Wednesday Part 2 (2 Dec) - A Deeper Look at PvP

Wednesday Part 2 (2 Dec) - A Deeper Look at PvP

I thought it might be interesting to talk about the numbers behind a pvp battleground match. And perhaps take some of the sting out of the last pvp post talking about hitting that wall. Because, goodies or not, pvp is still a lot of fun.

The following screenshot is of a winning Warsong Gulch match in the level 19 bracket. The pvp team of Ando, Lao, and EZ did well in this match (what, you think I'd show you one we sucked at? :P )


The flag captures and returns are specific to WSG, and shows who grabbed enemy flags and capped them, and who took away home flags from the enemy and returned them to the base. Flag caps are what win matches, so that is an important stat.

Killing Blows mean just that - a KB means you delivered the blow that ended that opponent's life. Pvpers love to get KBs, although in truth all of the prior damage that led up to the KB is just as important.

That's where Damage Done comes into play. The more damage done, the more likely enemy pvpers are dying, even if one never gets the KB. Note that Ando led all horde pvpers in KBs with 13, but also finished very high (2nd) in damage done. Ando laid waste to those allies!

Healing Done is also a critical stat, often overlooked. Pvpers generally want to kill people, not heal them. Lao was close to dead last in dealing damage and KBs, but that was because she was Ando and EZ's priestly godmother and helped keep them both alive and earning those KBs. Lao led in healing, and as a healer she got credit for it in terms of honor.

Note again that Ando was also second in total healing. That's the flexibility of a druid, and a testament to how good erik is at pvp (and I expect to be paid for that endorsement ;-) ).

Honor gained is the final, and key stat, second only to winning. Honor points can be spent on all kinds of goodies, and this is how it's earned. Note that Lao received 89 honor for her healing, more than either Ando or EZ received for all that mayhem. It's good to be a healer in BGs, but still, most players won't do it.

One last stat - Ando, EZ, and Lao are level 19 and twinks with maxed out gear in a battleground full of under level 19s. We can do that only because we can still earn xp without dinging to level 20, but that will soon end once we get too close to levelling. See the stat Deaths? Note who the only three people are THAT DID NOT DIE. Not even once - Ando, EZ, and Lao. Twinking is fun and addictive. And sometimes one forgets that xp adds up.

When the WSG match ended in victory, Ando discovered that the xp for that victory DINGED! him to level 20. EZ and Lao thought that was hilarious, and we don't plan to ever let him forget it. We do have to figure out what we are going to do now, though. Should we move up to the level 29 bracket? Should erik roll a new toon and level him to 19? Should we forget about brackets and just keep levelling in pvp matches until we make it to level 80? Lao's comment to that last idea had us in stitches: "You know that by the time we could pvp level to 80, the level cap will probably be like 100." But wouldn't that make it all the more fun?

Wednesday (2 Dec) - Doing the Chicken Dance

Wednesday (2 Dec) - Doing the Chicken Dance

Note - I'm going to start posting the contents on the Sporting News site again, instead of just providing the link to the blog. I'll keep the blog going, too, for those who prefer that, but frankly I'm not getting as many readers since I stopped posting on the TSN forums. Hopefully that is the cause, and not that you've gotten tired of me. ;-)

The guild alt-10 raid seems to be catching on. Not only did we have a full complement sign up for the raid, we had more guildies in game asking if they could go. Wild counted fourteen folks who were interested in running with the raid. Perhaps this was a one time thing, and perhaps it can't last with the holidays upon us, but it's still a good thing to see. We sorted out who would go, with some of our regulars bowing out so that those who needed it more could go. Usually we start with Onyxia on Wednesdays, but the raid leader wanted to focus just on Ulduar this time so that raiders who could only run on Friday would get a chance at Onyxia this week. Ulduar is getting pretty old for some in our raid, so bowing out was not that hard of a decision. There were also more than enough healers, and how often can I say that!? We shuffled new folks and new alts around until we were happy with the setup. We had three good tanks, although only our raid leader was an experienced tank, and for most fights he put the two lesser experienced tanks on the bosses so they could learn. Wild and another druid, Sp, plus a shaman alt of someone (there are so many guildies running alts I lose track of who is who), were the healers. Wild decided it was time to let someone else set up the healing assignments, so Wild "volunteered" Sp to take the lead. Wild's regular healing partners, h-priest and P-Jo, never wanted to handle that chore, which is why Wild got the job by default in the first place. But Sp and the raid leader were both ok with the idea, and that gave Wild a bit of a break from that role.

Healing wasn't necessary for the vehicle based Flame Leviathon fight, and we quickly destroyed the big tank. This fight is a joke now, and we just rush through it so we can get to the other bosses.

Razorscale came next, and Sp set up a three healer assignment. But three healers aren't really needed for this fight, so Sp asked the shaman healer to switch to his elemental spec. But the shaman said he was badly geared for elemental, and would not put out much DPS. Wild offered that he could go moonkin spec. And everyone wanted the raid buffs a moonkin delivers: +3% haste (faster casting and melee), +5% crit, and spell based +13% damage dealing for the raid when "Earth and Moon" is active. Not to mention -3% damage to the tank with Insect Swarm.

