Friday, December 25, 2009

RE: Tankingtips.com

http://www.tankingtips.com/2009/12/24/the-emblem-of-frost-pick-order/

Fine, I guess I buy that… but the trinket!?

Well… I need more in a Trinket than Stamina. So, this trinket comes off as really, really lackluster to me. Absorbing damage isn’t exciting at all. Compare the bonus offered by this trinket to Satrina’s Impeding Scarab and it’s clear that the emblem trinket got the shaft. And I’m not just saying this when comparing the trinket to high tier items, I wouldn’t use this Stamina beast over The Black Heart either. So between the two I’ve already mentioned that best it, Glyph of Indomitability which is still amazing, there’s also Heart of Iron and Royal Seal of King Llane.

Which really begs the question, why pick it up at all? Because you never know if the absorb mechanic will be useful for some fight. It’s also entirely possible that a fight will have only magic damage and it’d be nice to have this in our toolkit. Okay, who am I kidding… sometimes, you just want to show off how much health you can get!



FINALLY VENE, someone who agrees with me. As I already mentioned I will be getting the stam trinket absolutely last, after my 4 set bonus, the cape, and the idol. While I will always think the black heart is EXTREMELY overrated (I hate procs, even in the expansion I ran 35 agi over mongoose for quite some time) I agree with the rest of it.

Monday, December 14, 2009

3.3 Rings, Necks, Trinkets, Capes, and Emblem of Frost Pick Order

As promised, the ring, neck, cape, and trinket update for my best-in-slot list.

RINGS:

http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50622

Devium's Eternally Cold Ring
Heroic
Binds when picked up
Unique-Equipped
Finger
756 Armor
+102 Strength
+141 Stamina
Red Socket
Requires Level 80
Item Level 277
Equip: Increases defense rating by 54
Equip: Increases your dodge rating by 46

http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=51913

Abomination's Bloody Ring
Heroic
Binds when picked up
Unique-Equipped
Finger
+57 Strength
+124 Stamina
Blue Socket
Requires Level 80
Item Level 264
Equip: Increases defense rating by 56
Equip: Increases your dodge rating by 63
Equip: Improves hit rating by 53

Note: I honestly think the heroic 10 man Twin's ring is better than the second ring I have listed and will probably be using it as my second ring for a long long time.

NECKS:

http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50682

Bile-Encrusted Medallion
Heroic
Binds when picked up
Neck
756 Armor
+102 Strength
+141 Stamina
Red Socket
Requires Level 80
Item Level 277
Equip: Increases defense rating by 54
Equip: Increases your dodge rating by 46

http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50627

Noose of Malachite
Heroic
Binds when picked up
Neck
+78 Strength
+141 Stamina
Yellow Socket
Requires Level 80
Item Level 277
Equip: Increases defense rating by 68
Equip: Increases your dodge rating by 60
Equip: Improves hit rating by 52

TRINKETS:

http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50364

Sindragosa's Flawless Fang
Heroic
Binds when picked up
Unique
Trinket
+258 Stamina
Requires Level 80
Item Level 277
Use: Increases resistance to Arcane, Fire, Frost, Nature, and Shadow spells by 268 for 10 sec.

http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50356

Corroded Skeleton Key
Binds when picked up
Unique
Trinket
+228 Stamina
Requires Level 80
Item Level 264
Use: Absorbs 3200 damage. Lasts 20 sec.

Note: See below regarding the purchase of this.

http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50344

Unidentifiable Organ
Heroic
Binds when picked up
Unique
Trinket
2128 Armor
Requires Level 80
Item Level 264
Equip: Each time you are struck by a melee attack, you have a 60% chance to gain 27 stamina for the next 10 sec, stacking up to 10 times.

CAPES:

http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50466

Sentinel's Winter Cloak
Binds when picked up
Back
737 Armor
+90 Strength
+124 Stamina
Yellow Socket
Requires Level 80
Item Level 264
Equip: Increases defense rating by 48
Equip: Increases your dodge rating by 48

http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50718

Royal Crimson Cloak
Heroic
Binds when picked up
Back
185 Armor
+78 Strength
+141 Stamina
Yellow Socket
Requires Level 80
Item Level 277
Equip: Increases defense rating by 68
Equip: Increases your dodge rating by 68
Equip: Improves hit rating by 44

EMBLEM OF FROST PICK ORDER:

Which will be slightly out of order to start. First let me say that since all of the set pieces cost badges now, unless it is something that will last you a very long time you are better off saving for your 4pc bonus.

It will take 310 badges to get your 4pc. That is a lot of badges. If you do the 3 new instances, a random daily every day, the weekly every week, and all 4 bosses of 10 and 25 man, you will have 146 badges when the new gate is opened.

If you clear through Putricide in 10 and 25 that is an additional 47 per week. That is 240 by the time the second gate opens if it takes 2 weeks. If the last gate opens 2 weeks after that, you can have a max of 350 badges.

It will probably take 3 weeks for each gate so realistically you can have your full 4 pc set, idol, cape, and trinket by the time you get to Sindragosa, or 452 emblems if the 3 week estimate holds.

3 examples where the upgrade does not justify the cost:

http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50972 (
Shadow Seeker's Tunic)
-The 264 version of the best-in-slot chest is BOE, and it only has 16 less agi and hit instead of crit.
http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50995 (
Vengeful Noose)
-Again comparing to the 264 version of the best-in-slot belt, you gain 16 agi haste and some extra ARP but worse socket colors and less AP if you use the emblem belt.
http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50982 (
Cat Burglar's Grips)
-Compared to the, wait, you already have the set gloves because you need them to upgrade to the 277 version for your 4-pc set. You gain a socket with the emblem gloves but lost haste for crit, and lose some ap and arp.

Now to the items you want to get:

As always, this depends GREATLY on what items you already have for these slots.

Because of how valuable I feel the 4pc will be, and because of my current gear level, I will be buying my 4 set pieces in the following order before anything else:

http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50827 (gloves)
http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50825 (legs)
http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50824 (shoulders)
http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50826 (helm)


http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50456 (Idol of the Crying Moon)
-My first purchase once I complete my set. It is 220 agi when fully stacked, 67 more than the Idol of the Corruptor (please do not tell me you were using the dodge one).
http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50466 (Sentinel's Winter Cloak)
-
This is the best cape in the game until hard mode Prince, and even then I still think this is better than the 277 one listed above. However until we start doing hard modes I prefer the expertise on the LJ cape I currently have so will leave this till second.
http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50356 (
Corroded Skeleton Key)
-If you have either version of the Satrina's scarab/Jug vit, hold off until you can get the one listed above from Sindragosa. I personally plan on using the heroic Satrina's + heroic Sindragosa's and probably will not ever buy this.

This post made me laugh

A recent GC post about warlock DPS.

No, you were destroying the other classes, except for Mutilate rogues and Unholy DKs, who were also nerfed. I think the only difference is that for the rogues and DKs it was easier to do so, while only the better locks could really come out with the great numbers. But being hard to do is no excuse for someone's dps to be gratuitously higher than everyone else.


