Synopsis
Yesterday I joined a guild 10 man hardmodes try. To my surprise, I liked it a lot.
I haven't played a lot of 10 man. The days that there is no guild raid scheduled I tend to want to spent otherwise. Invest some time in real life and not play 50+ hours wow anymore. Also 10 man didn't appeal to me. There is nothing to get there. Most of the loot I want is in 25 man.
Since we are struggling with getting 25 man runs going, and some kills (Yogg) are very sucky without 25. So we yesterday (for Europeans last day of the raiding week) skipped 25 man. Left it for what it was and continued the 10 man hardmode run some of us had already started.
2 weeks ago a lot of hardmodes for unlocking Agalon were done already. So this week there were 2 left basically. Freya 3 watchers + Mimiron. How much as I hate Freya 25 man I really loved playing Freya 10 man. The raid consisted of a lot of the top notch best players from our guild. The discipline was amazing! All knew what to do, nobody making much mistakes. A little bit learning there was involved and we killed her.
Now I must say Freya 10 man is quite a bit easier then 25 man. But still.
We went on to try Mimiron. That fight is incredibly hard. I liked to really progress raid here. After 10 tries we managed to get to phase 2 with 10 people alive. We got him to about 40% when only our DK tank was still alive. He actually managed to get him to 33% before he himself died. Which was fun to see. Mimiron vs a DK for 2 minutes long!
Having some bosses left we decided not to wipe there endlessly and killed him normal mode. Nobody touched a mine... but me :( Achievement gone. It was phase 4 and I had seen the gap, went for it but the damn middle and top part obstructed my view. The thing above him there also doesn't count for a wall so you can (not) see right through. I hate the way this fight is in that manner. Next Time I better strafe out.
We then went for Vezax. We did his hardmode really close a few times but it ended up with the MT dying. Not because of mana problems, but because he wasn't healed enough. Sad to not have gotten him, but still amused by the enjoyment we had gotten from the fight, we killed him normal mode and moved to Yogg Saron. After a accidental wipe we then were well adjusted and did him hard mode (within 7 minutes) which wasn't really a chalenge and then went to finish off council, ending up oneshotting them hardmode with the big guy killed last.
Now you are thinking; "Ok. What is this post about?"
In reference to my previous post I am a bit confused. I liked 10 man hardmodes. I don't feel for 25 man hardmodes. Should I stop doing 25 man and only do 10 man? Why did I like 10 man so much? Because it was easy? Because it was attainable?
I think it is the following; We were a group of 10 very good players. If I have to name 6 of the top players in my guild they were all in that group.
So I think the conclusion in respect to my previous post, next to what was said in there (which was true), also the following is contributing to the fact that I dislike Ulduar (or Blizzards way of implementing instances now);
Blizzard made it "easy" for all to clear naxx. A lot of people joined in good raiding guilds, replacing some excellent players that just stop (it happens too), but aren't really that good. My guild tries to have only the best players but since they are spread too thin on my server we have the problem that we don't have the luxury to do it anymore. There simply aren't that many good players.
The one thing to hope for is that my guild holds out and some other top guild doesn't. Hoping a guild will fail is not really nice, but it is the only thing that is a real solution. There are 4 other horde guilds having the same problems we do. Not enough (skilled) raiders. If one of them tumbles we would get a couple of their players and get a full group of good players. I think that is one of the things that would make my joy in 25 man raiding come back.
Still next to the summer and people having vacation time Blizzard is to blame for this too. There is less skill required to play, making "bad" players go unnoticed. Rather then blame the players, I blame Blizzard's current implementation. The players don't have to improve themselves. It is simply not needed. Pre WotLK when we got a new player we knew we had to put some extra time in him/her. You would see him underperform. Currently you don't, meaning the whole group of players performs not as good as they should/could.
Showing posts with label Ulduar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ulduar. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Friday, May 8, 2009
Trashloot
Synopsis
Some mobs in Ulduar have guaranteed trash epix??? Do not miss them. Get em all!
Last wednesday when we were doing Ulduar 25 we went for Hodir. Now what happened there might be pure luck, a glitch or it might be intended.
The trash before Hodir consists of 4 different kinds of mobs:
Then a bit further in, the cave forks. At that point is the second giant. He dropped an epic.
Now here you go left, clear some other trash and you are at Hodir. WRONG! Go right. It is a dead end. No trash at all, except for 1 giant. And guess what? He dropped an epic too.
So whenever you are clearing towards Hodir, don't forget to clear the giant at the right.
Some mobs in Ulduar have guaranteed trash epix??? Do not miss them. Get em all!
Last wednesday when we were doing Ulduar 25 we went for Hodir. Now what happened there might be pure luck, a glitch or it might be intended.
The trash before Hodir consists of 4 different kinds of mobs:
- small snakes that spawn from heaps of snow;
- large stone elementals, who are accompanied by...
- .. 3 smaller stone elementals;
- big giants.
Then a bit further in, the cave forks. At that point is the second giant. He dropped an epic.
Now here you go left, clear some other trash and you are at Hodir. WRONG! Go right. It is a dead end. No trash at all, except for 1 giant. And guess what? He dropped an epic too.
So whenever you are clearing towards Hodir, don't forget to clear the giant at the right.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
I am so happy now!
Synopsis
It has been a bit quiet from me in posting. Was thinking about making a post on General Vezax dps (which is the best fight for me). But I think I'll wait for that a bit cause with my recent upgrade I might overagro the tank this week.
Pictures say more then words...
Today was a real nice raiding day. We had a few stupid wipes. Killed 7 bosses in Ulduar, all of the Vault and Malygos and Sarth2d, just for the loot. All withing a normal raiding time (4 hours... a bit more).
