Results tagged “WotLK”

Andro has been my main for most of my time playing WOW and has generally done okay in instances and raids. However, in ICC I've steadily been falling behind the DPS curve. Her gear is okay (room for improvement, but all in all not bad) and I'm (in most cases) familiar with the fights yet the gap between her DPS and that of our other Arcane mage (not to mention other DPS) seems to be steadily growing. There's only one conclusion to draw from that - the weak link in the process is me.

Looking at a recent log for Andro and my fellow Arcane Mage (it's a Deathwhisper fight), the difference in damage output is pretty clear cut - I'm doing 60% of the damage of my colleague despite near-identical builds and similar gear (he's marginally better, but not enough to account for this difference). Some of it is crit rating, but again only to a small degree, but the most obvious difference is casting time; Mage X casts 50% more Arcane Blasts than Andro does, which adds up (particularly with the Missile Barrage procs).

I'll freely admit I'm not as aggressive as some others, but even when pushing my hardest (and using Quartz and the like to judge latency issues) I'm not getting the results I'd hope for (which has lead to the odd friendly insults from the tanks ...). So, I'm not sure quite how I'm failing (though I have some suspicions) but I'm fairly sure I am. 

So, what to do? I think the best option is to use this as an opportunity to revamp how I play and try to narrow down where the issues are - it's just another mob to slay, albeit a very personal one.

I think hand-eye coordination and reaction time is a factor - the latter for both for me (as an "older" player, though to be honest almost none of us in the ravens are spring chickens) and my gaming rig.

A "back to basics" is in order, most likely starting with a clean UI (so I can judge if the software or my PC plays a role - I know the box struggles with some graphics effects like the Marrowgar fire-fog) and then working on rotations and play style to maximize my casting speed and aggression - if I'm dropping ABs in the rotations that could add up.

I'm debating whether de-macroing all my cooldowns and trinkets is a worthwhile part of this process - on the one hand it could be useful as a learning exercise, but on the other hand selecting and triggering trinkets and multiple sets of cooldowns is more likely to be more of a distraction from the core magery.

Last night the Shattered Ravens returned to Ulduar (our second guild visit, though some people have done it independently), but first more important things: Andro's fashion sense.

For the last few months Andro has been kitted out in T7/T8 and then T8/T9, including the Tier 8 chest. While a nice piece of kit, it's a tunic and so Andro has (in the words of our gnome rogue, Rivelinho, been "showing off her legs"). Being a modest kinda gal she's not been too fond of the various flavours of tights she's worn during this time  but thanks to all the Emblems of Triumph she is finally kitted out in four pieces of T9, including the robe. Yep, back in a dress at last! Oh, and shiny new dagger, wand (x2) and staff!

The Ulduar trip was slightly delayed by work-related issues and so after some personnel substitutions we quickly visted Obsidian Sanctum and promply salughtered the inhabitants (with, IIRC, only one death). In addition to a super-speedy kill of Sarth Andro managed to get Gonna Go When the Volcano Blows!

With out group finally ready, we headed to Ulduar and had something of a mooch in vehicles killing everything and generally being chaotic before taking a pop at Flame Leviathan (which we failed at on the first attempt, but did handily on the second. next up was XT Deconstructor, who was a boss many of us hadn't fought before and who proved to be good fun (even though Andro died).

Next up was Ignis, who we'd seen on out previous visited and whom was promptly one-shotted. Following that we headed to Razorscale who, despite a little bit of harpoon confusion and Leafshine needing to force a reboot mid fight ended well for the Ravens with both the armoured drake felled and the "Siege of Ulduar" completed.

More personnel substitutions followed as the hour was getting late, but we wanted to see more of the complex and so pushed on into the Antechamber of Ulduar. After the trash pull from hell (prompting comments of "so that's why they leave those up") we paid Kologarn a visit. This proved to be the most troublesome fight of the evening (as fatigue and/or alcohol took its toll) but on the fourth attempt we got him down. A couple of notable moments here: the tank discovering that Kologarn really was sitting in a bottomless pit (splat!), a rogue following him in the next fight (oops!) and a mage who can't tell her left from her right (who, me? Looks innocent).

