Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Sunday, May 4, 2008
My name is ST, and I am an altaholic
So I just rolled my 5th level 70. I have a priest, hunter, druid, shaman, and now mage. The mage was my first 60, and he was the toon I raided ZG, AQ20, MC, and BWL with. In fact, until 70, I had yet to replace some of his tier 2 gear because the set bonus was too nice to give up. Maybe he'll get some Kara love soon.
Kara Update
It's been forever since I've updated about our adventures in Kara. We have downed Shade and Illhoof. Both of those are now farmable by our group. We do occassionally need to swap folks around to have the right makeup for each, but we have that plenty of 70 toons to swap around. Netherspite is our current obstacle, and after 5 solid attempts at him, we have him figured out, we think. We just need to get the right group and drop him. I sense his death is going to happen soon.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Nice Night in Kara
We had a slightly different make up running Kara this week. I was on off-everything on my druid. Thevicar took my priest job. We had our shadow priest and warlock. We had our shaman and warrior tank. It was the first time this particular group went in. We picked up with Opera and Romeo and Juliette, which topped us repeatedly the other night. Well, we 1-shot it in a hard way with no deaths this time.
WoW Web Stats
Loot:
Eternium Greathelm - gratz Silver
Despair - gratz Silver
Then we marched over to Curator and demolished him with similar results, 1-try and no deaths. The druid was involved on dpsing the flares. That's an adventure as they spam chain lightning at you and ignore aggro. I did a respectable job, but still need work on my dps gear. For a druid that just entered Kara, I'm pleased with it.
WoW Web Stats
Loot:
Gloves of the Fallen Champion - gratz Veradas
Forest Wind Shoulderpads - gratz Valcarrie
We had enough time for 1 attempt at Shade. We did pretty well until the elementals showed up. Then we broke down into chaos and got spanked. So we moved over to Chess for some free epics.
Loot:
Girdle of Treachery - gratz Left
Triptych Shield of the Ancients - gratz Valcarrie
WoW Web Stats
Loot:
Eternium Greathelm - gratz Silver
Despair - gratz Silver
Then we marched over to Curator and demolished him with similar results, 1-try and no deaths. The druid was involved on dpsing the flares. That's an adventure as they spam chain lightning at you and ignore aggro. I did a respectable job, but still need work on my dps gear. For a druid that just entered Kara, I'm pleased with it.
WoW Web Stats
Loot:
Gloves of the Fallen Champion - gratz Veradas
Forest Wind Shoulderpads - gratz Valcarrie
We had enough time for 1 attempt at Shade. We did pretty well until the elementals showed up. Then we broke down into chaos and got spanked. So we moved over to Chess for some free epics.
Loot:
Girdle of Treachery - gratz Left
Triptych Shield of the Ancients - gratz Valcarrie
Monday, March 17, 2008
Curator Beat Down
FPO blew up Curator on first try ever with not a single death. It was truly amazing how hard we blew him up. We did take two evocations to put him down, so we have room to improve. But for our very first attempt ever, it was great.
Lewtz gained:
Gloves of the Fallen Champion - gratz Minotaur - these became Cyclone Gauntlets
Garona's Signet Ring
WoW Web Stat Numbers
We made an attempt at Shade since we did Curator so well. We got him down to 40% on the first try, which isn't bad for a technical fight where none of us were versed on the details going in. Here are the WoW Web Stat numbers for the first attempt.
Lewtz gained:
Gloves of the Fallen Champion - gratz Minotaur - these became Cyclone Gauntlets
Garona's Signet Ring
WoW Web Stat Numbers
We made an attempt at Shade since we did Curator so well. We got him down to 40% on the first try, which isn't bad for a technical fight where none of us were versed on the details going in. Here are the WoW Web Stat numbers for the first attempt.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Big Bad Wolf
The Big Bad Wolf got big, bad pwnd. Our first time to try this event with some first timers in party. Our newly keyed shaman, warrior, hunter, and priest were there to enjoy some mad kiting skills. The healing group, consisting of my priest, pally, and newly keyed priest demonstrating some amazing kiting skills. One could suggest this is because we were at a good range away when the chase began, but I like to think it was because we are so well practiced at running from mobs. The warriors, shaman and others just don't have the mentality of "Oh Crap! Run!"