6 months ago didn't he say the reason feral cat DPS was so stupidly op was because the rotation was only doable by the best of players and as such if they can pull off a more difficult rotation they deserve to be rewarded with higher DPS.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

NEWS UPDATE: Armory lists all ICC items, including heroic10 and 25, expcet Lich King drops

For the 277 best-in-slot list just search for "Step 5: The 277 Best-in-Slot list" down at the bottom.

Look for rings, trinkets, capes, and necks next week.

Step 1:

As such, I have put together a little comparison of the 277 set pieces vs the 277 offset pieces. Since you will more or less be forced to wear the 4pc for the enrage set bonus, the first task is to see if any set items are actually better than the offset items.

Helm: http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=51296 vs http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50713

set gains: 24 agi, and 106 ARP

Offset gains: 48 AP, 8 crit, and 98 hit

Conclusion: Set

Shoulders: http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=51299 vs http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50646

set: 8 agi, and 82 ARP

offset: 1 yellow socket, and 74 haste

Conclusion: Off-set

Chest: http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=51298 vs http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50656

set: 16 agi, 122 crit, and 106 ARP

offset: 1 blue socket, 16 AP, 114 hit, and 106 exp

Conclusion: Off-set

Legs: http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=51297 vs http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50697

set: 16 agi, 122 ARP, and 106 Exp

offset: 1 blue socket, 16 AP, 98 hit, and 122 crit

Conclusion: Wash

Gloves: http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=51295 vs http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50675

set: 8 agi, and 8 haste

offset: 1 yellow socket

Conclusion: Off-set

Step 2:

Since the legs are close enough and the helm is clearly better, we need to determine which 2 of the 3 remaining slots to use to finish the set bonus. Considering the lack of hit and expertise getting both on one piece makes this choice easy, keep the off-set chest.

Right now you have equipped:
Set: helm, and legs
Off-set: chest, gloves, and shoulders

Changing the gloves gains you 8 agi and 8 haste while changing the shoulders gains you 8 agi and 82 ARP.

Changing the gloves costs you 1 yellow socket while changing the shoulders costs you another yellow socket and 74 haste.

Now you have equipped:
Set: helm, gloves, shoulders and legs
Off-set: chest

SO,

Is the 4pc set bonus, 16 agi, and 82 ARP worth 60 stam (2 yellow sockets) and 66 haste?

Step 3:

The 264 sets vs 264 off-sets. Unlike TOC where 245 set and offset had the same number of sockets while 258 sets had 1 less socket than the set piece, the normal mode 264 sets in ICC have 1 less socket than the 264 non-set also. That makes this comparison rather redundant but here it is anyway.

Helm: http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=51143 vs http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50073

set gains: 24 agi, and 92 ARP

Offset gains: 48 AP, 8 crit, and 84 hit

Conclusion: Set

Shoulders: http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=51140 vs http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=49987

set: 8 agi, and 72 ARP

offset: 1 yellow socket, and 64 haste

Conclusion: Off-set

Chest: http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=51141 vs http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50001

set: 16 agi, 108 crit, and 92 ARP

offset: 1 blue socket, 16 AP, 100 hit, and 92 exp

Conclusion: Off-set

Legs: http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=51142 vs http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50042

set: 16 agi, 108 ARP, and 92 Exp

offset: 1 blue socket, 16 AP, 84 hit, and 108 crit

Conclusion: Wash

Gloves: http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=51144 vs http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50021

set: 8 agi, and 8 haste

offset: 1 yellow socket

Conclusion: Off-set

Step 4:

Changing the gloves gains you 8 agi and 8 haste while changing the shoulders gains you 8 agi and 72 ARP.

Changing the gloves costs you 1 yellow socket while changing the shoulders costs you another yellow socket and 64 haste.

SO,

Is the 4pc set bonus, 16 agi, and 72 ARP worth 60 stam (2 yellow sockets) and 56 haste?

Step 5: The 277 Best-in-Slot list.

WEAPON:

http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50727

Bloodfall
Heroic
Binds when picked up
PolearmTwo Hand
886-1329 DmgSpeed 3.40
(325.7 damage per second)
+175 Agility
+183 Stamina
Red Socket
Blue Socket
Yellow Socket
Durability: 120 / 120
Requires Level 80
Item Level 277
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 122
Equip: Improves haste rating by 98
Equip: Increases your attack power by 212

HEAD:

http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=51296

Sanctified Lasherweave Headguard
Heroic
Binds when picked up
LeatherHead
564 Armor
+183 Agility
+183 Stamina
Meta Socket
Red Socket
Durability: 70 / 70
Classes: Druid
Requires Level 80
Item Level 277
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 114
Equip: Increases your attack power by 196
Equip: Increases your armor penetration rating by 106

SHOULDERS:

http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=51299

Sanctified Lasherweave Shoulderpads
Heroic
Binds when picked up
LeatherShoulders
521 Armor
+136 Agility
+136 Stamina
Red Socket
Durability: 70 / 70
Classes: Druid
Requires Level 80
Item Level 277
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 90
Equip: Increases your attack power by 165
Equip: Increases your armor penetration rating by 82

CHEST:

http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50656

Ikfirus's Sack of Wonder
Heroic
Binds when picked up
LeatherChest
694 Armor
+167 Agility
+183 Stamina
Red Socket
Blue Socket
Yellow Socket
Durability: 120 / 120
Requires Level 80
Item Level 277
Equip: Improves hit rating by 114
Equip: Increases your attack power by 228
Equip: Increases your expertise rating by 106


LEGS:


http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=51297

Sanctified Lasherweave Legguards
Heroic
Binds when picked up
LeatherLegs
608 Armor
+183 Agility
+183 Stamina
Red Socket
Yellow Socket
Durability: 90 / 90
Classes: Druid
Requires Level 80
Item Level 277
Equip: Increases your attack power by 212
Equip: Increases your armor penetration rating by 122
Equip: Increases your expertise rating by 106

HANDS:

http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=51295

Sanctified Lasherweave Handgrips
Heroic
Binds when picked up
LeatherHand
434 Armor
+136 Agility
+136 Stamina
Red Socket
Durability: 40 / 40
Classes: Druid
Requires Level 80
Item Level 277
Equip: Improves haste rating by 82
Equip: Increases your attack power by 165
Equip: Increases your armor penetration rating by 90

BRACERS:

http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50670

Toskk's Maximized Wristguards
Heroic
Binds when picked up
LeatherWrist
304 Armor
+102 Agility
+102 Stamina
Yellow Socket
Durability: 40 / 40
Requires Level 80
Item Level 277
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 60
Equip: Increases your attack power by 120
Equip: Increases your armor penetration rating by 68

BELT:

http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50707

Astrylian's Sutured Cinch
Heroic
Binds when picked up
LeatherWaist
391 Armor
+120 Agility
+136 Stamina
Blue Socket
Red Socket
Durability: 40 / 40
Requires Level 80
Item Level 277
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 90
Equip: Increases your attack power by 181
Equip: Increases your armor penetration rating by 74