We killed Thorim, oneshotted him. I got my t8.5 helmet. Completing my whole t8.5 set. I am even hitcapped now in cps gear. Would like a bit more expertise tbh, but I am quite happy I have 18% spell hit rating on Growl ;)
And what I am even more happy about... I got the most imba weapon in the game at the moment (excluding the pvp one). Twisted Visage.
Kinda sad that the only upgrades I can get most likely will not change the way I look. So till 3.2 this is what I look like. Maybe I get a better tanking helmet.
It has been a bit quiet from me in posting. Was thinking about making a post on General Vezax dps (which is the best fight for me). But I think I'll wait for that a bit cause with my recent upgrade I might overagro the tank this week.
Pictures say more then words...
Today was a real nice raiding day. We had a few stupid wipes. Killed 7 bosses in Ulduar, all of the Vault and Malygos and Sarth2d, just for the loot. All withing a normal raiding time (4 hours... a bit more).
We killed Thorim, oneshotted him. I got my t8.5 helmet. Completing my whole t8.5 set. I am even hitcapped now in cps gear. Would like a bit more expertise tbh, but I am quite happy I have 18% spell hit rating on Growl ;)
And what I am even more happy about... I got the most imba weapon in the game at the moment (excluding the pvp one). Twisted Visage.
Kinda sad that the only upgrades I can get most likely will not change the way I look. So till 3.2 this is what I look like. Maybe I get a better tanking helmet.
Friday, May 1, 2009
Epic Movie
Synopsis
This movie of Yogg-saron got me even more excited then the kill itself... and it is our kill!
This is truly the most epic movie I have ever seen on wow. I made bosskill movies on all bosses in TBC, except for 2 and SW. And though I thought they were great, this one beats them all combined. The music is awesome and the kill is good too. It is made by Stoke, our DK Tank who used to be our Lock. He is also responsible for the How to Paladin moview. It has a 5/5 rating on Warcraftmovies.com
Download the whole full thing. It is of superb quality.
If you don't want to, here is youtube embed too.
PS, I am the only cat in there. Easy to spot.
Link to Warcraftmovies.com
Part 1
Part 2
This movie of Yogg-saron got me even more excited then the kill itself... and it is our kill!
This is truly the most epic movie I have ever seen on wow. I made bosskill movies on all bosses in TBC, except for 2 and SW. And though I thought they were great, this one beats them all combined. The music is awesome and the kill is good too. It is made by Stoke, our DK Tank who used to be our Lock. He is also responsible for the How to Paladin moview. It has a 5/5 rating on Warcraftmovies.com
Download the whole full thing. It is of superb quality.
If you don't want to, here is youtube embed too.
PS, I am the only cat in there. Easy to spot.
Link to Warcraftmovies.com
Part 1
Part 2
Normal mode
Synopis
Ulduar 10 man cleared too.
Today we started raiding at a little past 19:30. There were not enough people available for 25 so we did 10 man. First time I was there 10 man. We had cleared all bosses by 2:20. Ok a bit late, so it is not a real one raid kill but it soon will.
Unbelievable how easy Ulduar 10 man is. I fucked up on Yogg-saron otherwise that too would have been a oneshot without death. We did about 4 hard modes/extra achievement things, gotten 6 boses oneshotted without a death. Ulduar 10 man is really easy.
I'll do it next week and the next and just simply farm achievements. There are a few really hard ones, but a lot of things are really forgiving.
Ulduar 10 man cleared too.
Today we started raiding at a little past 19:30. There were not enough people available for 25 so we did 10 man. First time I was there 10 man. We had cleared all bosses by 2:20. Ok a bit late, so it is not a real one raid kill but it soon will.
Unbelievable how easy Ulduar 10 man is. I fucked up on Yogg-saron otherwise that too would have been a oneshot without death. We did about 4 hard modes/extra achievement things, gotten 6 boses oneshotted without a death. Ulduar 10 man is really easy.
I'll do it next week and the next and just simply farm achievements. There are a few really hard ones, but a lot of things are really forgiving.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Ulduar cleared!
Synosis
Last night at a it before 23:00 we killed Yogg-saron and we officially cleared (for now) Ulduar.
Last week Tuesday we first saw Yogg-saron when we, after about 15 tries we managed to briefly see phase 2 before we all died.
This week after in total 2.5 wipenights this night resulted in a kill. The problem we had was mostly the switch between phase 2 and 3. We got that down 2-ce. The first time it was a 6% wipe where we got some real good practices on switching between the mobs. The last time it was an excellent performance..
I again got the t8.5 item. I have gotten so many items because of tanking loot prio (though I dps more often then tank recently) that I now have 4/5 items. When we stop with tanking prio it will be a long while before I get any item I ever want again.
Don't I look great?
Last night at a it before 23:00 we killed Yogg-saron and we officially cleared (for now) Ulduar.
Last week Tuesday we first saw Yogg-saron when we, after about 15 tries we managed to briefly see phase 2 before we all died.
This week after in total 2.5 wipenights this night resulted in a kill. The problem we had was mostly the switch between phase 2 and 3. We got that down 2-ce. The first time it was a 6% wipe where we got some real good practices on switching between the mobs. The last time it was an excellent performance..
I again got the t8.5 item. I have gotten so many items because of tanking loot prio (though I dps more often then tank recently) that I now have 4/5 items. When we stop with tanking prio it will be a long while before I get any item I ever want again.
Don't I look great?
Friday, April 24, 2009
Ulduar WWS
Synopsis
Cat dps is really nice! Really nice. However some fights are not made for us.
My raidleader finally got to put up some WWS from fights.