The loot yielded was in much demand:
Maiden:
Bracers of Justice - gratz Valcarrie
Gloves of Quickening - gratz Sabrehunter
Big Bad Wolf:
Trial-Fire Trousers - gratz to Comehither on the win of this one.
Red Riding Hood's Cloak - gratz to Valcarrie for the win on this one.
WoW Web Stats:
Maiden
Big Bad Wolf
The loot yielded was in much demand:
Maiden:
Bracers of Justice - gratz Valcarrie
Gloves of Quickening - gratz Sabrehunter
Big Bad Wolf:
Trial-Fire Trousers - gratz to Comehither on the win of this one.
Red Riding Hood's Cloak - gratz to Valcarrie for the win on this one.
WoW Web Stats:
Maiden
Big Bad Wolf
Thursday, February 28, 2008
2.4 Warlock Nerf
Warlocks are finally getting some attention, of the negative variety, in the 2.4 patch. Life Tap, a great lock skill that converts life to mana, is now doing this conversion as a percentage of your total instead of a point-for-point conversion as it is today. On the surface that doesn't seem so bad. That's probably how it should've always worked. Warlocks are casters after all. So why the change? Well, I haven't been following this closely, but I suspect it's because we see many (and with PVP epics flowing so freely I really do mean many) warlocks running around in 12k-13k life. I saw one buffed in AV a couple of weekens ago around 15k life. Yes, that's a cloth wearer sporting that much stamina. And this isn't tons of +stamina greeny gear. This is an epic'd out lock with over 1200 spell damage.
So why the nerf? Have you seen a warlock drain tank Van in AV? I have. On three separate occassions. One in particular was really scary. The guy just dotted him up, including siphon, and spammed drain life. You'd expect him to run out of mana, but his mana pool was around 9k with his 14k+ life. That's insane. But, even that has it's limits. But with Life Tap the way it is now and massive life pools like some of these locks have, they can literally go forever. They don't have massive burst damage in most cases, but their survivability is over the top. I have a 61 lock, and I have fought 4-6 mobs at one time without using fear. That seems too strong.
The problem I have with the nerf is that many of these locks have busted their butt to get this massive life pool to allow this. With the change they are making, currently Rank 3 does a 20% life to 20% mana conversion. That amazing warlock I saw drain tanking Van would convert 2800 life into 1800 mana. That's not bad, but it's not nearly as good of an exchange as it is today. So this makes it feel like a pretty harsh punishment to locks that have worked hard on their gear as they would be much better off focusing on much larger mana pools than life pools.
So why the nerf? Have you seen a warlock drain tank Van in AV? I have. On three separate occassions. One in particular was really scary. The guy just dotted him up, including siphon, and spammed drain life. You'd expect him to run out of mana, but his mana pool was around 9k with his 14k+ life. That's insane. But, even that has it's limits. But with Life Tap the way it is now and massive life pools like some of these locks have, they can literally go forever. They don't have massive burst damage in most cases, but their survivability is over the top. I have a 61 lock, and I have fought 4-6 mobs at one time without using fear. That seems too strong.
The problem I have with the nerf is that many of these locks have busted their butt to get this massive life pool to allow this. With the change they are making, currently Rank 3 does a 20% life to 20% mana conversion. That amazing warlock I saw drain tanking Van would convert 2800 life into 1800 mana. That's not bad, but it's not nearly as good of an exchange as it is today. So this makes it feel like a pretty harsh punishment to locks that have worked hard on their gear as they would be much better off focusing on much larger mana pools than life pools.
Kara Epics... Who is getting the bling?