BOOTS: (going to list two here because they are extremely close and for how easy it is to get the crafted ones I think they are definitely the better choice thus they are listed first)

http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=49961 (only the pattern is present on armory)
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=49895

Footpads of Impending Death
Binds when equipped
FeetLeather
457 Armor
+120 Agility
+120 Stamina
Red Socket
Blue Socket
Socket Bonus: +6 Agility
Durability 60 / 60
Requires Level 80
Item Level 264Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 80 (1.74% @ L80).
Equip: Increases your expertise rating by 64 (7.81 @ L80).
Equip: Increases attack power by 129.

http://www.wowarmory.com/item-info.xml?i=50607

Frostbitten Fur Boots
Heroic
Binds when picked up
LeatherFeet
477 Armor
+120 Agility
+136 Stamina
Yellow Socket
Yellow Socket
Durability: 60 / 60
Requires Level 80
Item Level 277
Equip: Improves critical strike rating by 90
Equip: Increases your attack power by 181
Equip: Increases your armor penetration rating by 74

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

3.3: Items and things you need to know

Lets briefly go over any patch notes relevant to druid tanks:

  • Taunt Diminishing Returns: We’ve revised the system for diminishing returns on Taunt so that creatures do not become immune to Taunt until after 5 Taunts have landed. The duration of the Taunt effect will be reduced by 35% instead of 50% for each taunt landed. In addition, most creatures in the world will not be affected by Taunt diminishing returns at all. Creatures will only have Taunt diminishing returns if they have been specifically flagged for that behavior based on the design of a given encounter.
  • Rebirth: The cooldown on this spell has been lowered from 20 minutes down to 10 minutes. Cannot be used in Arenas. (not really tank related but GDI about dam time)
  • Hunters: Misdirection: Redesigned. Instead of having finite charges, it now begins a 4-second timer when the hunter using Misdirection performs a threat-generating attack, during which all threat generated by the hunter goes to the friendly target. In addition, multiple hunters can now misdirect threat to the same friendly target simultaneously.
  • Demoralizing Screech: The attack power reduction from this ability has been increased by 40%, equaling the maximum possible attack power reduction from the abilities of other classes. (REALLY? CAME THE FUCK ON BLIZZARD, warriors and druids still need to spend 5 talent points to max it out while paladins get it for 2 and hunters just have to change a pet, bullshit)
  • Infected Wounds: This ability is no longer considered to be in the magical defense category; therefore spell hit no longer applies to its activation. Tooltip error corrected. (with luck this means it also now only needs 8% hit to never miss instead of the 17? it currently needs)

ITEMS:

I have not actually compared anything yet and remember it all depends on relative to your individual gear level, but for me nothing but the chest will be an upgrade. Furthermore I am only linking tank items, minus capes which even the DPS capes make a decent tank item with a 30 stam gem in them. Some of the accessories have parry on them but even for me they are just barely a downgrade but please be respectful of your fellow (plate) tanks.

Marrowgar:

25
http://db.mmo-champion.com/i/49950/frostbitten-fur-boots/

10
http://db.mmo-champion.com/i/50763/marrowgars-scratching-choker/
http://db.mmo-champion.com/i/50764/shawl-of-nerubian-silk/

Deathwhisper:

25
http://db.mmo-champion.com/i/49985/juggernaut-band/
http://db.mmo-champion.com/i/49987/cultists-bloodsoaked-spaulders/

10
http://db.mmo-champion.com/i/50778/soulthiefs-braided-belt/
http://db.mmo-champion.com/i/50780/chestguard-of-the-frigid-noose/

Gunship:

25
http://db.mmo-champion.com/i/50352/corpse-tongue-coin/
http://db.mmo-champion.com/i/49998/shadowvault-slayers-cloak/
http://db.mmo-champion.com/i/50001/ikfiruss-sack-of-wonder/

10
http://db.mmo-champion.com/i/50341/unidentifiable-organ/
http://db.mmo-champion.com/i/50790/abominations-bloody-ring/

Saurfang:

25
http://db.mmo-champion.com/i/50333/toskks-maximized-wristguards/

10
http://db.mmo-champion.com/i/50799/scourge-stranglers/

5 -Mans:

Forge of Souls:

Normal
http://db.mmo-champion.com/i/49785/bewildering-shoulderpads/

Pit of Saron:

Heroic
http://db.mmo-champion.com/i/50228/barbed-ymirheim-choker/

Normal
http://db.mmo-champion.com/i/49806/flayers-black-belt/
http://db.mmo-champion.com/i/49803/ring-of-carnelian-and-bone/

Halls of Reflection:

Heroic
http://db.mmo-champion.com/i/50300/choking-hauberk/
http://db.mmo-champion.com/i/50293/spaulders-of-black-betrayal/
http://db.mmo-champion.com/i/50296/orca-hunters-harpoon/

Normal
http://db.mmo-champion.com/i/49832/eerie-runeblade-polisher/
http://db.mmo-champion.com/i/49838/carpal-tunnelers/

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Housekeeping finished

For those unaware, tankspot just updated its front page this past week. Check it out at http://www.tankspot.com/. Along with that upgrade comes a new article system.

As part of that upgrade I finally got off my ass and got around to some housekeeping I have been putting off since 3.2 came out. My Feral Druid guide over there can be found at http://www.tankspot.com/article.php?id=113807 for those wishing to view it as an article. Most notably I finally updated all the talent descriptions that have changed in 3.1 and 3.2(.2) and wowhead spec links in preparation for a new project I am working on. Look for its release soon.

The last order of business is to get on the PTR tomorrow and make sure blizzard has not done anything screwy with threat and confirm the numbers I collected from the ulduar PTR for threat co-efficients.
________________________________________

As expected, nothing changed.

http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f200/47813-bear-3-0-threat-values.html#post322965

Just had to make a few confirmations/corrections.

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Put up or shut up!

Anonymous said...

no he is retarded, he maybe a beast but he is low on Dodge Rating, stop stacking Stamina buddy!
I have 36% dodge in normal and around 49% dodge in bear form!


from http://mother-bear.blogspot.com/2009/08/unbuffed-lawl.html#comments



Where's your armory mr anon?

Thursday, October 22, 2009

No more purple kitty (AND MY WEAPON IS HUGE!)

Darksend, Death's Demise
FHLevel 80 Tauren Druid
(click for full effect)


Friday, October 2, 2009

What do you want to hear about?

I am currently writing a script for a podcast, what are some questions you would like answered or topics you would like discussed?

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

New Ring of Binding



The new tanking ring of onyxia. So yea, that is actually really good for what I need it for.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Are you using the correct rotation?

I just finished recording a new video guide look for it in a few days.

What to take away from it while you wait:

If you do not have improved mangle, you use a rotation of mangle->FF->x->y. Well after "y" mangle will still have .5 seconds left on its cooldown. Some mods show that as having a full second remaining, which in turn gets interpreted as an entire 1.5 second global so they use something other than mangle instead of waiting the 1/2 second. Thus using mangle every 6th global instead of 5.