Wild got to "go chicken" for the Razorscale fight. It was a blast! Wild assisted the two tanks on killing the adds that spawn at the beginning of the fight, but it got even more fun when Razorscale landed and Wild could really cut loose. Wild has three DoTs that are applied right at the beginning of a fight, and then reapplied as needed: Faerie Fire (improved +hit for the raid), Moonfire, and Insect Swarm. Wild then begins spamming Wrath until a spell called Eclipse procs. Eclipse dramatically increases +crit, and it switches between Wrath and Starfire. If Wild gets Eclipse while casting Wrath, I immediately switch to Starfire to make use of the increased crit. If Wild is casting Starfire when Eclipse procs, I switch to Wrath. Keeping track of that can be hard with everything else going on during a fight, but Wild has an addon called "Squawk and Awe" that helps me keep track of the Eclipse procs and which spell I should be using.

Wild was no where near the top of the DPS charts, but did acceptable damage at around 2500 dps. Razorscale died.

XT-002 was up next, and Wild stayed moonkin for that as well. Wild was a bit tentative on the Razorscale fight, getting used to the spell rotations and overly concerned with keeping up the DoTs. On XT, it was "chickens gone wild" and Wild did his darndest to burn up all his mana, just to see how hard and fast Wild could cast. Wild pulled a little over 2700 DPS, good enough for fifth in DPS, and still never ran out of mana. That's a bit of a tease, by the way. Let's see, there were two healers, and two tanks, who don't really count when measuring DPS. That left six full time DPSers. Hey, at least I beat one DPS raider! Also, to be fair to Wild, he was DPSing in what is mostly healing gear augmented just enough so that he would be at the hit cap and not miss with his spells (he had no misses). Wild also has no set bonuses for moonkin spec, nor does he have the better idol for moonkin, which cost 25 triumph badges (Wild only last week got the better idol for healing). Overall Wild was pleased with his performance, although I did make one mistake that would have measurably improved his numbers - I never used Starfall, which is a cast and forget AoE. It's not something that should be used in every situation, but I could and should have used it on both XT and Razor. Wild just needs more "chicken time" for practicing!

After XT we headed for the Iron Council, and Wild shifted back to healing for the rest of the evening, as we needed three.

Iron Council - we tried four times, failing on every attempt. There were issues of tank positioning where they took themselves out of healing range. Healers can't maneuver too much on this fight because there are three bosses spread out over a large chamber. There were issues of raiders standing in deadly zones instead of immediately vacating them. Wild started as a raid healer, but Sp added Wild to tank healing when it looked liked we weren't getting enough healing to him.

We decided to break from IC and went after Kologarn. It's cool when someone else does the healing assignments. When Wild does the assignments, I usually take the harder jobs, unless there is a healing class for which it would be natural to give that job to. With Sp doing the assignments, he took the tough ones, and Wild got things like raid healing and Grip healing for Kologarn. Of course, Wild still HoTed up the main tank, kept the off tank healed, and in general did what I always do. Kologarn didn't last very long.

Rejuvenated by victory, we went back to Iron Council and killed them.

With time running out, we had one shot at the Cat Lady. We had not had a single break, however, and there were a couple of raiders holding their knees together, so the raid leader said for us to assemble at the Cat Lady area and then he would call a short break.

We assembled, and once we were all there the raid leader saw that the two trash mobs we needed to kill were presently in a good position to take on. He ordered the attack in raid chat. Wild was quick to add that I would handle sparks, an easy but critical task, and the raid leader pulled the mobs. Funny thing, though. Only half the raid responded. The other half had started their break. We wiped, of course.

A slightly miffed raid leader eventually admitted that he should have done a ready check before engaging. "But you should all know not to start a break until I give the word!" he couldn't help grumbling.

We sorted that out, and it turned out we only needed one shot at Cat Lady. She died.

Since Wild had split time between DPS and healing, overall numbers didn't mean much. Healing-wise, on individual fights Wild and Sp went back and forth between #1 and #2 in healing. Wild's two best hps numbers were on two of the IC fights - 2787 and 2899 hps. Not bad for 10 man.

Wild has no need for any of the gear dropped by these early bosses in Ulduar. I can still use the Conquest emblems that drop, but as for gear, it's the latter half of Ulduar I keep hoping we figure out how to get to and beat. Here's hoping we put a dent in those bosses come Friday.

There was also this thing called pvp going on, and I'll cover that in a separate post.

Tuesday (1 Dec) - Hitting the PvP Wall

Tuesday (1 Dec) - Hitting the PvP Wall

Don't get me wrong, Philly, EZ, JB, and even (shock!) Wild get a lot of fun out of pvp. Getting Philly teamed up with Red and then Myst for Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin really turned Wild's family on to pvp. Then we built a new level 19 bracket team of EZ, Ando and Lao and again won more battles than we lost week after week. Ultimately, DER and JB teamed up for level 80 pvp battlegrounds, starting with JB's fascination with Wintergrasp and growing to encompass level 80 brackets for Arathi Basin (AB), Alterac Valley (AV), Warsong Gulch (WSG), and the new ones, Isle of Conquest (IoC) and Strand of the Ancients (SoA).