And that's where we left it for the night (it being gone midnight, not that that stopped us taking a quick trip to Pit of Saron HC) but with plans to return to Ulduar in the near future to continue where we left off.

Is it evil of me to think that the following isn't a bug per-se, rather natural selection in action

[Horde players do not receive a parachute when the Kor'kron Troop Transport is destroyed during the quest, "Assault by Air". ]

Work has been taking its toll on my playing recently but I've still managed to do a fair number of runs and get Andro her second piece of tier 9 (and some new trousers, prompting a revision of her enchants and gems) and for Buliwyf to slowly gear up and head off into the Epic 200+ territory.

Though I wasn't scheduled to participate (but was down as a reserve) young Buli found himself tanking the Plague and Spider wings of naxx on Monday (save for Loatheb which Awl, a druid tank, handled) as well as Sapphiron and a couple of cracks at KT. I'm still something of a novice in the tanking stakes, but it's a fun change from Andro's DPS-age. A lot to learn still (like don't turn the big icy dragon!) but my confidence is increasing and his gear has benefited greatly from 5-man TocH and Naxx/OS loot drops. I do need to work on some of his repuations (currently Sons of Hodir and Argent Crusade) after which point he'll hopefullt be a useful member of the Ravens.

In other news, the guild are trying to run 2 Raids a week - one progression-oriented on Mondays and a more general "fun" one on Fridays (though that one is heading to Onyxia tonight and is oversubscribed while Monday's Ulduar is rather healer-light!) Fingers crossed both raids will go off well (particularly as the coming Monday is the first one in 3 weeks I've not been down as reserve for - the Ony run already had 12 by the time I knew I'd be free) and that we continue to keep up the impetus. Fingers crossed too that the increased raiding keeps the guild's "high flyers" happy and that we dont' have another bout of departures to more raid-focussed guilds. We'll have to see.

Last night, on our second visit (and our fourth attempt of the evening) the Ravens downed Malygos, Aspect of Magic, ending the Nexus War (as far as our participation goes at least). On each attempt phases 1 and 2 went like clockwork save one stupid mage (that would be me) getting splatted. The first couple of phase 3s were chaotic, but we steadily improved and despite a couple of deaths (stupid mage again, and our tank) the rest of teh team were able to bring Big Blue down. Killing him also elevated a number of Ravens to the rank of "Champions of the Frozen Wastes", and there was a certain amount of title swapping going on ...

Technically, as Leafshine mentions, that means the Ravens have completed the vanilla Lich King content (so only 2 - soon 3 - patches of stuff to work on). As it was still early, we decided to head to Ulduar (which many of us hadn't seen) and promptly smacked Flame Leviathan (on the first attempt) and Ignis (on the second). Both fights were pretty smooth, though getting an achievement for being stuck on Ignis' molten "crotch pot" (as it was quickly named by the group) is a bit icky. Decent loot was had by all (including an upgraded off-hand for Andro!).

It was getting late by this point, and rather than learn a new Uluar boss fight we decided, after a bit of peopl swapping, to head to Wintergrasp and assault the Vault of Archavon. A number of us have done the bosses there in PUGs but we'd only ever done Archavon as a guild (and a couple of attempts on Emalon, defeated by the timer). Cue three one-shots (Archavon and Emalon bloodless, and Koralon with a smattering of casualties. Cue more loot (or shards in the case of Archavon's stuff), though persuading young Blayse to keep the Mage Tier9 trousers proved to be something of a challenge (there were three of us present - Blayse, Magariz and myself - all of whom lusted after the trousers). We also got a Grand Black War Mammoth for our troubles (grats to Deacus!) After something of an absence I think future visits to VoA are likely.

(Add to the raid success a quick 5-man trip to COS - with Deacs giving people a ride in his new Mammoth-taxi - wherin Andro finally managed to win the bronze drake!)

All in all, an excellent evening.

I was off work last week, ostensibly on holiday but in practice suffering somewhat from the lurgy. There were a couple of days I just slept, but I also got in a fair chunk of WOW playing.