The same goes for imp mangle rotations of mangle->x->y. The difference here is that not every rotation will include a FF due to the difference in mangle and FF cooldowns. So only on rotations where a FF is present between mangles will this .5 second discrepancy occur. Thus you end up using mangle every 5th global instead of every 4th. What is every worse about this than the above situation is that YOU HAVE JUST WASTED 3 TALENT POINTS if you are falling into this trap.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

unbuffed... LAWL

http://img40.imageshack.us/i/wowscrnshot081309145405.jpg/

busted computer = sad darsksend

will post more once i get it back

Friday, July 24, 2009

2 New Videos: 3.2 PTR Cat and Bear models

Well everyone said to wait until they were more than SSs and we could actually see them in game.

Having raided as a bear the few times they have put out a boss and had the PTR actually working I can say I truly hate the bear form for alliance.

1) the front legs look broken

2) the thing you cannot see in the video is when zoomed out at a 45 degree angle the mane makes it look like a plastic chew toy I would give to a dog

3) when jumping the back legs go up into the body and almost disappear because the body starts falling before the legs reach the top. Because of this the belly hits the ground before the legs

anyway I copied a premade horde over to the PVE server and on my main druid I took some clips of the new Alliance and Horde models.

Alliance

(As with all new videos HD takes a few hours)

Horde

(As with all new videos HD takes a few hours)

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Another gem from andrew

----------------------------------------------------------------->
my blog list

of teeth and claws "a world without tanks"

read it comment on it I agree with him 100%

Thursday, July 16, 2009

World 38th, US 17th

Long overdue, > 10 minutes till he vanished.

Thursday, July 9, 2009

back from vacation

reading over the patch notes now have not read anything wow-related for almost a week so gimmie a day or two to catch up.

one thing I will say is I cried a little when I saw enrage. The fact it did not give instant rage caused me so many headaches. I have a speculation that it has to do with 5/5 furor not being the norm anymore and this is blizzards way of compensating instead of making furor 3 points. I like this one better because my alt gets the buff too on bloodrage.

KOTJ is also very nice

anyway sleep time been a long past 3 days

Friday, June 26, 2009

Where have I been:

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Black+Dragonflight&n=Boredum

Finally got 80 last night. Been grinding it out pretty hard. That plus raiding 3 ulduars a week left me with very little time. An issue which just got a lot less time consuming because of my other big accomplishment. My guild finally downed firefighter in 25 man. Hopefully I will be able to get out more regular updates now that these two major time constraints have finally been completed. EDIT: Sooooo, the alts strike again. Last patch our alt group (with the help of a voidwalker) completed the 10 man meta before most other guilds got them on mains.

Alt mounts V2: Darkneskilla successfully tanks firefighter 10 (after giving all my healers heart attacks I love you all for putting up with me I still owe some of you steak dinners at some point for something but I forgot what). Thanks to Korsten, jeff, and jordan for coming on their mains ONLY TO GET CARRIED BY ALTS O.o. Also thanks to dab for knowing how do bind FoK to every key on his keyboard and facerolling.

Saturday, June 20, 2009

Blizzard at its absolute lowest

Hello, my concern is about "exploiting" in Flame Leviathan and Heroic Flame Leviathan of Ulduar.

Few days ago (tuesday 16th of June) our small casual friend based guilds raid group for FL got banned for "Intented Exploiting" (a term used by Blizzard employee for our activity).
Since our guild does not consist 10 active members our only pve raid target have been Flame Leviathan.
If you know the fight of Flame Leviathan I want to know your opinion and your explonation if you think the following is exploiting.

---

Tactic posted on MMO-champion website june 14, 2009, 10:44:07 AM. Link: http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.php?topic=64594.0
The tactic pictured by my (bad) paint-skills: http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/3274/srslywtf.jpg

Vehicles that was used on fight:
2 demolishers with 2 drivers and 2 anti-air personnel.
1 bike (extra player)

Since vehicles scale with item level, our guild has pretty nice requirements for this - we do lots of pvp, pvp items got high item levels too.

Step to step tactic:
1. Fight begins by kiting Flame Leviathan to one corner, either which demolisher got the aggro first
2. Anti-air personnels begins to shoot flying pyrite boxes from air and gather then during ALL time
3. Leviathan is kited by the path shown in screenshot
3.1 I'm pretty sure everyone here is familiar with The Pythagorean theorem (a^2 + b^2 = c^2) and everone can say c>a and c>b. There is the logic behind this kiting path.
4. Demolishers are constantly spamming pyrite barrel (number 2 keybind) which can be done by good pyrite gathering of anti-air personnels
5. When aggro chances demolisher begins to "packpedall" the tank back to his corner. The other demolisher that doesn't have aggro will follow Flame Leviathan in order to pick up more pyrite that have been dropped.

---

The kill lead to 72hour ban on most of us, but a good friend of mine got permanently banned.
I feel really bad for my friend who got banned, I can assure you than none of us knew that it was exploiting.
Nevertheless all of us got banned becouse of "Intented Exploiting" without any warning.

I really don't see the justice in this. I've done this in full 25man raid before in my old guild and we did it pretty much the same - except playing it really - really stupidly compared to this tactic.

---

After speaking to a gm he also said that Flame Leviathan is 10/25 man boss and when it's done by lesser players its considered as exploiting. Seriously there's even achievement to clear ulduar less than full raid!

Here's the conversation link with a GM. His name is sencored, I think name&shame rights goes for gms too.
http://img44.imageshack.us/img44/1132/conversationwithagm.jpg

And yes, we've sent a complain about this to the webform gave in email. No reply so far and propably keeps us waiting for another week or something.

"That is not really kiting Crescendoll, making him run between point A and B and never getting near a player was seen as exploiting here." -GM
What the **** are we suppose to do, ram into FL and let our vehicles get destroyed?
Before we got FL down, it actually got really really close (I think it hit my friends demo once or twice).

---

So our guild cannot do 10m or 25m version of Flame Leviathan without having a full raid?
And what was the exploiting, kiting?

Regards, Offensive/Deviant/Crescendoll of Trollbane
Sorry for my grammar, eng is my 3rd language.



EDIT:
We did not attack the turrets above FL and we did not interrupt Flame Vents in any way. Both of our demolisher handlers (me other, you can check gear itemlvl) had over 1million hp (something like 1060k).

[ Post edited by Offensive ]


source

Although it will likely be taken down soon by blizzard

Thursday, June 18, 2009

He feeds on your Tears

After 1shoting him on our first kill, with a death, and not having our regular group for our second kill last week, this week on our 3rd kill we successfully earned "HE FEEDS ON YOUR TEARS" by killing Algalon with 0 deaths for the entire lockout.

Maybe it was a good thing fraps fucked up last week as I now how the he feeds on your tears kill frapsed.

I would also like to congratulate our guild for completing our first legendary mace, GRTZ JOY (we actually got it last week I'm kinda slow).

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Failboat

I was going to put up a fraps of our 10algalon today.

Only when we killed him last night I started my fraps as normal and when the fight was over I checked and it did not record.