First up General Vezax (last week). We did some wrong strategies on him to start out with. Ranged dps gets an imba buff but not for the fights where we were.
WWS Vezax tries
(Showing only Bosses, I was tanking on trash).
I do not have the Savage Roar glyph yet and in most of the fights I needed to mangle. In all fairness the DK often had to pull a cloud and the rogues were on interrupt duty. For the tries that we did with the tactic that got em down in the 4th try the next day, the WWS is bugged. There was more ranged dps at the top. The last try we took him down on I really screwed up my rotation. A try before that I was at nr1 damage done, 5.2k dps (recount data) 4 or 5 minutes into the fight.
Other fights are often not as nice for druids. Our main dps comes from Rip. We do ok, but when Rip comes in we go to the top. There are a lot of fights that have us on waves of trash. That is not nice for us.
This week we took down 10 bosses in 2 days already. I was there for all fights this time and tanked a lot. I listed the bosses below. Linked a WWS for most of em. (Those that are not linked you can find if you select different fights in the other WWS)
Flame leviathan
Fun fight, no traditional fight. So nothing much I can say about it.
XT-002
Cat; Was new for me. We 2-shotted him so I never got the chance to learn the fight. The rogues are up there so I should be near there too. However the boss completely becoming immune a couple of times in the fight means you loose all dots. My dps should be higher, though it is more suited for rogues.
Kalogarn
Cat; We 2-shotted this one too. So my dps is low again. I was learning the fight, while most knew what to do. Though the targets that are up are really good for cat DPS. When you are on the arm you will move away before it dies and let ranged finish it. In that time you can have Rip ticking while you focus on the main target.
Auriaya
The only boss we really had difficulties with that day.
I was tank here. You need 4 tanks to survive the 4 adds which die within a minute. Makes you pretty much useless for the rest of the fight. The main task I set before myself was to make sure nobody died. Whenever the large pack of little cats was nuking 1 guy I did Demoralising Roar. I think it is really helpful, though in later fights healers got it down and never let a person die again.
Something else I did was assist in killing the jumping add away from the raid. Taunting it too when the jumping was over. If he dies in the pack the whole raid is standing in a voidzone. This guy is really not tankable. Control of raid dps is a must here.
We then skipped a few bosses;
Hodir
Main Tanked him all the way. Full frost resistance.
Freya
Tanked adds here. We tried 3 tries with 1 tree up. That is really hard. Because it was late we took it down and killed Freya easily.
The next day...
Thorim
Tanking; The gauntlet was not that hard anymore (after wiping the weak before for a few hours). Get 2 mages to sheep the whirlwinding mobs that stun. Didn't do the gauntlet though, I tanked in the arena.
At first we tanked em in 3 groups (3 tanks). We didn't get the adds down, though that should not be really bad since you just need to survive till the gauntlet is done. However the less adds the better. Best to do is all aoe tank in the center. The tank who gets agro tanks the champions. These need to be disarmed and there is no real problem. All adds get aoe'd down.
Then when Thorim comes he does a real nasty debuff to tanks once in a while, that will get em easily killed. We started taunting and having alternative tanking by 2 tanks. Though phase 1 might not need that much tanks when all stay in the center, it is a nice thing to have 4 tanks so you can risk 2 dying. However we needed to battleress them too.
Mimiron
Cat; Something like last week. No WWS available. I managed to see dps I did in phase 1. 5.2k and top 3 for sure. Even with running in and out. In phase 2 you need to run to his back all the time and dps suffers. In phase 3 I stood under the head again. Doing nothing, just soaking blows from bomb bots bearform, cat gear and spec. Dps suffered there enormously.
Phase 4 I was again high on dps. When the tank died the lower part immediately turned to me and before I could go bear I died. Not my fault I died this time. Luckily our DPS DK tanked him till the end.
It was near the end of the raid day and with 30 minute trash killing ahead we went back and took some bosses we skipped.
Razorscale
Tanked adds; oneshotted him. Can't believe how easy he was. Of course most of us knew the fight already, but the tactics were so simple to learn and understand.
Ignis the Furnace Master
Tanking; The boss our guild knows the best of all guilds on my server probably. We had the server's first kill. This boss has been fixed and hugely nerfed. Kiting him, I only was in danger once (35% health) and I used Barkskin. Since nobody died in the fight we all got the meta-part for the immortal variant in Ulduar.
2 days of no raiding ahead. Getting some sleep, reading, replying to Tarskin. Sunday we'll get to Yogg-saron and hopefully/probably kill him on monday or teusday.
PS I have 3 t8.5 items now. The gloves. Using EPGP (dkp) system I will get such a low rating that after we stop with tanking prio it will take 3 months for me to get another item.
Do I now have 2t8 in cat? Sadly no. I have the gloves from Malygos (226) that have a lot of hit. Replacing that 226 gloves and nerfing the rest of my gear to get hitcapped again for another 226 item just for the 2t8 set... I don't know if I should do it. I rather save some emblems for the headslot item and get that enchanted properly.
Cat dps is really nice! Really nice. However some fights are not made for us.
My raidleader finally got to put up some WWS from fights.
First up General Vezax (last week). We did some wrong strategies on him to start out with. Ranged dps gets an imba buff but not for the fights where we were.
WWS Vezax tries
(Showing only Bosses, I was tanking on trash).
I do not have the Savage Roar glyph yet and in most of the fights I needed to mangle. In all fairness the DK often had to pull a cloud and the rogues were on interrupt duty. For the tries that we did with the tactic that got em down in the 4th try the next day, the WWS is bugged. There was more ranged dps at the top. The last try we took him down on I really screwed up my rotation. A try before that I was at nr1 damage done, 5.2k dps (recount data) 4 or 5 minutes into the fight.