Since I have time to kill, and I'm dpsing this time like there is no tomorrow - and really, is there a tomorrow? It's taking a freaking long time to get here if there is, but I digress, I decided we should tally up the loot from Kara. Who is getting stronger and who is feeling left out:
Somewhat to be expected, Enduron is the big winner so far in "upgrades." I put upgrades in quotes because some of these items, like the boots Comehither got, are more for potential use than actual use. But that's okay - I'd rather see that than unnecessary d/e.
Enduron: 5
Valcarrie: 4
Comehither: 3
Allbetter: 2
Deaderndead: 2
Left: 2
Temtress: 2
Veradas: 2
Alocar: 1
Siluzza: 1
d/e: 7
bank: 1
I was surprised to see Comehither with three takeaways, but I think only 1 was a true upgrade. I was equally stunned to see Siluzza only have 1. We just aren't seeing much plate drop in there.
Somewhat to be expected, Enduron is the big winner so far in "upgrades." I put upgrades in quotes because some of these items, like the boots Comehither got, are more for potential use than actual use. But that's okay - I'd rather see that than unnecessary d/e.
Enduron: 5
Valcarrie: 4
Comehither: 3
Allbetter: 2
Deaderndead: 2
Left: 2
Temtress: 2
Veradas: 2
Alocar: 1
Siluzza: 1
d/e: 7
bank: 1
I was surprised to see Comehither with three takeaways, but I think only 1 was a true upgrade. I was equally stunned to see Siluzza only have 1. We just aren't seeing much plate drop in there.
Add-Ons
Inspired by my buddy and guild-mate Comehither, I decided to comment on a few add-ons that I find really useful.
XPerl. So, in talking with a co-worker that is a bit more raid-savvy than myself, I thought I was using XPerl until he mentioned some features I didn't have. Turns out I was running Perl Classic, which is also quite good, but XPerl is the shiznit. It replaces your unit frames and gives you a ton of options to get more information in less space than anything else I've seen. It takes a bit to customize, but it's worth the investment. It also made Quartz obsolete, which is tough to do.
Grid. If you heal, dispel or do anything in a raid that involves targeting outside your group, then this add-on is worth a look. As a main healer in a 10-man, this is my source of who has aggro, who needs heals, and who needs dispels. Couple this with Clique (see below), and you have a powerful tool.
Clique. Best configuration window of any add-on I've ever seen. It plugs into your spell book. How smart is that? It allows you to bind hot keys to pretty much any screen element you have, including Grid and XPerl frames. When shackling one of the extra mobs for Moroes, just set the mob as my focus and use shift-right click to re-shackle without taking my target from the tank.
RatingsBuster. If this is the first time you are hearing about this add-on, then shame on you. Never ask anyone "which piece of gear should I use?" when compare items. Let RatingsBuster show you the benefits of each in a side-by-side fashion to know what you gain/lose from the new item.
Bongos. Remove the built-in button bars and bring out the highly customizable Bongos bars. For my shammy, I've got all the totems in a small grid on the right. Nifty. For most of my toons, I keep a bar just for miscellaneous skills that I wouldn't use frequently in combat, such as the Skettis bombs, Booterang, Tempest Keep potions, etc. Another staple in my add-on library.
Lightheaded/Double-wide/TomTom. This trio is a must for those still leveling, and as an alt-aholic, I'm always leveling someone. Integrate quest info with Wowhead in a single wide window with clickable coordinates? Shut up!
nQuestLog. New one I'm trying and liking. Target a mob needed for a quest, it tells you the quest. Hover an item needed for a quest, it tells you what quest. I believe it only works on quests you have, so it doesn't have a massive database of quest info. That's good in my opinion as it would be a resource hog if it did. So far, it's a keeper.
TitanPanel. I still can't shake this one. I've had it for nearly 2 years now. I only used the money, bags, ammo, xp rate, and clock features. But it still provides all of that in a nicer format than anything else I've found.