My fraps is numpad 5. TO BAD IT ONLY FREAKIN ACTUALLY STARTS FRAPS IF NUMLOCK IS ON FFS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Opening comments to as much trolling about my stupidity as you like.

Edit: Finally got around to updating my feral druid guide over on tankspot. Wowhead is being slow as it normally is on Tuesdays so the talents are not 100% up-to-date as of this edit but I am working on it now.

Monday, June 8, 2009

A favor for Toskk

Many of you know toskk for his amazing work in the feral DPS community. Recently he became one of the admins over at the druidwiki. Even more recently than that he has begun to take an interest in the theory behind game design. He started a new page over on druidwiki about it at http://druid.wikispaces.com/game_design.

As part of this project he is conducting a survey http://druid.wikispaces.com/message/view/ToskksDPSGearMethod/12498927

Well, it's totally off-topic for this forum, but I thought I'd describe my latest WoW project here, with the hopes that a few Druids would be willing to give the survey a test-run and provide some feedback on it. :)

As some here probably know, I'm actually even more interested in game design than I am feral druid mechanics. In particular, I'm interested in pushing the boundaries of video games by applying Educational Psychology and theories about how learning happens to 'entertainment' video game design.

I'm hoping to launch a new page/blog/discussion board (probably here on the Druid Wiki for lack of a better place to host it) all about game design and WoW in the next few weeks, and the first project for that is a survey designed to look at just how effective of a learning environment World of Warcraft (and hopefully eventually other mmo's) is.

I'd love to be able to eventually collect several thousand responses to the survey, to give a really good set of data on the strengths and weaknesses of the learning environment present in WoW. I'll be posting it in more visible locations soon, but in the meantime I'd appreciate it if any of the Druids here would give it a try. :) The survey can be found on surveymonkey here:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=ZEGZG0aVq8lK_2fqKGtF7hPg_3d_3d

Thanks again to all those who have supported this wiki and the feral project.. and just to stem any fears, that's not over. ;) I've got a new version of the model cooking already ;)

Toskk


Please take a look at it and help him out.

Saturday, June 6, 2009

Ulduar: The Lifestyle

[20:09:46] [G] [80:Baddylol]: damn still in ulduar?
[20:10:00] [G] [80:Lazzek:2]: we live in here
On that note: After a DC last week that cost us about 10 minutes out of our hour (what would have been US tied for 3rd), we went back in and 1shot Algalon. 18th 10 man kill in the world 7th in the US . The only hard part of that fight is the 1 hour limit. Even before the video was released by underground cosmonauts (or whatever their name is) we had the fight completely out. Even though last week was a tremendous disapointment 1shoting it this week more than made up for it.

Currently working on 0 watcher yogg. (Man this fight is a son of a bitch)

Ok, not that I have time to write something up properly:

And must say I am slightly disappointed.

This was our 3rd hour on him. Our first week we went in knowing absolutely nothing. In the first 20 minutes of that hour we thought we had figured out a few things.

2 days later the 1st 10 man algalon kill video was released. At that time me and my raid all commented that we were extremely disappointed in it. Those few things we thought we figured out, well it turns out that was the entire fight.

It is one of the most straightforward and easy fights in the entire zone. The only limiting factor is that your entire raid is terrified of being "THAT GUY" who dcs once you start and wastes your hour.

Anyway second hour we wiped sub 25% once then had a DC and never got back to phase 2 because of tank deaths.

This 6 minutes we went in and 1shot it.

For as much as blizzard hyped this encounter, I feel cheated. The most difficult part of the fight is that he hits the tank ala brutallus and if either of the main tank healers has to move from cosmic smash the tank pretty much falls over.

Friday, June 5, 2009

And the comment of the year award goes to.....

Lissanna (Author of http://restokin.com/):

They look like they walked out of a Hello Kitty store and got hit by a Care Bear Stare on their way to My Little Pony land
and a close second:

After seeing the NE color schemes for cat, I think I’d rather be dead broccoli tree that bright pink cotton candy tree.

Thursday, June 4, 2009

WOW............. HOW FUCKING HORRIBLE ARE YOU BLIZZARD


Sorry, but FUCKING CHRIST.

Can you possibly have a worse model for cat form. Not every night elf druid is a female IRL.

Night elf cats might as well be fucking barbie dolls.


Great so horde cats look evil, and alliance get stuck with fluffy pink kittys from hello kitty island adventure. next can we plz get a bear form that turns into ivan the circus bear?



so they took in the teeth a little and changed the colors of em pretty much and everyone thinks this is great concept art? lmao aint no wonder u guys are stuck in this game youre so easily pleased.


Dont understand what everyone is so excited about with NE cats...3 of them look virtually the same and 2 of them look gender confused.

Highly disappointed, taurens look so much cooler.


meh i could do without the bracelets and necklace.



They look a bit to feminine to me.

Tauren definately appear to have more work done to them. Tauren look fierce and awesome while with the Night-Elf cat forms look like they would faint if they had a splinter under a nail




In my post before i was going to mention this...

They might as well put braids in their hair, a ribbon on their tail and give em make-up.


I personally like the new tauren cat forms better, they look more lion-ish now.

The new night elf ones are [i]cute[/i] as currently presented...I like them, but they look a bit My Little Pony-ish to me, and I suspect some people may not be thrilled with "cute." But at least the colors are changeable via the barber shop so no one is locked into pink & purple pastels.



/Agree 100%, Make them look more badass plz!!! How im i suppose to murder my target looking like i came from Hello Kitty Island Adventure


IMO, NE bear form is good, though what's with the fruity necklace? An acorn?

NE cat form I don't care for, IMO looks cheap compared to the Tauren one, plus I was looking to pick the black cat, and the black one has pink eyes amd a glowey pink necklace? WTF Blizz? I think the Black cat should match the black bear with silver eyes and silver accents (necklace).

Glowey pink necklace... are you kidding me Blizz?!


wow, they REALLY need to make new models separating male/female. Just glad my druid toon is a chick, so I won't get the pain of castration whenever I go cat.


They're so... girly. The far left and right ones are the only ones that don't look as much like a girl's accessory pet. Would it be possible at all to spread around the coloration between the tuaren and ne models? The cows get all the earthy tones and ne's are stuck with a crapton of pastels.


Uhhh...am i missing something here, 5 out of the 6 NE cats are grayish, blackish, purplish or some combination thereof. Not a lot of variation there. Looks like they came off Tween Island with the pink and collars. Guess a lot of people are easily impressed with mediocrity.



I was skeptical, and I have some issues with the other new forms, but I'm actually pretty happy with these. Well done.

I'd prefer they didn't have the bracelets, necklace, and face markings. But they're at least somewhat minimalist, so I'm happy.

(Now if we can just fix the elf bears being bald with sideburns...)



Just give me a "Don't change to the new models" switch and I'll be happy.





It's probably because no matter how you project yourself it's hard to not look feminine in pastels.


Maybe its the bracelets and big dangly necklace. And the appearance of eyeliner from how the eyes glow.