Other fights are often not as nice for druids. Our main dps comes from Rip. We do ok, but when Rip comes in we go to the top. There are a lot of fights that have us on waves of trash. That is not nice for us.
This week we took down 10 bosses in 2 days already. I was there for all fights this time and tanked a lot. I listed the bosses below. Linked a WWS for most of em. (Those that are not linked you can find if you select different fights in the other WWS)
Flame leviathan
Fun fight, no traditional fight. So nothing much I can say about it.
XT-002
Cat; Was new for me. We 2-shotted him so I never got the chance to learn the fight. The rogues are up there so I should be near there too. However the boss completely becoming immune a couple of times in the fight means you loose all dots. My dps should be higher, though it is more suited for rogues.
Kalogarn
Cat; We 2-shotted this one too. So my dps is low again. I was learning the fight, while most knew what to do. Though the targets that are up are really good for cat DPS. When you are on the arm you will move away before it dies and let ranged finish it. In that time you can have Rip ticking while you focus on the main target.
Auriaya
The only boss we really had difficulties with that day.
I was tank here. You need 4 tanks to survive the 4 adds which die within a minute. Makes you pretty much useless for the rest of the fight. The main task I set before myself was to make sure nobody died. Whenever the large pack of little cats was nuking 1 guy I did Demoralising Roar. I think it is really helpful, though in later fights healers got it down and never let a person die again.
Something else I did was assist in killing the jumping add away from the raid. Taunting it too when the jumping was over. If he dies in the pack the whole raid is standing in a voidzone. This guy is really not tankable. Control of raid dps is a must here.
We then skipped a few bosses;
Hodir
Main Tanked him all the way. Full frost resistance.
Freya
Tanked adds here. We tried 3 tries with 1 tree up. That is really hard. Because it was late we took it down and killed Freya easily.
The next day...
Thorim
Tanking; The gauntlet was not that hard anymore (after wiping the weak before for a few hours). Get 2 mages to sheep the whirlwinding mobs that stun. Didn't do the gauntlet though, I tanked in the arena.
At first we tanked em in 3 groups (3 tanks). We didn't get the adds down, though that should not be really bad since you just need to survive till the gauntlet is done. However the less adds the better. Best to do is all aoe tank in the center. The tank who gets agro tanks the champions. These need to be disarmed and there is no real problem. All adds get aoe'd down.
Then when Thorim comes he does a real nasty debuff to tanks once in a while, that will get em easily killed. We started taunting and having alternative tanking by 2 tanks. Though phase 1 might not need that much tanks when all stay in the center, it is a nice thing to have 4 tanks so you can risk 2 dying. However we needed to battleress them too.
Mimiron
Cat; Something like last week. No WWS available. I managed to see dps I did in phase 1. 5.2k and top 3 for sure. Even with running in and out. In phase 2 you need to run to his back all the time and dps suffers. In phase 3 I stood under the head again. Doing nothing, just soaking blows from bomb bots bearform, cat gear and spec. Dps suffered there enormously.
Phase 4 I was again high on dps. When the tank died the lower part immediately turned to me and before I could go bear I died. Not my fault I died this time. Luckily our DPS DK tanked him till the end.
It was near the end of the raid day and with 30 minute trash killing ahead we went back and took some bosses we skipped.
Razorscale
Tanked adds; oneshotted him. Can't believe how easy he was. Of course most of us knew the fight already, but the tactics were so simple to learn and understand.
Ignis the Furnace Master
Tanking; The boss our guild knows the best of all guilds on my server probably. We had the server's first kill. This boss has been fixed and hugely nerfed. Kiting him, I only was in danger once (35% health) and I used Barkskin. Since nobody died in the fight we all got the meta-part for the immortal variant in Ulduar.
2 days of no raiding ahead. Getting some sleep, reading, replying to Tarskin. Sunday we'll get to Yogg-saron and hopefully/probably kill him on monday or teusday.
PS I have 3 t8.5 items now. The gloves. Using EPGP (dkp) system I will get such a low rating that after we stop with tanking prio it will take 3 months for me to get another item.
Do I now have 2t8 in cat? Sadly no. I have the gloves from Malygos (226) that have a lot of hit. Replacing that 226 gloves and nerfing the rest of my gear to get hitcapped again for another 226 item just for the 2t8 set... I don't know if I should do it. I rather save some emblems for the headslot item and get that enchanted properly.
Monday, April 20, 2009
First Mimiron - an epic story
Synopsis
Last night we killed Mimiron. It wasn't pretty. But then it wouldn't be epic now would it?
Last night was the 4th day of raiding in Ulduar for our guild. We skipped Saturday and went at it again on Sunday.
We went back to the hotfixed Ignis and killed him, first on the server. We got the server first because we spent 3 hours wiping on him on Wednesday already (before the fix). After that we went to Mimiron, who promised to be a real challenge. I wasn't there for the most part. Wasn't online soon enough and the raid was full as we don't use signups while progress raiding. As soon as enough people are online we go at it.
I did get subbed in at Mimiron and then got subbed out (see my previous post).
Then I got back in and we got to phase 4 that try with half the raid alive. The next try we went to phase 4 again, but this time with all 25 people alive. This is where it became epic.
None of us had any real practice on phase 4. Though phase 4 is a combination of phase 1, 2 and 3. So we acted like it was phase 1, dodging the barrage and having a tank on the head.
However for me phase 4 ended very quickly. The lower part started to cast his aoe and I ran out. Hard to see where mines are (with the middle and top part stacked on top of the lower part) I managed to not hit any mine! I turned around and ran to his back again. Just at that time it occurred to me that he was doing barrage. Which is like Lurker but slower and only 150 degrees or so.