Monday saw a return to Naxx and after tanking the first couple of Construct Quarter bosses

 with Buliwyf, Andro swapped in and was able to kill the last two bosses and "complete" Naxx (and get the achievement). We sailed through until Thadius and then proceeded to wipe a number of times. A router failure by one of our healers meant we had to rejig things and bring in a replacement, but after a couple more goes we prevailed. The last attempt went like clockwork. Practice makes perfect?

Something else we did repeatedly last week was the Headless Horseman. Both Andro and Buili had everything they wanted from him, though Andro, as a mount and pet collector wanted the Horesman's mount. It dropped twice for us in the fortnight, both times when Buli was tanking. First time out it went to young Magariz, the second to Buli (so Andro is now green with envy!)

Andro did, however, finally manage to complete Rapid Defense at Wyrmrest Temple and to complete a number of achievements in the AV and IoC battlegrounds (we even won IoC a couple of times - the Ruin/Emberstorm battlegroup is horribly biased against the characters of Ruin as we're cross-faction and either up against other Ruin players (where the chances are even and the numbers favour Alliance) or facing a dozen German PvP realms (which henerally means a loss for the Ruin players, both Horde and Alliance).

My third major character, a Draenai hunter named Maebh (Mae for short) finally hit 60 and in her second AV managed to find a picture of Foror and Tigule (which Andro, with a zillion AVs under her belt, has singularly failed to do :) She also learnt to fly, which makes life in Hellfire Penninsula a much more pleasurable experience than Buli or Andro had. Though force of will (and willingness to wander outland in nothing but a tabard and lingerie) she completed all of the Hallow's End achievements bar getting the cloth had. After six days of trick or treating she was forced to admit defeat and wait until the 2010 season!

Also in hellfire Penninsula is my Orc DK, Clavain, who was originally created as a means of bolstering the funds of my younger hordelings but who as instead set out to explore the world (and principally so I can see the Horde-side of Outland and Northrend before Cataclysm hits). He went to Outland at 58 and, being broke, can't fly like Mae but that's not slowed him down much. He did die once in Silithus when I went (through five years force of habit) to the Alliance flight master and, upon clicking them, was swiftly butchered.

Finally, last night saw the Ravens go onto The Eye of Eternity for the first time. The first few times were chaotic but we soon learned the phase 1 fight (and are getting there on phase 2). Out few attempts at Phase 3 were disasterous, but it feels quite doable and we're hoping for a return trip (and success) next week. As light relief Angeliqa (who grew up horde-side as a blood elf before defecting to the Alliance) set her black tabby to wandering Malygos' domain, chased by the Stinkers a couple of us owned. Very odd to be fighting the Guardian of Magic and his minions with love-crazed cats and skunks dashing about the platform (antics based on Pepe le Pew for those who don't know it).

Yesterday also saw two new recruits to the Ravens, the first not known "in real life" but only through the game. Historically we've been fairly restrictive on recruitment, but fallign numbers (due to people moving Horde-side, to other severs, or stopping playing) has prompted a more open (if still cautious) recruitment policy to ensure we have the numbers for raids. There'll probably be a couple more shortly, after which point we'll take stock and see how numbers go for our raids.

I was pootling round Dalaran (as you do after being thrashed on the Isle of Conquest again) when I spotten a message from my good friend Breanni of the local Pet emporium. It seem's that I'd been selected to look after another of her strays, a baby penguin named Mr Chilly. Me and the young chap immediatel bonded over a bucket of raw mackerel and a jingling ball.

I'm glad to say he looks a lot calmer than his cousin Pengu who always looks rather demon-possessed.

With 9 men, and a big stick.

Last night the Ravens made their first foray back into Naxx in about a month (having held the raid IDs since we cleared the four wings) and promptly spanked Saphiron (for the loss of two characters, one of whom was me .. oops!).

 Kel Thuzand proved a bit tougher and we bounced a few times. We were getting closer though and despite one of our number having to drop out, we carried out trying, and on the fourth or fifth attempt (having finally sussed the spacing, target priority and add-pickups) we managed to down Kel and "complete" Naxx.

As it happens, I still have two bosses to do (in the Construct quarter) to be fully complete, but hopefully those'll be attained when we next come back to the floating citadel - I suspect the next few weeks will be The Eye, Onyxia and our first steps into Ulduar!