I still fail to understand why you refuse to let us select our colors independently of hair choice when it would enable so many more people to be satisfied with the new forms. Especially when multiple forms may be suited to one hair color/fur color (spotted cow -> black cat or white cat, 4 different purple cats for a purple haired/skinned elf, etc).


Blue responds to the one post out of a hundred praising the new art; ducks the other 99 hating it.


"Since when did male Belfs take over our druid cat form?"

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

/sigh

We took a look at The Leviathan's Coil and are happy with its stats.

It is a very nice ring. :)

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=16473758064&postId=175618460570&sid=1#85


edit: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=17367604106&pageNo=5&sid=1#87

On the topic of Leviathan's Coil, we were originally happy with the armor value. However, when we looked at it further, we realized the entire ring was over-budget. Technically, we had spent itemization budget on armor and then split the stats again as if we had not. We decided not to keep the high armor because we didn't want to set the expectation that there would be high armor rings every tier and we didn't want players feeling like they had to go back to old content to get the only high armor ring.


So now, it is budgeted at 219 instead of 226 GOOD FUCKING JOB BLIZZARD. can you ever get it right?

Forgotten Heroes Recruiting

Sorry readers but something went wrong with the video I had planned on posting today.

In the mean time, my guild Forgotten Heroes of Black Dragonflight is still recruiting for Ulduar hard modes. ATM we are one hard mode away from 25 man algalon with our kill of 3 elder freya last night (a kill which moved us up to 35th in the world and 16th in the US once guild ox updates). Of the hard modes not required for algalon we have all of those on farm as well except for 1 watcher yogg.

1. About us:

Forgotten Heroes has been a raiding guild since the release of World of Warcraft and we currently reside on Black Dragonflight PvP. Our end game goal is PvE oriented and we are always pushing to better ourselves. Most of the guild enjoys PvP as well and we have many top arena teams within the battlegroup. If this sounds like something you would be interested in, please head to our website http://www.fhguild.net/ and apply.

2. Our schedule:

We currently raid Monday - Friday @ 7:00 PM EST generally with weekends off although sometimes we do push Sundays for progression. When content is on farm we usually spend 2 nights a week raiding. The guild bank covers all progression related repair bills so don't worry about spending countless amounts of gold wiping to encounters.

3. What we expect:

  • - We expect raiders to attend at least 4 days a week.
  • - We expect raiders to have proper consumables, specs, enchants and gems giving you the biggest advantage within a raid. To this extent certain fights require specific specs/gear/consumables to be able to survive the random burst (3 elder freya) or not run out of mana (hard general vezax) to name some. You will be asked to respec and know how to play that spec, what rotations to use, etc.
  • - We expect you to have a working microphone and able to speak.
  • - Most importantly we want someone who enjoys the environment and enjoys interacting with the guild you play with. Obviously if you're obnoxious and never shut up thats a problem, but being comfortable speaking on a regular basis is the goal.

Still Recruiting: 1 Resto Shaman, 1 Warlock (Exceptional players of other classes may be considered)

http://www.fhguild.net

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Probably the only feral druid bloger on the planet who has not yet.....

Commented on the new bear form models. Frankly I have been undecided about them.

I made up my mind last night when I realized I was not alone in feeling disapointed. In a shocking move ME AND KAILEE ACTUALLY AGREE ON SOMETHING (mek I blame you for this!!!).

Also, why does it seem like more non druids than feral druids are like OMG AMAZING LOOKING, they really are not that amazing.

In the news post about it over at tankspot someone posted:
Are the color changes nice? Yes.
Will it be nice to be able to differentiate the furballs in a raid? Yes.

But am I the only one that just sees a palette swap and the addition of an armband and necklace? I don't see a big change here. And nothing that indicates anything about the gear they're wearing, which is what I thought most druids had been requesting. *shrug*

I'm just glad I don't stare at a furry butt everytime I play, no matter what color it is. ;-)

After 5 years this is all they can do. I am extremely disappointed. There is absolutely nothing new they took the old models into an editor and changed the color, probably took all of 30 seconds per form. And it took them 5 years to make that. Where is my armor?

For as long as they made us wait I expected something better than the same models just with new colors.

Also, where are the shots from behind. Sorry but thats what I have been looking at for the last 3 years thats what I really care about them changing not the faces I never see.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Community Spotlight: Sometimes Warriors know what they are talking about

As many of you know I have a level 80 alt warrior, and as such I read a lot of warrior blogs as well as feral blogs.

My favorite warrior blog is http://www.tankingtips.com/, written by a good friend and my blogging mentor Veneretio (who just happens to be a fellow tankspot author). One nice thing about it is that he also covers a lot of general tanking theory as well, some of which I have been able to apply to my druid.

One example is http://www.tankingtips.com/2009/02/24/the-trash-caps/.

For trash mobs (level 82s), the hit and expertise caps are:

177 Hit Rating (5.4%)
22 Expertise Skill (5.5%)

Thanks to Satrina (tankspot moderator) and Vene for bringing these numbers to light.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

Glory of the Ulduar Raider: Firefighter

Last week I posted complimenting blizzard on their balancing of 10 man hard modes (compared to the atrocity that was the difference between 10 man 3d sarth's difficulty and 25 man 3d sarth's difficulty).

Last night, after about 12 hours of attempts over the 2 days, my 10 man raid completed the Mimiron hard mode Firefighter achievement. This finished off our meta as well, making us only the 26th raid in the world and 7th in the US to earn the Rusted Proto-Drakes.

The amount of time we put in not only on mimiron but the entire 10 man instance since it came out with sub-par raid comps (bad synergy overall due to wanting to take whoever was on to get it done, having to shoot up our best demolisher driver on orbit-uary, no mages on Freya, 4 melee on mimiron, and less than ideal healer compositions specifically for XT pre nerf) was a little less than I had hoped so I am truly looking forward to Algalon and Alone in the Darkness.

(on youtube: "This video is still being processed. Video quality may improve once processing is complete." Also means HD is not available yet.)

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Darksend's Weekly Tip: The best macro you probably are not using

I mentioned this briefly in my last post, "/targetexact". My exact macro that I change depending on the fight is
"/targetexact name
/script SetRaidTarget("target", 8)
/focus"

If you are simply typing /tar then that works, but if you are going to be making a macro anyway why not use this more precise method. It carries with it all the benefits of a standard /target macro with some added benefits.

The most important use of this macro is on bosses that spawn multiple types of adds at once from the same location. Trying to click on the correct one can be a pain. I first started using this macro on M'uru so I would not target the mage as it was running out but continue to find uses for it.

Using M'uru as an example, the adds both have "shadowsword" at the start of their names. Using "/targetexact shadowsword Berserker" instead of simply "/tar shadow", it would garuntee never targeting the mage.

The other use is finding things that spawn in random locations. Spamming that macro while spinning around your camera helps you easily find where the new add spawned and allows you to get to it much quicker than you would have if you had not marked it. The best example that comes to mind is trying to find spores while dpsing on Loatheb or finding the tree on Freya.