You might wonder: How did you notice the barrage then. Well I saw my fat Tauren corpse on the floor. That was pretty much it for me.
The fight continued though. One by one we started dying (I was not the first to die btw). Rockets, barrage, the top part killing our ranged tank, some melee getting hit by a mine, and of course the normal shooting an hitting of the middle and bottom part respectively.
All 3 parts have to die simultaneously (within 10 or 15 seconds), or they repair to 50%. So we were trying to coordinate that. First time ever we were doing that so it was 3 people yelling different numbers on vent. "Stop at 5!" - "It is at 3.5" - "Bottom part is at 2.1million" - "No stop at 5%"
When you kill them there is actually a small bar left. They are not fully dead. So it is kinda hard to see if a part is dead or not. Because of people dying we had to take them close to death or else we could not burst the last few to death.
The lower part died first, then the head, though it seemed the head had died first. The few people left were nuking all they had. At that point the lower part was at 20% health again. It had started repair! People on vent crying out in dispair when just at that moment: DING! 25 people had gotten the achievement. Apparently the lower part had not repaired fully yet meaning it was still dead.
The raidleader and tank were so overjoyed they accidentally ran into a mine afterwards and died. We had 6 people left standing.
Next up General Vezax.
Status: 10 bosses down, 3 server first kills, 10 horde first kills. Working on general Vezax atm.
PS. A lot is happening in wow now. Making a pretty large number of posts. Be sure to check if you didn't miss any.
Last night we killed Mimiron. It wasn't pretty. But then it wouldn't be epic now would it?
Last night was the 4th day of raiding in Ulduar for our guild. We skipped Saturday and went at it again on Sunday.
We went back to the hotfixed Ignis and killed him, first on the server. We got the server first because we spent 3 hours wiping on him on Wednesday already (before the fix). After that we went to Mimiron, who promised to be a real challenge. I wasn't there for the most part. Wasn't online soon enough and the raid was full as we don't use signups while progress raiding. As soon as enough people are online we go at it.
I did get subbed in at Mimiron and then got subbed out (see my previous post).
Then I got back in and we got to phase 4 that try with half the raid alive. The next try we went to phase 4 again, but this time with all 25 people alive. This is where it became epic.
None of us had any real practice on phase 4. Though phase 4 is a combination of phase 1, 2 and 3. So we acted like it was phase 1, dodging the barrage and having a tank on the head.
However for me phase 4 ended very quickly. The lower part started to cast his aoe and I ran out. Hard to see where mines are (with the middle and top part stacked on top of the lower part) I managed to not hit any mine! I turned around and ran to his back again. Just at that time it occurred to me that he was doing barrage. Which is like Lurker but slower and only 150 degrees or so.
You might wonder: How did you notice the barrage then. Well I saw my fat Tauren corpse on the floor. That was pretty much it for me.
The fight continued though. One by one we started dying (I was not the first to die btw). Rockets, barrage, the top part killing our ranged tank, some melee getting hit by a mine, and of course the normal shooting an hitting of the middle and bottom part respectively.
All 3 parts have to die simultaneously (within 10 or 15 seconds), or they repair to 50%. So we were trying to coordinate that. First time ever we were doing that so it was 3 people yelling different numbers on vent. "Stop at 5!" - "It is at 3.5" - "Bottom part is at 2.1million" - "No stop at 5%"
When you kill them there is actually a small bar left. They are not fully dead. So it is kinda hard to see if a part is dead or not. Because of people dying we had to take them close to death or else we could not burst the last few to death.
The lower part died first, then the head, though it seemed the head had died first. The few people left were nuking all they had. At that point the lower part was at 20% health again. It had started repair! People on vent crying out in dispair when just at that moment: DING! 25 people had gotten the achievement. Apparently the lower part had not repaired fully yet meaning it was still dead.
The raidleader and tank were so overjoyed they accidentally ran into a mine afterwards and died. We had 6 people left standing.
Next up General Vezax.
Status: 10 bosses down, 3 server first kills, 10 horde first kills. Working on general Vezax atm.
PS. A lot is happening in wow now. Making a pretty large number of posts. Be sure to check if you didn't miss any.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Hey everybody come and see how great I look!
Synopsis
I GOT T8.5 !!!
Just a quick one. got little time. And any time I have I should be raiding but...
I am the first horde on the server to have t8.5 chest, together with a warrior from my guild. Probably the allied guild Revelations got that already. Good chance I am the first druid.
We killed Hodir. He was super easy really. First try we got him to 41%. We took him down third try. I MT-ed with full frost resistance (535).
Some DBM lag (I think) made the other tank die. I Taunted him off too late, though I taunted him as soon as possible. He was supposed to tank without much frost resistance. I don't know why we used 2 tanks to begin with. I tanked him solo the last 30%, though threat was a bit low (with 4 frost items with no offensive stats at all). But I held it ok.
More on Ulduar to come.
Status now: 6 bosses down. (Of course Heroic, what else is there).
First 2 bosses were server fists. The rest is horde first.
I GOT T8.5 !!!
Just a quick one. got little time. And any time I have I should be raiding but...
I am the first horde on the server to have t8.5 chest, together with a warrior from my guild. Probably the allied guild Revelations got that already. Good chance I am the first druid.
We killed Hodir. He was super easy really. First try we got him to 41%. We took him down third try. I MT-ed with full frost resistance (535).
Some DBM lag (I think) made the other tank die. I Taunted him off too late, though I taunted him as soon as possible. He was supposed to tank without much frost resistance. I don't know why we used 2 tanks to begin with. I tanked him solo the last 30%, though threat was a bit low (with 4 frost items with no offensive stats at all). But I held it ok.