TotemTimers. This add-on should be the king of shaman add-ons. I'm stubborn so I only get partial benefit from it. It provides an intuitive bar with your different elements and the totems you can drop from them, as well as shields and weapon buffs. You can do everything from this bar. So why don't I? I'm not sure. The delay in drop down on the totem bars bugs me. Having to get on the right element and then move down leaves room for me to goof and lose the drop down. I just use the Bongos bars I've setup for my totems instead. But I still use this guy to keep track of time remaining on my totems. If I had that another way, I would take it, but I haven't found another I like as well as this one.
Omen. If you ever are in a group, get this. No, shut up! Go get it. It helps measure your threat within the party on the current target.
Recount. Probably the worst add-on ever. Huh? You've got it/seen it? You like it? No, it's the debil! Mama said... This thing keeps great stats on dps/healing/whatever your party does. The down side is that you start using this as a measure of who is good and who isn't. Damage isn't everything.. but it sure gets to the loot faster. Used right, this a great tool. Used wrong, and it can cause problems. Don't ask how I'm using it... the vote is still out.
That's my initial list. As I think of others to add, I'll update.
XPerl. So, in talking with a co-worker that is a bit more raid-savvy than myself, I thought I was using XPerl until he mentioned some features I didn't have. Turns out I was running Perl Classic, which is also quite good, but XPerl is the shiznit. It replaces your unit frames and gives you a ton of options to get more information in less space than anything else I've seen. It takes a bit to customize, but it's worth the investment. It also made Quartz obsolete, which is tough to do.
Grid. If you heal, dispel or do anything in a raid that involves targeting outside your group, then this add-on is worth a look. As a main healer in a 10-man, this is my source of who has aggro, who needs heals, and who needs dispels. Couple this with Clique (see below), and you have a powerful tool.
Clique. Best configuration window of any add-on I've ever seen. It plugs into your spell book. How smart is that? It allows you to bind hot keys to pretty much any screen element you have, including Grid and XPerl frames. When shackling one of the extra mobs for Moroes, just set the mob as my focus and use shift-right click to re-shackle without taking my target from the tank.
RatingsBuster. If this is the first time you are hearing about this add-on, then shame on you. Never ask anyone "which piece of gear should I use?" when compare items. Let RatingsBuster show you the benefits of each in a side-by-side fashion to know what you gain/lose from the new item.
Bongos. Remove the built-in button bars and bring out the highly customizable Bongos bars. For my shammy, I've got all the totems in a small grid on the right. Nifty. For most of my toons, I keep a bar just for miscellaneous skills that I wouldn't use frequently in combat, such as the Skettis bombs, Booterang, Tempest Keep potions, etc. Another staple in my add-on library.
Lightheaded/Double-wide/TomTom. This trio is a must for those still leveling, and as an alt-aholic, I'm always leveling someone. Integrate quest info with Wowhead in a single wide window with clickable coordinates? Shut up!
nQuestLog. New one I'm trying and liking. Target a mob needed for a quest, it tells you the quest. Hover an item needed for a quest, it tells you what quest. I believe it only works on quests you have, so it doesn't have a massive database of quest info. That's good in my opinion as it would be a resource hog if it did. So far, it's a keeper.
TitanPanel. I still can't shake this one. I've had it for nearly 2 years now. I only used the money, bags, ammo, xp rate, and clock features. But it still provides all of that in a nicer format than anything else I've found.
TotemTimers. This add-on should be the king of shaman add-ons. I'm stubborn so I only get partial benefit from it. It provides an intuitive bar with your different elements and the totems you can drop from them, as well as shields and weapon buffs. You can do everything from this bar. So why don't I? I'm not sure. The delay in drop down on the totem bars bugs me. Having to get on the right element and then move down leaves room for me to goof and lose the drop down. I just use the Bongos bars I've setup for my totems instead. But I still use this guy to keep track of time remaining on my totems. If I had that another way, I would take it, but I haven't found another I like as well as this one.