Brewfest is here again, and Ironforge (and Origimar) are full of drunk characters weaving their way around invading dark iron dwarves and scoffing pretzels and sausages while wearing leaderhosen or dirndals.

As ever there are a host of achievements and having reached a grand total of 190 Brewfest Tokens yesterday Andro logged on this morning to take her total to 200 so she could buy the last thing she needed - membership of Brew of the Year club - earning her the title of Brewmaster.

Gaining the Brewfest meta-achievement was the last thing she needed for the "What a Long, Strange Road it's been"... meta-achievemnt (i.e. completing all the achievements for all the major festivals). The reward for this is much sought after: a Violet Proto-drake (a 310%-speed mount) which means Andro can join that club who "accidentally" go AFK on the landing platform in Dalaran to desmonstrate the size of their 'mounts.'

Within the Ravens we have a tried and true method of fighting known as "windmilling in." We were trying to explain the nuances of this approach to one of our new members, when we realized it was was much easier to demonstrate it. The following instructional video does the job nicely

(caution, considerable profanity)

I have to admit to not being a Paul Kaye fan (better known for his roles as Dennis Pennis and Mike Strutter) but I do find "British Martial Arts" somewhat amusing and it did lead to the "windmilling approach" which, if you hadn't guessed, is basically running in and beating the living daylights out of the targets (tacticless tactics as it were). While its generally a bad idea, there are times it's very effective. I remember back in Burning Crusade days trying repeatedly to down the Black Stalker in Heroic Underbog and failing miserably. After 5 or six attempts at finessing the boss we decided, "charge in and windmill the sod, and if that doesn't work lets give up." Cue one dead boss.

Windmilling: For when coordination and finesse just aren't cutting it :)

One of my fellow Ravens is a draenai shaman named Shanda. Colour me a little surprised to bump into this lady while out in Loch Modan farming eggs for cake-making at the weekend. Something you're not telling us miss Shanda? Are you one of the Ananasi, moonlighting as a rare mob in your free time?

As an aside, I already knew my own Buliwyf had a doppleganger in Ironforge (he was may day 1 character and was named Buliwyf - Beowulf - after the character in 13th Warrior before I'd ever set foot in Ironforge)

Despite the bugs I mentioned the other day, Children's week went pretty smoothly - the reviled "School of Hard KNocks" achievements went fairlty well for me on Thursday Night/Friday evening though one of my associates had to do dozens of WSG to get the achievements, and another found themselves in a 90-minute marathon match.

By the middle of Friday evening I'd done the BGs, scoffed sweets in the child's presence and done various daily chores. I'd also managed the non-meta "Veteran Nanny" achievement by aquiring the third of the Shattrath orphan pets (my sixth overall!)

All that remained was a visit to King Ymiron in Utgarde Pinnacle. Some of my guildies joined pugs for this bit (and in some cases  wiped a lot!) but I waited until sunday evening where we did a 40-minute speed run (well, it was normal mode) that saw only one person die (a rogue to Skadi's whirlwind). Cue much celebrating by the newly-dubbed "Matron Andromache" than generally involved hopping over Ymiron's body (as I'd been turned into a rabbit by Probenae, our rogue, hence the rather bunny-like version of me on the left.

... Andro joined a couple of VoA pugs over the weekend. The first was a 10-man group that

was mostly members of a single guild who needed some extra bodies. We targetted Emalon first and despite one little accident, were successful in bringing him down (by first success on him!) followed by a short and brutal slaying of Archavon. A distinct lack of mahe loot though (as ever ... I've yet to see any mage gear there!)

The same group invited me along to Ulduar, but I demured saying my gear (mainly heroic/crafted stuff) wasn't up to it. The person I was chatting with felt I'd be okay, but it soon became irrelevant when they changed the target to the Obsidian Sanctum - as a 25-man raid. I'd only been there once before (on a guild look-see earlier in the week) but we had solid leadership and decent players all round and blitzed out way through. I died once (to the fire waves on Sarth .. it was my first time fighting him) but the raid got him down on the second attempt. As ever, no mage loot though.