Not only has pvp been a lot of fun, it offered great rewards as well. JB's current gear includes a pvp earned helm, bracers, belt, boots, ring, and trinket making up six of JB's 17 gear slots. Two heirloom items also came in part from pvp (and in part from leftover badges of heroism that Wild couldn't use) that helped EZ in pvp and is currently helping Philly level.

The problem is that at level 80 the pvp rewards suddenly appear nearly dry. There are still many items JB could buy, but very little (maybe nothing) that would be an upgrade to what JB now has. Battleground pvp gear rewards max out at ilevel 226, except for the pants (ilevel 232). JB "might" still get the pants, but she already has pve ilevel 226 pants that stat for stat are better than the pvp ones.

JB now has close to 70,000 honor and will soon reach the max of 75k if she doesn't spend some it. She has over 200 WG shards to spend, and will reach 40 WG marks of honor with one more battle as well. But the WG quartermaster can't offer her much to spend it on; nor can any of the various quartermasters located in the House of Honor in Orgrimmar.

So, JB was going to focus on heirloom gear - and ran into another roadblock. There are only five heirloom types (I just assumed that every gear slot had an corresponding heirloom - I was wrong). The Wild family already has two of them - shoulders and trinket. The chest piece can only be purchased using heroism badges, which Wild spent the last of for the trinket and which can't be earned anymore. The fourth heirloom item is a weapon, and as a ast resort JB might buy one, but it offers nothing special from a levelling perspective and it is easy enough to get better weapons while levelling. Getting a different heirloom shoulder for mail/plate might be worth doing. What I really want is the chest, and there is one other way to get it - earn the Crusader title in the Argent Tournament. The grind to get that, which requires winning titles for ALL of the major cities (Orgrimmar, Thunder Bluff, Undercity) would take months to accomplish. That's not a grind I'm interested in.

JB went so far as to look up the rewards for the other battlegrounds: AB, AV, and WSG. JB was shocked to learn that they only offer gear below ilevel 200! JB can't use any of that. So she figured that the new battlegrounds, SoA and IoC, would offer new and better rewards. No. They offer the very same rewards that all the other battlegrounds offer. And the only thing of interest there "might" be the special riding mounts. But you know what? They are level 60 ground mounts. No flying mounts.

Reading through the various posts in wowhead, the frustration among the dedicated pvpers was pretty evident. What good were the new battlegrounds if all that effort still got them the same old stuff available in any other battleground? Very disturbing decision by Blizzard.

So, JB is still going to be hitting the battlegrounds, just because it's fun. But Philly has started looking hard at doing pvp battlegrounds as another way to level and earn pvp gear that would be the equal or better of what she can get through questing, at least until level 80. In addition, Philly knows that there are a lot of jewelcrafting recipes purchasable with honor and pvp marks, so if she wants those she'd better start working on that now while it still has value.

Finally, there has been some discussion about levelling some characters entirely through pvp beginning at level 20. That sounds pretty cool to do, and if our pvp threesome decides to do that the Wild family already has a volunteer - level 13 paladin Jocelin. In that case, JB may purchase the mail/plate heirloom shoulders for her.

Weekend (29 Nov) - Mish Mash and Mighty Beasts

Weekend (29 Nov) - Mish Mash and Mighty Beasts

It was mostly Philly this weekend, and mostly about raising her skills in jewelcrafting. With help from Melasahnd on grinding mining nodes for ore and gems, and help from JB on scouring Family member banks for odds and ends needed for various recipes, and more help from Happy on purchasing those things that we could not find or farm, Philly became a Master Jewelcrafter with a skill of 360. Now it gets even harder. The JC trainers are out of new recipes up to the current max of 375, and the only recipes available that yield skill increases from 355-375 are drops from various dungeons. Many of these recipes are available on the AH, but at very high prices in the 200-300 gold range. Philly is weighing which recipes to get, depending not so much on the value of the cut gem, but how cheaply she can buy the uncut gems or the ore to prospect the needed gems.

At skill 350 Philly had the skill level to talk to the Grand Master trainer for the 375-450 skill grind, but when she went visiting Philly was reminded that she needed to be level 65 before they would grant that wish. So Philly went back to levelling, enough to get to level 64, but until she can get those new recipes (and reach level 65) jewelcrafting will have to wait a bit.

JB and DER had some incredible fun in pvp on Friday night. JB managed to miss Wintergrasp, but DER introduced JB to the wonders of level 80 pvp in the familiar Warsong Gulch (WSG), and new adventures with visits to Alterac Valley (AV) and a first visit to Strand of the Ancients (SoA). JB still needs to learn her way around AV, but those matches, even when we lost, were a lot of fun. JB even somehow managed to finish 5th in total damage (out of about 25 raiders) in the first AV match. How she did that I don't know, but she'll take it. That didn't stop her from getting killed by every rogue and death knight that bothered to notice her. SoA, which is sort of like WG in that there is a fortress to defend and attack, and siege vehicles, still baffles JB, but she's only seen the battleground twice - so more practice is in order! JB has gotten most of the better gear from WG already, and there are some nice things JB wants to work for in AV and SoA. More fun to come, I'm sure.