Monday, May 18, 2009

Community Spotlight: Kalons reply to GC

You did not honestly expect me to pat blizzard on the back without a rant shortly after did you?
We want to get out of the business of needing to offer 2 types of weapon for a single tree of one class, given that we already have to itemize Balance and Resto druids somewhat differently. It is just not our design to make two-handed tanking weapons, and we have attempted to design DKs and druids so that they don't need them.

The classes and spec have grown so divergent that even with Ulduar offering something like 800 items (which to be fair, counts 10 vs. 25 and normal vs. hard) some players still feel like we aren't filling their niche. We don't want to have to offer 1000 or more PvE items in one patch, so we need to handle things at the class level so that there is less of a need for those items.

If you want to focus on tanking as a Feral instead of dps, you should do that mostly through talents, gems, enchants and the jewelry and cloak pieces. We have fit two fairly different roles into the Feral tree and you can even hybridize them to a degree, but we want to stop short of having to itemize the druid as four classes.
Kalon (of thinktank) said it best in a reply that echoed my thoughts almost exactly:
And that would have been a fine design decision at the start of WotLK.

But then you came out with the Enraged Feral Staff.
And staff of shrouded mysteries.
And Origin of Nightmares.
And if that weren't enough, you came out with a tanking staff with armor from the Argent Crusade vendors.

I understand that your vision is that you don't want DK and druid tanking weapons. What I don't understand is why you keep undercutting your vision. It's this duplicity that is problematic (though hardly surprising). It's that duplicity that causes the quality of life issue that druids aren't happy about.

Simple fact is blizzard you already opened the door, you thought about putting in 2 DK blacksmithing tanking weapons, AND YOU VERY VERY SWIFTLY removed them before they ever went live. If this was truly your design philosophy than none of the current weapons in game would have armor.

If you do not remove the armor from Origin of Nightmares then it will continue to be the best tanking weapon well into the next instance, you simply cannot compare with 700 armor unless you have the levels of agi that exist on the currently bugged pvp weapons.

Also, @ kalon, have you run the numbers on the pvp weapons with their new agi levels? Is the 1850 one still better than OoN ?

Dear Blizzard, I am truly impressed

Congratulations Blizzard, I am truly impressed by Ulduar.

But before I get to that I want to address a fellow blogger and if he will allow me to call him so a friend, Andrew formerly Karthis of "of Teeth and Claws". He has decided to quit playing wow and shifting the focus of his blog to other things. In his goodbye post (you can read it here) he noted his reasons for quitting. One think that seriously struck me was:
I simply cannot get excited about those encounters because they present nothing new. In many cases it's just "kill faster", "heal harder", and "screw up less". Unique encounters suck me in.... rehashed encounters push me away.
Having done hodir hard mode I can tell you, there is a lot of strategy beyond simply "kill it faster" and the rest of the hard modes in there do bring back some of that feeling from TBC. "Screw up less" ... there is no less, back in TBC a single screw up caused a wipe, even if it was something small by the person with the least important job in the raid, which is the kind of difficulty you wanted anyway andrew is it not? Flame Levi, XT, IC, Mimiron, hell the only hard mode that is not a completely new and unique encounter on hard mode is hodir (and to some extent thorim).
Instead of truly difficult raid content we have relatively easy fights that can be tough only if you strive for the achievements.
I will agree with you that the achievements are pointless, I hated the glory of the raider achievements as it really did nothing to make the fights unique. However, hard modes are not achievements, you just happen to get an achievement when you complete a hard mode for the very first time. I love all the ulduar hard modes, and with that on to addressing blizzard.

Since the day my guild killed muru for the first time I have never been that happy about wow, until this week. Almost as happy as killing the royal pain in the ass known as Archimonde for the first time or pre-FA nerf Mother Sharaz (having a top 50 world-wide kill of Archimonde and a top 50 US kill of Ilidan). Those types of challenges are the reason I play wow. Ulduar is so far living up to them. While not nearly as difficult in the sense of time invested into it (muru archimonde sharaz and ilidan took weeks of learning) a lot of those hard encounters were nothing more than having a perfect raid composition and the countless hours of wipes missing 1-2 people from that raid comp but going anyway even though you know you only have 2 resto shaman for Eredar Twins, having to play my alt priest on Felmyst because we did not have enough mass dispells, or not enough pally blessings. Raid stacking is without a doubt something every hardcore guild will tell you we are happy to live without.

Now, why am I happy. This week my guild cleared 3 elder Freya, the Saronite Animus, and One light in the Darkness on Yogg. This leaves us with only 4 tower Flame Levi and Firefighter to complete the Ulduar 10 man meta.

I never thought I could have this much fun raiding a 10 man. As far as blizzards goals, it is tuned perfectly for people wearing full ulduar 10 man gear (or in our case the comparable 25 man naxx, maly, and 2d sarth gear). The first week my group got hard mode Iron Council and Thorim (the second day of the patch with little to no 25 man ulduar gear). The second week we smashed 2 minute hodir, 2 elder freya, and 2 tower Flame Levi. The third week we finished 3 towers, and hard mode XT. Due to pushing hard modes in the 25 man we did an easy week in 10man the 4th week just repeating everything we had already killed.

That brings us to this week. We breezed through 3 tower flame levi, hard XT, hard IC, disarmed and crazy cat lady (only because they are for the meta), then hard hodir and finishing with hard thorim. We did all this in just under 3 hours. Granted by now we all have a fair share of 25 man gear, but nothing was stuff we had not done before either. The following day we went to 3 elder Freya. We had been worried about her because she was kicking our asses in 25. But after only two attempts she was dead. We may or may not have tried hard mimiron, i seem to not be able to recall several painful hours of my life during that time. That is possibly the hardest encounter in the game right now on both 10 and 25, and I can see why. Finally we decided to move on and kill it and come back to hard Vezax the next day. After a few stupid wipes, we had two attempts in a row where a different healer died around 80% both attempts. We ended up wiping to tank deaths with the animus at low percents both times because the 2 remaining healers simply did not have the mana to make it through. We then had an attempt where we killed the animus but 2 ranged died, resulting in an insta-gib crash killing all the melee. Next attempt a clutch battle rez by yours truly on a healer after killing the Animus gave that healer just enough mana to keep the tank alive after the two living healers were oom. I love the smell of saronite.... CHECK

One light in the darkness, the moment all of us have been dreading for the past 2 weeks. We knew a while ago that the sanity beams only come from freya, but also that the phase 3 adds cannot die without the assistance of thorim. The two week debate on which to send down has ended very switftly, the response: HOW THE HELL do you kill yogg without being able to refresh sanity? First attempt we did not even need it, very first guardian in phase 1 a dps pulls agro and 2 of them end up getting blown up next to sara at the same time (part my fault as well) and the warrior died instantly because he had the damage increase taken from sara. Well that out of the way we get to phase 2 next attempt, finally getting to test our new strat for the melee inside, well it worked. We had 35+ seconds left to dps the brain each of the 3 brain phases with lich king being our 3rd portal, pushed 55-30 and forced phase 3 with 8 seconds left. I have been a part of the inside group every time I have killed him on my druid and I still contend we have one of the best inside groups in the world, my hats off to all of them in both 10 and 25. We ended the fight with our main tank about to hearth about before being MCed, but he made it and no one else was even close to going insane. Second attempt ever at 1 watcher yogg: US 12th.