Omen. If you ever are in a group, get this. No, shut up! Go get it. It helps measure your threat within the party on the current target.
Recount. Probably the worst add-on ever. Huh? You've got it/seen it? You like it? No, it's the debil! Mama said... This thing keeps great stats on dps/healing/whatever your party does. The down side is that you start using this as a measure of who is good and who isn't. Damage isn't everything.. but it sure gets to the loot faster. Used right, this a great tool. Used wrong, and it can cause problems. Don't ask how I'm using it... the vote is still out.
That's my initial list. As I think of others to add, I'll update.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
A Month of Kara
It's been 4 weeks since we first made a stop in Kara. In that time we went from Attumen and Moroes to doing Attumen - Maiden in under 2 hours. Still slow by many people's standards, but we consistently 1-shot these now, even when things go badly. We have hopes of paying Curator a visit this week, but we'll see if schedules cooperate.
Our latest splash yielded a productive night yielding 4 upgrades:
Moroes:
Boots of Valiance - Valcariie
Emerald Ripper - d/e
Attumen:
Vambraces of Courage - Veradas
Spectral Band of Innervation - Enduron
Maiden:
Gloves of Centering - d/e
Bands of Nefarious Deeds - Enduron
Our latest splash yielded a productive night yielding 4 upgrades:
Moroes:
Boots of Valiance - Valcariie
Emerald Ripper - d/e
Attumen:
Vambraces of Courage - Veradas
Spectral Band of Innervation - Enduron
Maiden:
Gloves of Centering - d/e
Bands of Nefarious Deeds - Enduron
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Maiden and Oz
FPO continues to progress through Kara at a pretty good rate, all things considered. Last week we dropped all the bosses up to and including Opera.
Maiden stats and loot:
Boots of Foretelling - gratz Comehither
Gloves of Centering - sharded
Opera (Oz) stats and loot:
Blue Diamond Witchwand - gratz Allbetter (me)
Beastmaw Pauldrons - gratz Temtress
Edit: screenshot to remember the moment...
Maiden stats and loot:
Boots of Foretelling - gratz Comehither
Gloves of Centering - sharded
Opera (Oz) stats and loot:
Blue Diamond Witchwand - gratz Allbetter (me)
Beastmaw Pauldrons - gratz Temtress
Edit: screenshot to remember the moment...
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Kara
We assaulted Kara again last night. We single shot Attumen and Moroes before our group fell apart. Attumen was fairly smooth even with just 9 to do him. But Moroes felt very sloppy. Before I get into the analysis on that, here is the loot and WoW Web Stats for Attumen and Moroes.
Attumen:
Whirlwind Bracers - sharded; should have bee a nice upgrade for our pally but she already pulled Bands of Indwelling; shame she took the cloth. The mail wrists were a better fit with MP5 instead of spirit. Oh well, she still should have taken it, but I was afk when the loot was decided.
Spectral Band of Innervation - Comehither (1st Kara epic - gratz!)
Moroes:
Emerald Ripper - gratz Left
Shadow-Cloak of Dalaran - gratz Deaderndead
Trash:
Grasp of the Dead - gratz to Comehither... should he decide to try frost out
Attumen:
Whirlwind Bracers - sharded; should have bee a nice upgrade for our pally but she already pulled Bands of Indwelling; shame she took the cloth. The mail wrists were a better fit with MP5 instead of spirit. Oh well, she still should have taken it, but I was afk when the loot was decided.
Spectral Band of Innervation - Comehither (1st Kara epic - gratz!)
Moroes:
Emerald Ripper - gratz Left
Shadow-Cloak of Dalaran - gratz Deaderndead
Trash:
Grasp of the Dead - gratz to Comehither... should he decide to try frost out
Monday, February 18, 2008
Kara
We made another stab at Kara tonight. Do to scheduling issues, this was our first shot in a while. We got Attumen and Moroes down in 1 shot. We had a very clean run.