More on Ulduar to come.
Status now: 6 bosses down. (Of course Heroic, what else is there).
First 2 bosses were server fists. The rest is horde first.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Maim my ass off... (Blogsourcing)
Synopsis
With not much melee around there is a good chance you will be maiming in Ulduar.
Last night I was in PTR in Ulduar, testing General Vezax. There was no thrash this time, but compared to last time we only had 1 rogue. The people that could interrupt were that rogue, 1 DK, me and an other druid in catform. I never was in a raid as feral, so I don't even know if Maim could interrupt spellcasts on bosses before 3.0.
Anyway it sucks! For kick a rogue only needs 25 energy. For maim we need to have Combopoints and it costs us 35 energy. A major DPS nerf. When it is your time to interrupt you want to be able to do that immediately. And you have to be ready!. That meant that it sometimes took 20 seconds of waiting time. 20 seconds of keeping GCD ready, 20 seconds of seeing your energy being full, 20 seconds in which you see Rip, SR, Mangle and Rake all drop off from your target... So fair to say my DPS was not optimal. That plus there was a dps nerf about 700 dps for cats on that boss. Well I think it would be about 700 dps even if I didn't interupt.
Also TellMeWhen still isn't fixed and instead of only showing my debuffs it shows debuffs casted by others too, though mine has priority, meaning it will show my rip with 2 seconds left before the other druid's rip with 16 seconds left. But after my Rip is gone it will show the other druid's Rip.
My dps could have been higher but the bossfight itself is totally unreliable too. We were playing from Europe and the server is in the US. That meant we had a .325 latency. Meaning I see the spellcast when it is already going and the boss knows I maimed him somewhat later too. So I had to keep GCD ready.
But it is my thought the boss is bugged. Because of a special shirt GM's provided us for this fight we were all hitcapped and my maim did always hit. The split second I saw the spell being cast I maimed but often the boss kept on casting his spell anyway. He also has the tendency to, after having a cast go through, cast 2 more after that, without others being ready for that. So that was a definite wipe every time.
Now the blogsourcing part of the post; I have a question for you on why maim doesn't always work.
Also I checked combat log and I wonder how that works too. My combat log showed me casting maim and doing x damage. 2 lines below that I saw the General Vezax his spell hit me. The thing I want to know on how that works is: Is the combat log local or server side? For instance, chat is server side. When you type a message and there is a lag you will not see the message. The message has to be processed by the server first and then will be given back to you (and whomever it may concern) and only then the message can be read. Does the combat log work the same? If you maim does the server have to process it and then you will see the maim in your combat log or will the combat log show it the second you cast it, not considering whether the server has received the maim?
PS in this case it could have been that the cast was ready before I maimed and that during those 2 lines I mentioned earlier the spell was traveling from him towards me. Still the change for that is really small, because since I was in melee range the spell (aoe) would have to hit me immediately.
With not much melee around there is a good chance you will be maiming in Ulduar.
Last night I was in PTR in Ulduar, testing General Vezax. There was no thrash this time, but compared to last time we only had 1 rogue. The people that could interrupt were that rogue, 1 DK, me and an other druid in catform. I never was in a raid as feral, so I don't even know if Maim could interrupt spellcasts on bosses before 3.0.
Anyway it sucks! For kick a rogue only needs 25 energy. For maim we need to have Combopoints and it costs us 35 energy. A major DPS nerf. When it is your time to interrupt you want to be able to do that immediately. And you have to be ready!. That meant that it sometimes took 20 seconds of waiting time. 20 seconds of keeping GCD ready, 20 seconds of seeing your energy being full, 20 seconds in which you see Rip, SR, Mangle and Rake all drop off from your target... So fair to say my DPS was not optimal. That plus there was a dps nerf about 700 dps for cats on that boss. Well I think it would be about 700 dps even if I didn't interupt.
Also TellMeWhen still isn't fixed and instead of only showing my debuffs it shows debuffs casted by others too, though mine has priority, meaning it will show my rip with 2 seconds left before the other druid's rip with 16 seconds left. But after my Rip is gone it will show the other druid's Rip.
My dps could have been higher but the bossfight itself is totally unreliable too. We were playing from Europe and the server is in the US. That meant we had a .325 latency. Meaning I see the spellcast when it is already going and the boss knows I maimed him somewhat later too. So I had to keep GCD ready.
But it is my thought the boss is bugged. Because of a special shirt GM's provided us for this fight we were all hitcapped and my maim did always hit. The split second I saw the spell being cast I maimed but often the boss kept on casting his spell anyway. He also has the tendency to, after having a cast go through, cast 2 more after that, without others being ready for that. So that was a definite wipe every time.
Now the blogsourcing part of the post; I have a question for you on why maim doesn't always work.
Also I checked combat log and I wonder how that works too. My combat log showed me casting maim and doing x damage. 2 lines below that I saw the General Vezax his spell hit me. The thing I want to know on how that works is: Is the combat log local or server side? For instance, chat is server side. When you type a message and there is a lag you will not see the message. The message has to be processed by the server first and then will be given back to you (and whomever it may concern) and only then the message can be read. Does the combat log work the same? If you maim does the server have to process it and then you will see the maim in your combat log or will the combat log show it the second you cast it, not considering whether the server has received the maim?
PS in this case it could have been that the cast was ready before I maimed and that during those 2 lines I mentioned earlier the spell was traveling from him towards me. Still the change for that is really small, because since I was in melee range the spell (aoe) would have to hit me immediately.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
You are not prepaired...