We then went on an alt run and fully cleared it on alts (all alts except for 1 main healer since we had no heroism without her) in 7 hours (in all 25 man naxx gear) including IC, hodir, and thorim hard modes (with my warrior picking up the soon to be buffed tanking mace from hodir in exchange for my offtanks stam trinket off yogg which finally dropped). We 2 healed hodir with 30 seconds left. That is the only encounter that I feel is tuned incorectly, for 10 man a 2 minute 30 second timer would be much more appropriate. The three completed on alts are the only 3 I feel alts would be capable of doing, but by god we would be close on most of them. I have accepted that 10 man is tuned for people in 10 man gear, despite being so much easier than 25 man they still require a tremendous amount of concentration and if we had not been wiping for hours on freya and general in 25, I do not think we would have had such an easy time with them in 10.

So blizzard, as far as the 10 man goes, YOU ACHIEVED WHAT YOU SET OUT TO DO. And for that I will end by saying good work and thank you.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Darksend's Weekly Tip: Lucky Charms make a comeback

The trash in Ulduar is not the "PULL AND AOE" trash that we have seen so far in this expansion. For this reason marking is becoming a factor again. In most cases when it is not the raid leader marking, it will be the tank.

When marking, try to keep the icons consistent. Most people use skull as the primary kill target, then x, sheeps are always moon and square, saps are always star and circle, etc (or whatever your guild/raid/group has decided on ahead of time). Before the run starts, assign each person to a symbol and state what you are using for your kill order to make things much smoother. This not only increases focus fire but also speeds things up by not having to call over vent or type out who is doing what target on each and every pull.

In your keybinds there is a section "Raid Targeting." This allows you to hotkey all your symbols directly. You can mark in combat, so say a CC cannot be reapplied because that person died, change that symbol to skull so the DPS knows to ignore the kill order and kill the broken CC instead. Manually selecting symbols take several seconds, use hotkeys or a mod.

There are also a lot of mods that help you mark. The one I prefer is called Baud Mark.

The final method is "/script SetRaidTarget("target", #)". This is the macro command to mark a target where 1 is star 2 is circle etc with 8 being skull. Where this comes in handy is on encounters that spawn multiple types of adds. By using this in conjunction with the "/targetexact" command it allows you to quickly target and mark the correct add. Some examples of where this can be useful in Ulduar are Razorscale, to some extent XT during the heart phase for pummlers, Thorim if you are tanking the arena, and Freya.

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Darksend's Weekly Tip: Emblem of Conquest Item Review

Emblem of Conquest Items to buy:

The first item depends on if you have Hood of the Exodus. If you do than get the T8 Chest Token first. If not, then the T8 Helm Token is your better choice and the chest should be bought second.

Next I would suggest the neck, but only if you do not have Boundless Ambition or the neck from 10 man Kologarn, both of which are better

The belt
is an amazing threat piece, but it is still not as good as the crafted belt overall. It is also the cheapest item besides the necks and much cheaper (18x6 for the orbs) than the crafted belt. Good placeholder until then.

The legs are again a threat item, but overall worse than both the 10 and 25 man t8 legs.

For DPS:

The neck is almost exactly equal to the 25 man saph quest reward neck (worse if you are a JCer and used a prismatic).

The gloves are not even going to get a link because they are pretty bad. They are an upgrade from 25t7 but that is where it ends. Both t8 gloves are better, as well as the 25 man Auriaya gloves. Best in slot for gloves are by far the PVP gloves.



As always, all the past weekly tips are viewable here and here.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Darksend's Weekly Tip: Yogg-Saron

There will be no weekly tip next week as I have a special surprise for this week. TWO TIPS.



Enjoy and see you in Ulduar

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Darksend's Weekly Tip: Raven Mount Tutorial

This week, I am launching my youtube channel with my first instructional video.



I recommend watching it on youtube if you are watching it in HD even if the sound is shifted slightly in parts.

This was just to get my feet wet with editing again as I plan to do several more instructional videos. If you like the idea post some feedback about what kind of things you would like to see. If you have specific questions about the video most of them are answered in the voice over but if they are not just drop a comment and I will be glad to answer.

One thing that is not mentioned in the video, you do not have to clear the entire room, but it is very risky. When he banishes himself the birds can agro other pulls, but it was not always the same pull every time. If you want to roll the dice and potentially save time you can but I recommend against it.

As always, all the past weekly tips are viewable here and here.

(10 man yogg kill will be up by next week, server second AFAIK - my alt got the server first FFS alts)

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Ulduar cleared

Yogg down tonight.

Last night we downed general, FIRST KILL I CANNOT BELIEVE MY LUCK.

Main tanked 90% of the instance (yes as a druid.)

The gear I have on is the gear I wore (the gloves are the s6 gloves with an 18 stam enchant and a 24 stam gem, the idol is the one in the link above). The only fight were threat was even close to an issue was General Vezaxx and that is only because of the kiting mechanic. I never DID NOT HAVE vigilance cast on me (more on this later). On most fights I wore polar gear. There is no difference between 40% avoidance and 45% avoidance. In my polar gear I have ~35% dodge. I dodged 10 attacks in a row on XT adds. THERE IS DEFINITELY A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 40K hp and 50K HP.

This is me getting glyph of Survival Instincts nerfed.

I am sorry but there is no debating this, the EH theory of progression tanking is by far the only way to do it. Yes I am egotistical, but I am also right. As a fellow blogger put it you simply need to compare the extreme cases of EH and avoidance gearing: if you gear for EH you can just throw more healers at the person, if you gear for avoidance if you take even a single hit you die. Yes those are extremes but they are also true.

Armory me, I did not use my dual spec a single time, and I have not changed my spec since I picked those 2 specs. The gear minus the polar gear that I wore on some fights where I just stood in a corner and did nothing (this more applies to 10 man).

The most noteable 25 man fight I used polar gear was Thorim. The main tank died at 50%, we had me alive, 2 DPS, and 5 healers. We took it from 50% till 10% when he finally got to many stacks and 1shot me. Why, because I took a 35K and a 20K crit back to back swings and lived.

TLDR:

Paladins, Druids, and DKs are all amazing tanks. Warriors are severally underpowered in the HP department. Blizzard, please give warriors a buff without nerfing the other 3 tanking classes.

The biggest problem with warriors is that they can cast vigilance on others. When I am main tanking and my warrior is offtanking I have 3% more mitigation than him from a buff. When it is the other way around, and since we do not have a prot paladin, this creates a massive disadvantadge for him. Any warrior tanking without a prot paladin offtank is severally underpowered.

Edit: 3% mitigation can also be gained from a disc priest, but I do not know how many progression guilds use disc priests. Mine does not so it was not an intentional omission just something my guild does not have access to I had forgotten about.