As this is being written late Sunday afternoon, Wild is waiting to find out if he'll get an invite to the guild 25 man ToC raid scheduled for a 6pm start. After missing last week's inaugural guild Sunday 25 man, and unsure whether Wild would be available this Sunday, Wild did not sign up. There are 21 confirmed raiders on the raid calendar, and there may already be some non-guildies invited as well, so Wild will have to wait and see if there's a spot. I hope the turn out is a good one, as I want our guild's 25 man raiding to succeed, even if it means missing the raid this week.

Sunday Night - When the guild raid leader logged on, Wild quickly whispered him, letting him know that while he wasn't signed up, he was available for the raid if there was a spot open. The raid leader, Rh, said he would gladly add Wild to the raid list. Then he laughed and said that he'd assumed Wild would show up and had already included me in the raid. Laughing, I told him that was great (good thing I decided to come).

We didn't have enough guildies, but even so the turn out was pretty good, with 20 guildies joining the raid. We filled in with five non-guildies (three of which were complete strangers drawn from players who were using the "Looking For Group" tool). By the time we got started, however, one of our guildie healers had gone offline, apparently with computer problems. We went ahead and started with 24 raiders, seven of us healers, including three druids. The non-guildie druid was impressively geared and was in a well established raiding guild. Wild wondered why he would need to LFG for a raid spot with another guild with that kind of resume.

The 25 man version of Trial of the Crusader is very like the 10 man version. The ToC Coliseum is a single, round chamber with one large door from which the deadly champions we are pitted against emerge. Wild's experience with 10 man ToC has been primarily with the Alt-10 group, and our success - well, it's been fun and a good learning experience, but we had yet to complete even the first encounter (at least when Wild was present). That first encounter is called the Northrend Beasts, and soon after we assembled, the first of those beasts, Gormok the Impaler, trotted through the gates and engaged.

Gormok is half-man, half-beast - a four footed, two handed behemoth. In addition to his normal attacks on the tank, he likes to throw snobolds - no, not snowballs, snobolds - creatures that latch on to a raider at the shoulders and try to eat their face, while dropping fireballs at their feet. Wild feared those snobolds, until I learned that he only throws them at DPSers, never healers. Hah! Wild got a lot braver after learning that.

We brought Gormok down, and without pause two frostwyrms slivered through the doors. The large, prickly wyrms infect raiders with two different kinds of toxins that can only be removed by getting two raiders with opposite toxins close together, which cancels out both. Calls in raid chat from those infected shared an urgency as those toxins ate away at them. The frostwyrms periodically submerge beneath the floor, and then re-emerge at random locations. Wild and the rest of the raid scattered at the first submerge, so that fewer would be caught in a wyrm's clutches when it emerged. The tanks rounded up the wyrms and we went through several iterations of that before the frostwyrms died.

The third and final champion of Northrend Beasts, Icehowl, thundered in. The great whooly mammoth-like beast, with elaborate, curling horns, is an easy fight IF - (1) the raid was still in good shape after beating the first two encounters, and (2) if the raid could survive Icehowl's Massive Crash and the immediate Charge that follows it. We had come through the first two encounters very much intact. Icehowl was corraled, and we got our first taste of Massive Crash as every raider was tossed up against the walls of the Coliseum, temporarily stunning us all. Icehowl chose a target, and the great muscles of the his legs bunched to Charge. The raid leader called out who that target was. Icehowl Charged a spare instant after our stun wore off, and 25 raiders hurtled away from the point where Icehowl was aiming. Everyone got out of the way, and Icehowl slammed his head into the wall at the spot vacated by the targeted raider. Icehowl was now stunned, and the DPS went back to work. Icehowl Charged many times. He was nearly dead when a raider got tangled in a Charge. That raider was Wild. I had misjudged the direction I needed to go and got hit with a glancing blow. Glancing blow or not, it was instant death. Worse, it meant that Icehowl was not stunned. Even worse than that, hitting a raider sent him into Frothing Rage, which is essentially a raid destroying Enrage.

Luckily for Wild, Icehowl died an instant later, saving Wild from having to explain to the tank and the raid leader how I got the whole raid killed. Wild had been soulstoned, so I quickly rezzed and pretended innocence, whistling merrily as everybody gathered to get a gander at the loot.

We could now take a break to repair and buff up for the next encounter, Lord Jaraxxus. Wild has seen this fight only a couple of times, with guild runs before we had stopped doing 25 mans. I don't like this big red guy, and there are a lot of moving parts to this fight.

Wild was raid healing and also tasked with keeping a stack of Hots on the main tank, who also had two other full time healers. Juraxxus hits very hard and the tank is under constant assault. Jaraxxus has at least two raid wide affecting spells that other raiders try to interrupt before he can cast them. One, called Incinerate Flesh, is like a Shield around a raider. Instead of absorbing damage, however, it absorbs healing, and if that shield doesn't get enough healing absorbed, it starts to spread Legion Flame across the raid, a deadly fire damage AoE that not only affects those around you, it leaves a trail of fire wherever you go.

Wild was busy dealing with all of that when a nether portal opened up, and spilled out a Mistress of Pain. She throws high damage spikes at random raiders. If that raider also happens to have Incinerate Flesh or Legion Flame, it is likely fatal. I think that's what got Wild the first time. Wild got a rez, though, and was soon back in the fight. The Mistress was quickly killed, but she was followed by an erupting volcano that spewed out three felflame infernals. The raid scattered away from the volcanoes as the off tank tried to gather the infernals. The volcano also erupts for some heavy damage to those around it. Wild died a second time, not from a volcano, but I believe from Fel Lightning, which is one of those spells that was supposed to get interrupted.