Synopsis
Preparation for Ulduar non stop hardcore raiding.
So Ulduar is coming in a few weeks. We plan to be raiding whenever enough people are online to do so. No set times, just whenever possible. Subbing people in and out.
This means there is not much time to grind and prepare for a raid in between, unless you are frequently online during the day or late.
I am starting a new job (though part time) soon and I have other work beside that. So not many long nights ahead and playtime during the day is cut too.
So... I prepared myself:
This is my own bank-alt's guildbank btw.
Since the flasks are gonna change (2 flasks for the same mats, lasting only 1 hour) I haven't crafted them yet. I have been told you can change the old flasks for new ones once 3.1 hits, but still. I rather keep the ingredients ready.
A small 300 speed potions, about 130 armor potions and mats for 40 1h AP and 40 1h health flasks (filled the non-full stack of frost lotus to 20 at this point).
For food I have dumped materials in our guildbank to make 80 fish feasts. Next to that I fished 400 Dragonfin Angelfish. Took me 5.5 hours btw. Now I have 240 agility food ready and waiting (had 40 left) and I have some strength food too.
When I get new gear it will need gems and enchants. So instead of selling them I have a stack of about 10 to 14 of each kind of rare gem (uncut) lying around and if some nice craftable leather items drop (when they are not BoP), I have between 30 and 60 eternals of each kind too. I am an enchanter so my enchanting mats are plenty too. I got leg enchants lying around and enough frost oil for the inscriptions on shoulders (I am inscriber).
So yeah... I am prepared...
Preparation for Ulduar non stop hardcore raiding.
So Ulduar is coming in a few weeks. We plan to be raiding whenever enough people are online to do so. No set times, just whenever possible. Subbing people in and out.
This means there is not much time to grind and prepare for a raid in between, unless you are frequently online during the day or late.
I am starting a new job (though part time) soon and I have other work beside that. So not many long nights ahead and playtime during the day is cut too.
So... I prepared myself:
This is my own bank-alt's guildbank btw.
Since the flasks are gonna change (2 flasks for the same mats, lasting only 1 hour) I haven't crafted them yet. I have been told you can change the old flasks for new ones once 3.1 hits, but still. I rather keep the ingredients ready.
A small 300 speed potions, about 130 armor potions and mats for 40 1h AP and 40 1h health flasks (filled the non-full stack of frost lotus to 20 at this point).
For food I have dumped materials in our guildbank to make 80 fish feasts. Next to that I fished 400 Dragonfin Angelfish. Took me 5.5 hours btw. Now I have 240 agility food ready and waiting (had 40 left) and I have some strength food too.
When I get new gear it will need gems and enchants. So instead of selling them I have a stack of about 10 to 14 of each kind of rare gem (uncut) lying around and if some nice craftable leather items drop (when they are not BoP), I have between 30 and 60 eternals of each kind too. I am an enchanter so my enchanting mats are plenty too. I got leg enchants lying around and enough frost oil for the inscriptions on shoulders (I am inscriber).
So yeah... I am prepared...
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Ulduar testing - General Vezax
Synopsis
Ulduar is fun!
2 days ago I went to Ulduar on PTR to test General Vezax. Finally there was hard trash!
It was really fun to do a boss/trash of which you know virtually nothing.
First of all there are no glyphs in PTR testing. They disappear when you zone. So there was no glyph of maul. If you have that glyph (and you should, there is a good chance you are tanking 2 mobs, like I did), you need to make sure you don't hit a cc-ed target. Yes you hear it. You need to cc trash!
In the rest of the post you will find some description of the fight, a bit on tactics and how druids are good with that. Also at the end there is some remark of awesome druid dps.
The trash before the boss consists of 4 packs. They are all level 82 (heroic 5-man boss level). The pack consists of about 9 or 10 mobs. You have to work with corner pulls and MD to tanks so the mobs will come closer before you attack. You need 2 tanks minimum, but with the great thing called dual spec you can have a couple of melee dps convert to tank for the trash if you want. You'll need to cc 4 or 5 mobs. Some mobs fear, others stun. Fear will wipe you if you run into a second group.
So tactics is back. Now we are finally getting a buff to swipe we might not even want it because you have to be away from cc-ed mobs instead of standing with your ass to them.
After killing 2 of the 4 groups (in our case the 1st and 3rd group) a sort of miniboss (hard mob) is set loose. It will patrol and you will agro it. You need to pick it up and tank. It will shoot out some kind or shadow thing which you can easily walk away from if you watch for it. At 25% intervals there will be an add spawning and the boss will become immune untill the add is down.
We did the trash with 3 tanks, me being one of them, tanking 2 melee adds. I felt safer using cooldowns on them once in a while. That is how hard they are. I have no real testing information on the tanking though.
I didn't get too much info on the boss. After 5 tries Ulduar shut down. Some things I know of, the boss itself hits very hard and there is no mana regen for mana users. Max int gear is needed. You need to stand in green stuff to regen mana, but for each mana regenerated you loose life. So melee; never go into it! The boss needs to be kited. I myself am thinking of a tactic where the MT healers are constantly in the green shit and a couple of raidhealers that heal the healers and rest of the raid.
A few more tips:
Also I finally had some other (decent/good geared) cats with me in the raid. I did more dps then they did, so that is some sort of confirmation that I don't totally suck on dps.
Found out that TellMeWhen is a bit bugged on PTR (I think). Whenever my Rake was finished, I then saw it up again with 2 seconds left or so, which was probably the rake cast by someone else. That was very confusing making me not as efficient in dps as I could be. Also a note for self; don't change the setup of TellMeWhen on PTR compared to live. It confuses!