The drops:
Gauntlets of Renewed Hope - sharded since pally already had these
Bracers of the White Stag - shareded since we have no boomkins
Signet of Unshakable Faith - priest upgrade!!! Yay me! First Kara upgrade
Belt of Gale Force - pally healer... Yay 4th Kara upgrade
So now our mage represents the only person not to get an upgrade in Kara.
Here are the stats of the run.
The drops:
Gauntlets of Renewed Hope - sharded since pally already had these
Bracers of the White Stag - shareded since we have no boomkins
Signet of Unshakable Faith - priest upgrade!!! Yay me! First Kara upgrade
Belt of Gale Force - pally healer... Yay 4th Kara upgrade
So now our mage represents the only person not to get an upgrade in Kara.
Here are the stats of the run.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Kara Week 2
We went in for our 2nd Kara run after the reset on Tuesday. We've had remarkable attendance for our guild, and we've made great progress. On Tuesday night, we took down Attumen (2 attempts) and Moroes (2 attempts). Then on Wednesday night, we took down Maiden on our first try after repeated wipes last week. Amazing what a difference a week makes. Also, we were gifted this week with some amazing trash mob drops.
Lewtz:
Edgewalker Longboots - Left
Crimson Girdle of the Indomitable - Veradas
Gauntlets of Renewed Hope - Valcarrie
Inferno Waist Cord - Enduron
Vambraces of Courage - Siluzza
Ritssyn's Lost Pendant - Deaderndead
The Ancient Scepter of Sue-Min - Banked
Bands of Indwelling - Valcarrie
Gloves of Centering - sharded
WoW Web Stats:
Attumen (Failed)
Attumen (Win)
Moroes (Failed)
Moroes (Win)
Maiden (Win)
Lewtz:
Edgewalker Longboots - Left
Crimson Girdle of the Indomitable - Veradas
Gauntlets of Renewed Hope - Valcarrie
Inferno Waist Cord - Enduron
Vambraces of Courage - Siluzza
Ritssyn's Lost Pendant - Deaderndead
The Ancient Scepter of Sue-Min - Banked
Bands of Indwelling - Valcarrie
Gloves of Centering - sharded
WoW Web Stats:
Attumen (Failed)
Attumen (Win)
Moroes (Failed)
Moroes (Win)
Maiden (Win)
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Kara Part II
Our group went tromping back into Kara tonight to pay Moroes a visit. It was a 2-wiper, but we got it on the 3rd try. And when we got it, we really got it. No deaths on the entire fight. Maybe we are ready for this after all...
Lewtz this time was all caster love.
Brooch of Unquenchable Fury
Shadow-Cloak of Dalaran
Gratz to End on getting both. I'm a horrid raid leader. I asked for rolls on the cloak. Mage, spriest, and lock wanted it. Lock wins. Gratz lock. Rolls on brooch? Only lock needs it. I should've sorted out who needed what so I could've got 2 guildies upgraded there. Oh well, hopefully this is the first of many Moroes deaths.
Not bad for a first time entry into Kara by our guild. Attumen down on first night, and Moroes down on the 2nd with only 2 wipes. I'm told Moroes is one of the trickier fights in the early parts, so I'm quite proud of us.
WoW Web Stats of the run
Lewtz this time was all caster love.
Brooch of Unquenchable Fury
Shadow-Cloak of Dalaran
Gratz to End on getting both. I'm a horrid raid leader. I asked for rolls on the cloak. Mage, spriest, and lock wanted it. Lock wins. Gratz lock. Rolls on brooch? Only lock needs it. I should've sorted out who needed what so I could've got 2 guildies upgraded there. Oh well, hopefully this is the first of many Moroes deaths.
Not bad for a first time entry into Kara by our guild. Attumen down on first night, and Moroes down on the 2nd with only 2 wipes. I'm told Moroes is one of the trickier fights in the early parts, so I'm quite proud of us.