The savior for this fight was the fact that there were five druids (3 healers, 2 DPS) in the raid, and we made full use of all of our battle rezzes to keep people alive. Wild really didn't see how we could win this fight.

But we did. It was Wild's first kill of Jaraxxus.

Wild was ready to call the night a success. Not. We still had time plenty of time to go after the next encounter, which Wild had never seen.

The Faction Champions are horde and alliance npcs. Obviously, a horde raid will fight the alliance npcs and visa versa. In 25 man we will be facing ten of them. Ten? You bet. There are fourteen total, so other than knowing that there will be three healers, we won't know who we'll be facing until they arrive. All four healing classes are represented (druid, shaman, paladin, and priest) and those classes also have DPS specced npcs as well.

This is like a 10 vs 25 arena match, only don't let the numbers fool you, because the npcs have a couple of advantages. First is that they are all level 83 raid elites versus us poor level 80s. Second, although their own AoE classes (such as mage, warlock) can fully use their AoE abilities, the faction champions have a built in immunity to AoE, taking 75% LESS damage than normal. Raider AoE is mostly worthless in this fight. Tanking is mostly worthless, too. Who would we tank, with ten to choose from?

The instructions for the fight took some time. There was an awful lot of taunt him, don't taunt her, crowd control this other one, kill this guy fast, etc. The short summary is that there was a kill order list, with the healers mostly the first to be taken out, although the "must kill fast" list was depressingly long. Since there are no tanks to focus healing on, every healer is a raid healer for this fight. Healers were assigned to heal their own groups. Just do whatever you had to to keep them alive.

It was actually a fun fight. Wild poured out the healing pretty much non-stop, and small battles between raiders and npcs went on all around him. The npcs even coordinate and focus fire on individual raiders. Wild was a target for a moment, but other healers helped Wild heal through it. Another time a hunter's lion pet latched on to Wild, so I kited it around until the hunter died and the pet vanished with his vanquished master.

The battle had entered it's eighth minute when the tenth and final npc fell. We had won another encounter.

And we still weren't done. Following the Faction Champions are the Twin Val'kyr, Fjola Lightbane and Eydis Darkbane. They are winged humanoids - angels fit only for nightmares. Here is where last week's raid had faltered and failed, and a new strategy was going to be tried. I'd explain the strat to you, but it had a lot to do with dark DPSing light, and changing colors from light to dark and dark to light, and staying away from the pretty light and dark balls, and, well, it didn't make much sense - until Wild experienced it firsthand.

Even after the long explanation of the fight, as we prepared to start Wild had to whisper to the healing leader, "now which color am I supposed to be when we start?" He whispered back that "it doesn't matter at the start, but listen for the raid calls and follow them once we engage." Ok. I think.

When the fight started the two winged bosses sailed in, and at four points swirling vortexes formed, two light colored and two dark colored. Following the majority of the raid, Wild trotted up to a light vortex, clicked on it, and was rewarded with a glowing white light at Wild's feet. A smaller number of raiders chose a dark vortex, and received a dark light at their feet (kind of purple colored, actually). Wild was again raid healing and HoT healing one of the two tanks, and the start of the fight was fairly straightforward. Then little melon sized white and dark balls popped right out of the walls all around the entire chamber, and began floating toward the center. They move at slightly less than running speed, so they could be outrun, but there were a LOT of them. Wild tried to avoid the dark balls, but one got him, burst, and did heavy damage.

The raid leader called out "DPS dark!" which meant that all DPS that were now "light" needed to rush to a dark vortex and switch. DPSers had to be the opposite color of the boss they were attacking, so when the target boss changed, they had to switch colors. Boss targets changed when the non-target boss puts up his Shield. That shield has to be destroyed fast or it will heal the boss up to 50% of it's total health. Another raid call, "RAID Dark! (or light)" meant that everyone except for tanks and specifically assigned raiders had to switch to the designated color. Those special raiders were always the opposite color, and their job was to burst as many balls as they could of the color that would hurt the raid. Make sense? Not to Wild, at least not at first.

Breaking the boss shield proved to be a problem and despite initially getting the two down to 17% health, they kept healing themselves and we eventually wiped. Oh, I probably forgot to mention that the twins share the same health pool, so damage or healing to either one affects them both.

It took us four tries before everything started to sink in. Wild learned the hard way that taking too long to get to a vortex to change color was instantly fatal, so Wild started hanging out near an opposite color vortex so that he could switch quickly when it was called. Of course, that wasn't always possible if Wild was trying to stay out of the way of opposite color balls.

But still, on our fourth attempt, the twins died. And Wild had another first kill.

So, we are done? Well, yes and no. Yes, we were out of time, and the raid was ending. No, we did not clear the encounter, because there was still one more boss left - Anub'arak. Maybe next week.

About the loot. ToC drops a LOT of loot. On every encounter a Trophy of the Crusade drops. How to use this item is so complicated I hesitate even to explain it. Let's just say that it is used to buy T9 gear, but that the calibre of T9 (T9.0, T9.25, T9.5) determines whether the trophy alone is good enough to get the gear, or if additional emblems (highest level triumph emblems) must also be used. Only one trophy is awarded per encounter, and Wild did not win any of the four that dropped, but I need to get more information on what they buy and with what other tokens. Why do they have to make these things so complicated?