My 25-man visits to VoA were another kettle of fish. The first one targetted Emalon first and was doing moderately well until someone disco'd (a healer or tank - not sure which) and things folded. The promptly followed several rounds of recrimination and name calling (my favourite was "Ddo you know who I am? You can't talk to me like that!") and people going "its too hard" (despite putting out something in the region of 30k dps across the raid ...). The raid broke up at that point, but at least as there'd been no boss kill I wasn't saved.

I joined another raid later in the day, and this one blitzed its way to Archavon with no problems. He went down like a sack of spuds ... and then several people immediately hearthed out before any attempt could be made on Emalon. The numbers quickly escalated and the raid folded. Talking on guildchat I gathered it was a common issue and the reason why a lot of raids were going for Emalon first (to avoid people getting locked to a half-complete instance).

No, this isn't a QQ about "School of Hard Knocks" (I managed to do 3 of the four PVP tasks before bed last night, including the EotS one that had me worried; just WSG to go. In fact, some of the horde helped me do the AB achievement by waiting patiently for me to assault the mine flag as they saw I had an orphan with me) but rather "Daily Chores" and "Home Alone".

"Daily Chores" isn't recognising daily tasks (or wasn't last night at least) and "Home Alone" isn't sticking - I've had the achievement twice, but it then seems to forget it. Given there's only a week in which to do the achievements there's not a lot of wiggle room and  I'm hoping Blizzard fix this ASAP - it's been suggested that it may work correctly after the 2am quest reset, but if that's the case then its sloppy programming to allow the achievement to be attempted several hours before it will actually work (and Home Alone doesn't have that excuse). If my "Hard Knocks" completes haven't stuck I'll be seriously pissed ...

On the plus side, I got Storm Capper and Storm Glory while in EotS and Veteran Nanny (not part of the Children's Week meta)

So, last night was the Raven's first trip back to Naxx in a while ... and looked very precarious for a while. Of the 9 sign-ups only 7 were online at the appointed time (the 8th had forgotten but got online as soon as he was called) and the ninth was called away by a family emergency. Never ones to ignore a challenge, we decided to take a crack at the Arachnid Quarter anyway, expecting to get brutalized. We were pleasantly surprised.

Anub'Rekhan took two attempts (as in the first the healers got silenced and it all got messy at that point) but Grand Widow Faerlina went down like a sack of spuds (as usual), thanks to the fact the dps and tanks were putting out about 8k of DPS, so with a full team we'd had sailed through. Maexxna proved a bit much for us to 8-man (we only had 2 healers) so we decided to check out the Obsidian Sanctum, the first time there for many of us.

This was somewhat harder work, but we 8-man cleared to the first mini-boss and then roped in another guildy for a the attempt. We bounced a few times as we learned how it all worked, but eventually prevailed. More badges for the collection!

Loot wise it was DPS-tastic - 2 pieces of caster loot (gloves from AR and off-hand from Faerlina), and 2 of melee loot (a dagger from AR and, if memory serves, some boots). Though I was the only clothy present, the caster items were only greed for me (having the Ebenweave gloves and the badge off-hander) so they went to our friendly neighbourhood battle-tree Leafshine. Our rogue, Almaron, got the melee gear (and very happy he was too!)

All in all a good night, despite the ominous start, and shows that we can get things done (and surely will once we get back up to strength). Go us! 

The delayed noblegarden is uppon us. Eggs and bunnies. Collect eggs and eat their contents or trade them in for goodies. Sounds simple doesn't it. So why was it one of the most painful events to do?

Most of the items needed for achievements can be bought for chocolates or via drops (the latter being somewhat erratic - I got 3-4 of some items and none of a couple of others ... until just after I'd bought them), so that's not the difficulty. My problem as a mage lies in getting upwards of 250 chocolates (100 for one of the achievements, 100 for the polymorph tome and another 50 for the one item I was missing) when half the server is after the same thing and either camping the spawns or running round like bunnies on speed (using the Egg Rush power). During the day the villages were mobbed, so I'd suggest hunting early in the morning or late at night, or leaving it until later in the week when things are quieter (check the calendar for the end date which overlaps with the start of Children's Week).