Ulduar is fun!
2 days ago I went to Ulduar on PTR to test General Vezax. Finally there was hard trash!
It was really fun to do a boss/trash of which you know virtually nothing.
First of all there are no glyphs in PTR testing. They disappear when you zone. So there was no glyph of maul. If you have that glyph (and you should, there is a good chance you are tanking 2 mobs, like I did), you need to make sure you don't hit a cc-ed target. Yes you hear it. You need to cc trash!
In the rest of the post you will find some description of the fight, a bit on tactics and how druids are good with that. Also at the end there is some remark of awesome druid dps.
The trash before the boss consists of 4 packs. They are all level 82 (heroic 5-man boss level). The pack consists of about 9 or 10 mobs. You have to work with corner pulls and MD to tanks so the mobs will come closer before you attack. You need 2 tanks minimum, but with the great thing called dual spec you can have a couple of melee dps convert to tank for the trash if you want. You'll need to cc 4 or 5 mobs. Some mobs fear, others stun. Fear will wipe you if you run into a second group.
So tactics is back. Now we are finally getting a buff to swipe we might not even want it because you have to be away from cc-ed mobs instead of standing with your ass to them.
After killing 2 of the 4 groups (in our case the 1st and 3rd group) a sort of miniboss (hard mob) is set loose. It will patrol and you will agro it. You need to pick it up and tank. It will shoot out some kind or shadow thing which you can easily walk away from if you watch for it. At 25% intervals there will be an add spawning and the boss will become immune untill the add is down.
We did the trash with 3 tanks, me being one of them, tanking 2 melee adds. I felt safer using cooldowns on them once in a while. That is how hard they are. I have no real testing information on the tanking though.
I didn't get too much info on the boss. After 5 tries Ulduar shut down. Some things I know of, the boss itself hits very hard and there is no mana regen for mana users. Max int gear is needed. You need to stand in green stuff to regen mana, but for each mana regenerated you loose life. So melee; never go into it! The boss needs to be kited. I myself am thinking of a tactic where the MT healers are constantly in the green shit and a couple of raidhealers that heal the healers and rest of the raid.
A few more tips:
- Everyone should be down from the platforms when you enter the room. If not the raid gets massive damage.
- When you wipe on the patrolling add, stay away from the edge of the platform. It will deathgrip people from the platform and kill them instantly.
Also I finally had some other (decent/good geared) cats with me in the raid. I did more dps then they did, so that is some sort of confirmation that I don't totally suck on dps.
Found out that TellMeWhen is a bit bugged on PTR (I think). Whenever my Rake was finished, I then saw it up again with 2 seconds left or so, which was probably the rake cast by someone else. That was very confusing making me not as efficient in dps as I could be. Also a note for self; don't change the setup of TellMeWhen on PTR compared to live. It confuses!
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Frost Resistance
Synopsis
Even though druids are getting nerfs they might be favored in certain fights in Ulduar.
Judging from what I have heard form guildmates, Ulduar has bosses where you either need huge armor or huge (frost) resistance. The polar set is something that a lot of druids already have (+ ring). They have max frost resistance and more importantly they are already defense capped. With current gear it might be impossible or otherwise very difficult for other plate wearers to wear the full plate frost resistance set and be defense capped. Instead of only equipping 3 or 4 frost resistance items (and thus nerfning other stats) they also have to equip a couple of defense items nerfing them more on those fights then druids.
With new Ulduar gear that might be more attainable but this is good news for druid tanks. We are complaining about being nerfed, but SD shield should weigh up to the armor loss and is a lot better versus magic then melee, making us better on magic fights (ehrm... I was wrong, read edit). And since there is no problem for druids to wear the full frost resistance set druids might be very much favored for progress raiding.
The fear druids had to be never ever be picked as MT is canceled out since we seem to be the preferred tank on any frost damage fight (for now). For progress raiding we look to become necessary rather then a nuisance.
This is a bit strange if you look at blizzards ultimate goal to make all tanks equal. But I think it might be that blizzard has realized that since each tank kind has a different way of tanking those tiny small changes will be utilized to the max in progress raiding. So as long as we have some difference versus other tanks there will be fights where druids are preferred.
[edit]
See comments. The SD shield is only physical so that sucks ;)
[/edit]
Even though druids are getting nerfs they might be favored in certain fights in Ulduar.
Judging from what I have heard form guildmates, Ulduar has bosses where you either need huge armor or huge (frost) resistance. The polar set is something that a lot of druids already have (+ ring). They have max frost resistance and more importantly they are already defense capped. With current gear it might be impossible or otherwise very difficult for other plate wearers to wear the full plate frost resistance set and be defense capped. Instead of only equipping 3 or 4 frost resistance items (and thus nerfning other stats) they also have to equip a couple of defense items nerfing them more on those fights then druids.
With new Ulduar gear that might be more attainable but this is good news for druid tanks. We are complaining about being nerfed, but SD shield should weigh up to the armor loss and is a lot better versus magic then melee, making us better on magic fights (ehrm... I was wrong, read edit). And since there is no problem for druids to wear the full frost resistance set druids might be very much favored for progress raiding.
The fear druids had to be never ever be picked as MT is canceled out since we seem to be the preferred tank on any frost damage fight (for now). For progress raiding we look to become necessary rather then a nuisance.
This is a bit strange if you look at blizzards ultimate goal to make all tanks equal. But I think it might be that blizzard has realized that since each tank kind has a different way of tanking those tiny small changes will be utilized to the max in progress raiding. So as long as we have some difference versus other tanks there will be fights where druids are preferred.
[edit]
See comments. The SD shield is only physical so that sucks ;)
[/edit]
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