WoW Web Stats of the run
Kara.... Oops
So we have 10 people keyed. The odds on all 10 being on at once is less likely than Britney winning come back artist of the year. But we have 7 on at once on Tuesday night, so we decide to head to Kara to clear some trash for rep and scout out Midnight and Attumen. As we're headed in, with 2 hunter (Al & Temtress), rogue (Left), warrior tank (Sil), mage (Comehither), lock (End), and priest (me - AB), on comes our husband/wife pair of pally tank/pally healer. They were popping on to do a bit of Kara site seeing as well. Should I buy lotto tickets yet? Hmmm..
We venture into Kara and immediately our warrior tank needs to afk for 15 mins (taxi cab dad ftl). We start pulls and are mowing it down. Pally tanks here are quite nice. No deaths. No real scares. Just tank, heal, and spank. Warrior tank gets back on the last 2 pulls before Attumen. We do it and are scoping it out and realize, we have 10+ minutes before trash respawns. All this with 9 on our first time in there. Not bad, but hey, is the the infant area of Kara.
We decide to give it a go. Pally tank grabs Midnight by the snout and smacks him around a bit. We start working him over... Attumen shows up. Rogue takes a swing and then thinks "oops, shouldn't have done that" as he's crushed down before a heal can land. Down to 8. Oh well, we just came to watch, right? Warrior slaps Attumen and demands attention. I don't think either tank dropped below 60% life from that point on. We pound away. Attumen hops on his horse and gets uppity. Our mage doesn't realize he needs to decurse... damn, we didn't plan to do this. Our hunters and mage don't know to either get inside charge range or outside charge range. They keep getting smacked. But no biggie, we're just here to experience this. Wow, boss is at 15% and we're doing well. My mana efficiency wasn't as good as it should be b/c I've blown shadow fiend and am on my 2nd potion... but hey, we're doing okay. Pally healer has 85% mana. Damn their efficiency. Wow, the boss just died? Did we really 1-shot that with just 8 of us involved for that core of that fight? And our rogue (consistently #2 damage dealer) laying on the ground b/c he pokes, pokes too fast? Yes, we did. Wow, how cool is that?
Lewtz, which took longer to dish out than it did to kill the boss...
Stalker's War Bands - goes to Temtress (hunter)
Worgen Claw Necklace - goes to Al (hunter)
W00t! Gratz to FPO on the smack downage.
We venture into Kara and immediately our warrior tank needs to afk for 15 mins (taxi cab dad ftl). We start pulls and are mowing it down. Pally tanks here are quite nice. No deaths. No real scares. Just tank, heal, and spank. Warrior tank gets back on the last 2 pulls before Attumen. We do it and are scoping it out and realize, we have 10+ minutes before trash respawns. All this with 9 on our first time in there. Not bad, but hey, is the the infant area of Kara.
We decide to give it a go. Pally tank grabs Midnight by the snout and smacks him around a bit. We start working him over... Attumen shows up. Rogue takes a swing and then thinks "oops, shouldn't have done that" as he's crushed down before a heal can land. Down to 8. Oh well, we just came to watch, right? Warrior slaps Attumen and demands attention. I don't think either tank dropped below 60% life from that point on. We pound away. Attumen hops on his horse and gets uppity. Our mage doesn't realize he needs to decurse... damn, we didn't plan to do this. Our hunters and mage don't know to either get inside charge range or outside charge range. They keep getting smacked. But no biggie, we're just here to experience this. Wow, boss is at 15% and we're doing well. My mana efficiency wasn't as good as it should be b/c I've blown shadow fiend and am on my 2nd potion... but hey, we're doing okay. Pally healer has 85% mana. Damn their efficiency. Wow, the boss just died? Did we really 1-shot that with just 8 of us involved for that core of that fight? And our rogue (consistently #2 damage dealer) laying on the ground b/c he pokes, pokes too fast? Yes, we did. Wow, how cool is that?
Lewtz, which took longer to dish out than it did to kill the boss...