Most of the achievements were fairly easy to do. The only ones that proved troublesome were Shake Your Bunny Maker  (as some mods interfere with the targetting, there's a 5-minute cooldown on use, and finding females of some races is challenging), Hard Boiled (which is easy enough to do with a friend if you have a blossoming branch but a bit more challenging if you're solo - after being turned into a rabbit I hearthed to Cenarion Hold in silithus and hopped from there). Not that Getting Dressed for the occasion and Sunday's Finest are nice to get, but they're not part of the Noblegarden meta-achievement.

Now next weekend sees the arrival of Childrens week, most of whose achievements are straightforward though some of the BG-related ones are likely to be a major (if not impossible) challenge ...

Time after time.
I've done my sentence.
But committed no crime.
And bad mistakes.
I've made a few.
I've had my share of sand kicked in my face.
But I've come through.

We are the champions, my friends .
And we'll keep on fighting, till the end,
We are the champions.
We are the champions.
No time for losers,
'Cause we are the champions - of the world.

 After a week of dailies, Andro achieved the rank of Stormwind Champion with the Argent Tournament and was awarded young Patsy here to cater to her every whim while she gathers Champion's Seals for goodies (like this nice sword). She's now playing nice with the Darnassus faction, who she hopes to be the champion of in a week or so.

A week after 3.1 launched, Andro is a couple of dailies short of Stormwind Champion status with the Argent Tournament (I would've reached it yesterday, but one day last week I missed a couple of dailies due to instancing). It's been a nice diversion, though I'm still getting to grips with the jousting, and it'll be good to see a new phase. I'm not sure of the long-term appeal - I may well go more slowly through the other city's progressions, but even so you're only looking at a few weeks to max things out. After that it's just a money/seal grind (though the mounts and pets appeal to me immensely). I'm kinda hoping that the event will evolve over time (and it'd be good to see the tourney grounds grow - unlike the Shattered Sun Offensive the site doesn't appear to evolve (yet).

 One of the other major changes in 3.1 was the introduction of Dual Spec but while my Paladin Buliwyf availed himself of the system at the weekend (a healer spec and a tank spec) I held off doing so with Andro. I always planned to use the system, but hadn't had the time/motivation to do it. Last night I took the plunge (to the amazed response of one guildy "dps and dps?"). And yes, it is DPS and DPS, though the plan was to have one spec for raiding and another more tuned for battlegrounds. One thought was frostfire for raiding and arcane for PVP, and another was Arcane for raiding (Andro's current spec) and frost for PvP. The latter is what I went for in the end, though I actually kept the frost spec more raid oriented. The reason? This weeks 3.1.1 patch was to include a talent re-spec so in effect the time I spent playing with the frost raiding spec was a "freebie" test and I can adjust the talents after today's patch. It was an interesting exercise - Frost doesn't have the +hit benefits of arcane so I have to use an extra couple of bits of kit (which impacts on DPS a little). In my first attempt on the dummies I forgot that and ran at around 1600 dps (with Arcane I'm usually 2k or so self-buffed). My second attempt (with the right gear on) was around 2k, and my third and fourth more like 1800. It's got potential as a raid spec and is certainly useful for long fights (buckets of mana-regen).

3.1.1 also brings the start of Arena Season 6. I'm not a big Arena player - I dabbled briefly in Seasons 3 and 4 but am pretty hopeless - but I do play Battlgrounds, and this new season means a trickle-down of new kit. In season 5 the progression was Savage (i200 blue, honor), Hateful (i200 Purple, arena/VoA) and Deadly (i213 purple, Arena). I'd got most of the Savage kit, and the few Hateful pieces I could without an Arena rating, but from today I can start work on replacing the Savage stuff with Hateful, and the Hateful stuff with Deadly. That's something in the region of 500k honor to purchase, but I have a few things going for me. Firstly, I already have some of the Titan-Forged (Wintergrasp Token) pieces which are a mix of i200 Epics (Hat, Boots and Trinket 1) and i213 epics (robe, belt and Trinket 2), so I don't automatically need the Hateful/Deadly versions, which reduces the total to about 350k. I also have 75k of honor banked (as I'd got all the stuff I wanted already and have been to a degree avoiding WG/BGs since I capped a fortnight or so back). With a run through WG and some BGs, that's potentially a couple of pieces right off the bat (bracers and shoulders are my thought, though gloves may beat out the shoulders for now).