The regular loot drops, summarized for all four victories (note that all gear was free rolled on, and priority was given to "same gear type", ie, Wild had priority on leather items, but had to defer to cloth wearers on cloth items):

1 leather item, but it was for DPS, and a rogue got it
1 dagger - also for DPS
1 mail item - Wild can't wear mail
5 plate items - sigh, Wild can't wear plate
4 cloth items - all were DPS items, two items the druids actually got to roll on, but one went to a main spec DPS/moonkin, and the other one Wild lost the roll on to another druid healer.

So, out of 12 items, Wild got to roll on just one. A very lucky paladin, the only plate wearing healer in the raid, got three of the plate items since they were healing gear.

Wild was very, very happy that he'd gotten that new idol to improve his healing. The impact of that idol was significant and without it Wild would have lagged behind the other healers by a lot. Also affecting the totals was that it was a 25 man raid, which requires a higher level of healing than the 10 mans.

There were seven healers:

#1: Pad (non guildie druid) - 3945 hps, 20.2% of all healing
#2: Rz (guild shaman) - 3025/14.2%
#3: Sp (guild druid) - 2840/13.7%
#4: Wild - 2718/11.7%
#5: p-Sb (guild priest) - 2686/10.9%
#6: Hd (guild paladin) - 1862/6.1%
#7: Hpriest (guild priest) - 1757/4.8%

I can't recall for sure, but I believe that Wild's overall 2718 hps was his best healing number, like, ever. Also, on the very healing intensive Twin Val'kyr fight, Wild broke into the top three with some amazing healing numbers: pad (5.6k hps), Rz (4.2k), and Wild (4.1k) - over 4,000 hps for Wild!

Now that Wild has a taste of what 25 man ToC is all about, Sunday night is going to be a regular raid night for sure.

Tuesday (24 Nov) - Philly and DER Push Forward

Tuesday (24 Nov) - Philly and DER Push Forward

A special GRATZ! to DER for reaching the magic max level of 80 on Tuesday night. At various times during the evening Philly and JB were in game, and at the last count DER reported he was 91% of the way there. JB had already gone to bed and Philly later followed her, thinking that DER was done for the evening. But that last 9% must have called to him, because he returned to again terrorize the alliance in Alterac Valley pvp until he DINGED to level 80. Gratz again!

Just a reminder that if readers check out the Comments below the blog entries, you would already know about DER's level 80 march from his comments in yesterday's post. So check those Comments out and post your own!

Philly finished the evening 79% of the way to level 64. She hopes to get at least that far before the Family totally goes offline for the holiday.

Now that JB and Wild have a level 80 partner in crime the world of PUG Heroics and challenges such as the 5 man version of Trial of the Champion (ToC) are more open to us. Wild won't get much gear he could use from Heroics farming, but the Conquest emblems would be very nice to have, for the things that can be purchased with them. And when patch 3.3 comes out, Heroics will yield Triumph emblems instead of Conquest, and those will buy T9 gear.

Wild has not seen much of ToC since his initial exposure when the instance was first introduced. It's an interesting event which takes place in a single room. The first part requires jousting with a random selection of named npc "Champions." Wild is not very good at that part, but he is hoping that he's soaked up some of JB's experience. JB hasn't spent much time jousting lately, but has a lot more time in the saddle than Wild. Once past that part, the players retire their mounts for the usual on foot battles, starting with one of two possible bosses, and then followed by final boss, the Black Knight.

It's a pretty straightforward fight and pretty easy in normal mode for even modestly geared players. Wild has limited experience with the 5 man ToC in Heroic mode, but one trip did get him a mace that he still uses with his moonkin spec. Of course, the loot is a lot nicer in Heroic, and DER already has his eye on a two handed axe called the [Edge of Ruin]. What a perfect name for the weapon of a death knight. The Heroic ToC gear is ilevel 219, and even Wild could still find things he could use in there.

On a real life note, the Wild Family will be largely out of action for the rest of the week and for as long as our various visitors stick around. We're looking forward to Thanksgiving and to seeing a lot of friends and family.

We are staying close to home, but for those travelling, be careful out there and come home safe. Have a joyous Thanksgiving!