Stalker's War Bands - goes to Temtress (hunter)
Worgen Claw Necklace - goes to Al (hunter)
W00t! Gratz to FPO on the smack downage.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Heroic Mechanar
We ran heroic mechanar last night with 2 hunters, mage, warrior, and priest. It started rough with some bad moves that drew adds. So we had a few deaths right at the front as we pulled the mobs on the far wall. But then things cleaned up, and we handled the demons flawlessly. No warlock for enslave/banish to make it easy, so we had pet tankage + focus fire burning through the mobs. It worked well. We 1-shot the first both with no deaths. We plowed through skipping boss #2 and into the dreaded gauntlet where we struggled mightily with Tempest-Forge Destroyer. Often hitting the tank for 4k and nearly 1-shotting everyone else. It was a greater heal spam war on the tank with hopes that we downed him before I ran out of mana. These were definitely the toughest part of the run. Our lack of buffs showed too. We only had the priest fort buff for this. Imp or druid buff would've been very nice. But, we made it and downed the final boss. BoJs + Handguards of the Steady were the notable loots. Our warrior picked up a Primal Nether for his future blacksmith needs.
Here are the WoW Web Stats of the run.
Here are the WoW Web Stats of the run.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
WoW Web Stats Extravaganza
I've been capturing combat logs on our latest runs. I'm thinking we can spot some things to improve on by doing so. For example, I've got the only hunter in the guild, Croretnuh, that seems to DPS at the same level with our mage, Comehither. Another of our hunters, and for a small guild we have a ton, has comparable if not better gear, but his total damage on an run isn't even close to Cro's. Well, the WoW Web Stats might help explain that. Shot rotations baby.... Learn them... Master them... They are your friend.
First the list of reports...
Heroic Sethekk
Botanica
Old Hillsbrad
Black Moraass
Shadow Labs with Pally Healer
Shadow Labs with Priest Healer
Now for one of the observations I made on these closely run Shadow Labs with identical party make ups except for Pally healer on first run and Priest healer on second and a swap of my hunter on first with Alocar on second.
Some interesting notes on this. For Cro's run, we stopped just before Murmur's room. For Al's, it was a full clear. I started the capture at roughly the same point at the start of the instance, give or take a mob or two. His crit % is around the same as mine, sometimes better. His average damage is close for the most part, even though my bow is noticeably better than his. I do edge him out. But what I see is a shot rotation that consists pretty much of only arcane shot and multi-shot. Those cool downs are too long to just use those. There are gaps of consecutive auto-shots between those. That's bad. That's time the hunter could be doing damage that he's not. Notice on Cro's that he has a good chunk of damage coming from steady shot. I also get a ton more damage from my pet, BM FTW! Anyway, I thought this was an interesting comparison of two toons playing the same role with a good bit of difference in damage. I'll be chatting with Al about weaving in steady shots when arcane and multi are on cool down.
First the list of reports...
Heroic Sethekk
Botanica
Old Hillsbrad
Black Moraass
Shadow Labs with Pally Healer
Shadow Labs with Priest Healer
Now for one of the observations I made on these closely run Shadow Labs with identical party make ups except for Pally healer on first run and Priest healer on second and a swap of my hunter on first with Alocar on second.
Some interesting notes on this. For Cro's run, we stopped just before Murmur's room. For Al's, it was a full clear. I started the capture at roughly the same point at the start of the instance, give or take a mob or two. His crit % is around the same as mine, sometimes better. His average damage is close for the most part, even though my bow is noticeably better than his. I do edge him out. But what I see is a shot rotation that consists pretty much of only arcane shot and multi-shot. Those cool downs are too long to just use those. There are gaps of consecutive auto-shots between those. That's bad. That's time the hunter could be doing damage that he's not. Notice on Cro's that he has a good chunk of damage coming from steady shot. I also get a ton more damage from my pet, BM FTW! Anyway, I thought this was an interesting comparison of two toons playing the same role with a good bit of difference in damage. I'll be chatting with Al about weaving in steady shots when arcane and multi are on cool down.
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