alliance)
11 (++) - Slash
11 (++) - Deth
?? (??) - Naithipe (she's still shy about her level)
The DER/Sis/Silver clans (I can't tell with some toons who was with who so ya'll get lumped together)
80 (85) - Sis
80 (85) - Sin the Elder
80 (80) - DER
59 (59) - Myst
59 (59) - Red
48 (++) - Ando
30 (71) - Daeth (alliance)
29 (33) - Unbleached (alliance)
29 (29) - Sin the Hunter (alliance)
28 (++) - Sin the Warlock (alliance)
28 (++) - Sin the Younger
28 (28) - Esor (alliance)
20 (20) - El
20 (++) - Andro
14 (14) - Neek (alliance)
11 (11) - Jab
Newcomers in Boulderfist
85 - Silver (Silver Family)
72 (85) - Tea (formerly Lao, Sis Family)
70 - Eowyn (DER Family)
70 - Congou (Sis Family)
63 - BB (Wild Family)
60 - Sista (Wild Family)
Other Newcomers
32 - Speak (DER family)
30 - Hear/Shevils (Wild Family)
30 - See (Sis Family)
30 - Pong (DER family, MM2)
29 - Acid (Family ?)
25 - Bean (Wild Family)
Based on the above, the "Best Leveler" awards go to:
Daeth: 30 --> 71 (41 levels)
Java: 32 --> 61 (29 levels)
Tea: 72 --> 85 (13 levels)
Additionally, special mention goes to the newcomers born in 2011 who made huge leaps in leveling (sorry, DKs don't count): Eowyn (70), Congou (70), and Sista (60).
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