Monday (23 Nov) - Idol of Flaring Growth

Monday (23 Nov) - Idol of Flaring Growth

Early, early Monday morning Happy was just getting settled in at the Auction House when Wild interrupted him. A Wintergrasp battle was about to start and Wild wanted in on it. For the second time in his long life, Wild joined a pvp battle. It was another great battle. Wild fought as a moonkin and helped cull out the allie defenders on the outer wall. Once the big siege engines could be built, Wild raced to a nearby armory, requisitioned a vehicle, and motored toward the fortress with two other vehicles. Wild picked up a gunner for the big cannon that rested atop the tank, and along with the two other vehicles we Boomed out long range explosive shot, clearing the way. There was a fierce foot soldier battle going on at the outer wall. Wild had a good gunner, who took out one of the enemy cannons on the wall as Wild maneuvered the big vehicle to the wall itself and began ramming it over and over. One of the siege vehicles had already been destroyed by the allie defenders, but Wild and the other vehicle driver kept hammering away. Both vehicles were taking damage, but we broke through to the courtyard on the other side of the wall. The two tanks plowed into the midst of the defenders inside, and a flood of horde on foot followed, trying to protect the tanks. Halfway across the courtyard the second tank blew apart, leaving only Wild's vehicle still intact but down to under 50%. The battle raged all around Wild, but Wild reached the inner wall and began ramming away. With the siege engine at 10% Wild broke through the inner wall to the central courtyard. The allies had been holding horde pvpers at bay at the front entrance, which had not yet been breached. But Wild's breach allowed the horde in from the side and once we were in the allies couldn't stop us. Wild's tank was destroyed, but that only gave Wild the chance to toss his AoEs around on foot. The horde won.

Shortly after the battle a VoA 25 started to form up, and Wild immediately asked to join in. The invite in chat was a bit misleading, as it asked for "an OT healer and a tank," which made it sound like the raid was almost full. Nope, there were only ten in the raid when Wild joined. There was another player in chat asking for VoA 25 players that was actually for this same raid. A little trickery going on, but maybe that helped get healers and tanks to sign up quickly. It certainly snagged Wild.

It was still early in the morning, so it took a little while to get a full raid together. Some of those invited to the raid Wild was a little leary of, having heard some not so nice things about them. Well, the worst thing that could happen is we fail, or some loot gets ninjaed. Wild wanted the two triumph emblems that a Koralon kill would give him. Nothing else mattered.

The raid leader had obviously done this many times. We had five healers, and one healer was placed into each of the five groups. Healers were responsible for keeping their own group alive and for helping with tank healing. There were two tanks, placed in groups one and two. Of the three druid healers and two priest healers, the raid leader opted to put what was clearly the top geared healer in the raid (I know because Wild always looks up the gear for every druid healer he works with) to group one for main tank healing. Wild got the nod for group two and off tank healing.

We worked through the trash mobs with no problem. At Koralon there was very little discussion. The raid leader made sure everyone knew who the two tanks were, made sure all the healers knew their duties, and made one raid check to make sure no one had gone afk and that everyone was buffed.

We engaged. Wild focused his healing on his group, with most of his attention on the off tank. Wild also dropped Hots on the main tank. Wild could tell from his display that the other druids were likewise tossing Hots on the off tank. So the druid healers at least knew what they were doing. Five raiders died during the fight, none in either group one or two, and Koralon went down. Wild had his triumph emblems.

Wild also had a chance at [Runetotem's Gloves of Triumph], the ilevel 245 T9 gloves, but was competing with two other druid healers and did not win the roll. It was the first T9 set piece Wild had had a chance for, and it wetted Wild's whistle for more. Wild hopes to get into a VoA 25 each week. This raid took the time to kill both of the other bosses in VoA, Emalon and Archavon, with the raid leader doing a good job of keeping the raid together after Koralon went down.

With 26 triumph emblems in his sweating cow mittens, Wild headed for the triumph emblem vendor in Dalaran. There Wild spent 25 of those emblems on [Idol of Flaring Growth], the top druid healing idol currently in game.

Wild's current idol reduces the mana cost of the rejuv spell, a very nice idol that Wild has had for a long time. Without it Wild's rejuv mana cost will go up, and Wild will to watch that. The new idol doesn't help that, but what it does do is amazing. The new idol does affect rejuv, but in a different way. Every time Wild casts rejuv, there is a 70% chance to proc nine seconds of +234 spell power (that is a ton of spell power). The 70% proc rate can be triggered every three seconds, and when you do the math, steady use of rejuv during a fight results in having that extra +234 spell power nearly 95% of the time. Wild has always wondered if the difference in Wild's healing numbers compared with other druids came significantly from Wild not having that idol. For example, in the VoA raid Wild knew he was clearly out geared by one of the druids, but the other druid had stats very similar to Wild's, but he had the Flaring Growth idol. Here is how the numbers stacked up:

#1: ace druid: 4128 hps (wow!) and 33.2% of the healing
#2: 2nd druid: 2361 hps/18.1% with Flaring Growth
#3: Wild: 2246 hps/14.8% without Flaring Growth

The two priests came in 4th and 5th. Now, since Wild was tank healing and the 2nd druid was raid healing, that would account for some of the difference in healing even without the idol, but I do think the idol was still a strong factor. Looking at the ace druid, Wild could only drool at what he could do with a full set of T9 gear, which is what this guy had.

Philly got in some considerable level grinding time. She did quests all over Hellfire Peninsula and started in on quests in Zangarmarsh next door as well. The quests were very familiar, since both Wild and then JB had also done them. Philly did crack a smile at the quest series regarding the wife who's husband has a dalliance with another woman. The "other woman" was turned into, literally, a rat at the end. The wronged wife, Carinda, gifts a very nice ring at the end of the quest chain. Philly remembered how much Wild wanted that ring, and how infatuated he became with Carinda while carrying out her bidding. For Philly, though, the ring was nice and an upgrade, but she really didn't get what Wild had seen in the vindictive Carinda.

Philly DINGED through level 62 and all the way to level 63, passing level 62 Melasahnd and making her the third highest level in the Wild family behind Wild and JB. That is, if the black sheep of the family, Naithipe, is excluded. Philly also improved her Jewelcrafting skill to 270, but that is likely to slow down as getting the mats for skill ups are tougher to get.

There were rolling restarts on all servers on Monday, and the Tuesday maintenance, while quick, resulted in broken servers and trouble getting logged on. I still think patch 3.3 is some weeks away yet, but the tinkering on the live servers is in full swing and the lag in Wintergrasp and Dalaran is only going to get worse.

Friday/Weekend (22 Nov) - Wild Goes Boomkin on Alliance

Friday/Weekend (22 Nov) - Wild Goes Boomkin on Alliance

Wild was smart enough to hang around in Dalaran until the destination for our Friday ten man raid was certain. But I was pretty sure that, with Wintergrasp Fortress in Horde control, we would be heading there first. Sure enough, as soon as we were all assembled he told us to pack our bags and make haste to Vault of Archovan (VoA) in Wintergrasp.

We started one raider short of ten, but decided to clear trash and attempt the #2 boss, Emalon, while waiting on our tenth. Given our predeliction to use two healers, Wild kept silent when it became clear the healers would be Wild and another druid, with the priest in our group going shadow spec for the extra DPS. We managed well enough, and Emalon went down on our first try.

We got our tenth raider, and we went after the big guy, Koralon. We actually did quite well on our first attempt, but the raid damage was too much for the healers to keep up while still keeping two tanks alive. Two healers would not be enough. Wild said as much to the raid leader, who surprised Wild by being surprised that we had only two raiders healing. Sometimes it's hard to fathom what this raid wants from their healers. Wild asked the priest to switch to healing spec as our third healer. We made two more attempts on Koralon, but couldn't bring him down. Wintergrasp was resetting for the next battle, and we had to leave.

On to Ulduar. We were breaking in another rookie tank as our off tank, and we were starting with the very difficult Cat Lady. The opening pull is the nastiest part of the fight, and it took four tries before the tanks worked out the kinks. The fifth attempt was near epic, as the fight seemed to go on forever, with all three druids in the raid using their battle rezzes to keep the fight going. When one of the tanks finally died, we were on the verge of wiping, but nobody gave up and seconds later Cat Lady went down. It was a troubling sign, though, that we had to ask our rogue to switch to his shaman main to help with the DPS. We were just not getting enough damage on the boss. On his shaman, he led the DPSers with over 4k DPS on the final fight. When I checked the DPS for the previous attempts, his rogue was also the lead DPSer, with over 3k DPS. Only one other raider had over 2k DPS. Under 2k DPS in Ulduar is not good, and it greatly extended the fights.

Between the Cat Lady and Iron Council attempts we had a long wait as the raid leader/main tank got a call from work and had to step away to handle it.

We were feeling a bit rushed by the time we were all ready to go again. We made four attempts on the three bosses of the Iron Council encounter, but never managed to kill even one of them. There were a lot of mistakes; even Wild cost us one of the attempts. One of the bosses has a very high damage explosion type attack that is easy to avoid by moving away from from him when he starts to cast it. Wild had measured the safe range on the first two attempts, and when I set up for the third attempt Wild went back to the same spot. I didn't notice that the tank handling that boss had positioned him closer than before. When the blast went off, it caught Wild and I died.

Four tries were all we had time for, and we had to call it a night.

Wild wasn't ready to give up on the night, however. Wild has 24 triumph emblems, and needed just one more to be able to buy the druid relic that he desperately wanted. Triumph emblems can only be earned in 25 man raids or in the daily Heroic. A new Wintergrasp battle was about to start, and often 25 man VoA raids are formed after the battle - assuming the Horde won.

Wild decided to go to Wintergrasp. It was his first ever trip into the zone for anything other than doing the fishing daily. And he went as a moonkin so that he could kill things.

Wild had a pretty good time. With three AoE spells Wild could really light up a battlefield. Add two DoTs from Moonfire and Insect Swarm, and lots of allie raiders were running around with ticking death on them. And with Wrath as his six shooter, Wild got pretty good at burning down enemy cannon as well. Running around in a chicken suit attracted a lot of unwanted attention, though, and Wild died quite a bit from focus fire attacks. Moonkin have a lot of defensive ways to stay alive, I just wasn't very good at them. I did like to drop my treants whenever I could. Having three trees running around bashing things helped confuse things a bit more. It was a longer battle than I normally see with JB, and the longer an attack goes the less likely the victory. But we got the win!

Wild started the battle with 41 lifetime kills. He ended the battle with 148. Sweet. :-)

Unfortunately, no VoA 25s formed up. Wild wanted to get a guild daily Heroic run going, but there were so few guildies around that didn't work out, either. Wild waited around hoping to catch on with a PUG group, but my luck stayed rotten and Wild finally called it a night. Maybe over the weekend Wild could get it done.

However, there was very little action over the weekend from anyone in the Wild Family. With Thanksgiving coming and several friends and relatives coming to stay with us, most of the weekend was tied up with preparations. Wild even had to bow out of the new 25 man raid scheduled for Sunday, which I really hated to do. Wild isn't sure about Monday night's old school raid, either, but maybe we'll get enough done so that Wild can get there.