Category: achievements

Why I Hate Heroic Modes

Kurn / / achievements, raiding, ramblings

I’m going to be honest with you; I hate the heroic mode toggle in raids. It doesn’t mean that I don’t do heroic modes, nor does it mean I think current raid content shouldn’t be more difficult than current normal modes. It simply means that I don’t enjoy doing the same fight with another twist or two plus everything hitting harder and having more health.

Beru linked to Borsk’s post about the end of his guild’s raiding. A sad thing, to be sure. It’s never easy to throw in the towel and it’s often something that has huge emotional repercussions for all those involved, so my sympathies go out to him. His post, however, is wonderful and he discusses a lot of different things. What really hit me is this, though, which resonated with me greatly:

I look back on TBC fondly because it was the last time when finishing the instance meant finishing the instance.

WORD. He went on to say “From Ulduar on through Firelands the heroic modes felt like a nuisance. While Rhyolith felt like a boss that needed put in his place, Heroic Rhyolith felt like “hey asshole, I’ve already killed you once, just give me my loot.”” Total agreement here.

So let’s discuss my disdain for heroic modes of any kind (for yes, it extends to dungeons as well). It dates back to the introduction of heroic dungeons back in the Burning Crusade. “Are you kidding me?” I exclaimed when I learned that I would “have” to do things like Hellfire Ramparts again at level 70. As a healer, the heroic dungeons of the day were pretty rough, at least to begin with. Heroic Black Morass? God help us all with the running around and the being oom and such. Shattered Halls? Deadly without a prot paladin to adequately AOE all the mobs so the poor healer wouldn’t draw healing aggro.

And even when I WAS geared, I couldn’t properly heal Magister’s Terrace. Without Beacon, with Holy Shock being a terrible option to use, most times, no Word of Glory or Light of Dawn or Holy Radiance… I mean, I was sitting there in mostly T5 gear and I couldn’t properly heal through the Kael encounter on NORMAL, much less heroic.

I disliked this model so much that I basically refused to do them. To this day, my paladin is still not exalted with the Sha’tar. I did what was needed of me for attunements and such, but people would laugh at others in guild if they were silly enough to say “Kurn, wanna heal a heroic??”

Wrath came around and regular dungeons were stupidly easy. I remember being on my hunter in Gundrak and trying to trap mobs like the pro that I am and tanks laughing at me.

So heroic dungeons in Wrath were tolerable, especially late in the expansion when everyone could faceroll them. To me, they felt like normals should have, shortly after launch. Their difficulty, even the “hard” ones, like Heroic Halls of Lightening and, later, Heroic Halls of Reflection, weren’t so terribly bad. (Not to say pugging them was always a walk in the park.)

And then they introduced raid hard modes with Ulduar.

I liked it, to an extent. On the one hand, they gave us more challenges and more dynamic fights to extend our playtime in there because it’s cheaper than making a brand new raid. Same trash, same maps, just different boss mechanics depending on various factors.

I was okay with this. I loved how to trigger the hard modes. XT hardmode was an excellent example. If you didn’t have the DPS to kill the heart, you’d never have to worry about switching it on accidentally. Flame Leviathan, while being able to choose a variety of difficulties, was awful because it stemmed from talking to one of two dudes and then bringing down or ignoring various towers. By contrast, how great was it to know that if you accidentally hit the big red button in Mimiron’s room, that your raid was probably about to die hideously?

I also really liked the Iron Council switch — couldn’t be simpler. Kill Steelbreaker last and that’s your hard mode. Similarly, Freya’s hardmode meant not killing her adds in the room. The switch was very simple on some fights and more obscure or complicated on others. And the levels of difficulty were really interesting from a tuning perspective.

Then Trial of the Crusader/Grand Crusader arrived with its four separate lockouts and a simple menu button to toggle it on or off. Simple, yes. Boring? Absolutely. It doesn’t help that the raid itself was mind-numbing. It taught me to appreciate trash, that’s for sure.

Again, I can’t fault them for the change because I am positive people gave a lot of feedback about how someone screwed up the triggering of heroic mode (or not) and such in Ulduar. Shoot, I probably did. When the weekly raids were introduced and people were exposed to the fights for the first time, I was like “Oh nooooooooo,” when I pugged into a Flame Leviathan where someone had talked to the wrong NPC and OH HEY, we’re doing FOUR TOWER Flame Leviathan!

So while it was easy to make the switches, it was also really easy to screw it up.

Then they realized that the four lockouts was just insane, thankfully, so they brought it back to one lockout per raid size (and now, in Cata, it’s just one lockout, period) with the heroic toggle in the menu.

And through it all, I’m still wondering why the hell we’re “forced” to go through each instance twice.

Now this doesn’t mean I don’t do heroic modes. I went 4/5 25m in TOGC. I went 11/12 25m HM with two guilds in ICC. I have my 25m ICC drake and my Glory of the Icecrown Raider 25. I went 7/13 25m HM with Apotheosis in Tier 11.

Why do I do it if I hate them so much?

In part, it’s because it’s THERE. I’m a competitive person and if there’s something to DO, I’m going to want to do it, whether or not I like the idea of it.

In part, it’s because the step up in terms of gear is great and necessary for when you embark on the next tier of content. Face it, if you’re decked out in 372s instead of 359s, you’re going to have a much easier time in Firelands to collect your 378s. And when you’re decked out in 391s, you’ll have an easier time in the next tier compared to the people in 378s. Those 13 item levels may not seem like much, but that’s the difference between heroic blues and Tier 11 gear. It makes a difference on your mana pool, your healing done, damage done, your sustained efforts.

So I do them because I know that my guild will be stronger for the next tier or the next fight or whatever. Logically, I can see that heroics fill a needed step in the gear progression.

I also do it because that’s just how progression works these days and, though I dislike how it works right now, I’m in that system and I want to progress. I want the heroic kills under my belt because they’re in the game. But I promise you, I would be a thousand times happier to kill Ragnaros, as we did last week, and know that we were now ready for the next boss in a new instance. That’s what happened in Vanilla — people cleared Molten Core a few times then moved to Blackwing Lair, then moved to The Temple of Anh’Qiraj, then to Naxxramas. It was a very linear progression.

It was even mostly linear in Burning Crusade.

You started in Karazhan and started to collect gear and some Tier 4. And once you were geared enough, you could join a 25-man team and — wait.

I feel the need to express how RIDICULOUS it was to start raiding content with 10-man groups and then move to 25-man raids. It was excruciating for us to gear everyone up for Gruul and Magtheridon and, as such, I can’t stand Karazhan any more. Which is a shame. I quite liked it, at the time. For a little while, anyway.

So, right, you went to Kara and then, to keep raiding, had to go to 25-man raids, where you would do Gruul’s Lair and Magtheridon’s Lair.

Once done, you’d move into Tempest Keep and Serpentshrine Cavern, consisting of a total of 10 bosses in the two instances. And once Kael and Vashj were dead, they were dead! None of this heroic crap.

Then on to Mount Hyjal and Black Temple and, eventually, Sunwell.

Borsk is right — finishing a raid instance back then meant something. Now it just means that the grind starts all over again, only things hit harder and have more health.

This is not remotely interesting to me.

The reasons for heroic modes are understandable, however. You have all this time and these resources being poured into raiding content and, if the raids are too hard (BWL? AQ40? Naxx?), only a small portion of the game’s population will ever see the raids. This is a huge concern of Blizzard’s and I can understand that. At the same time, they understand that there is a difference between a raid group that raids 30 hours a week and one that raids 9 hours a week and one that raids 4 hours a week. How to make everyone happy and make sure the ones who raid more seriously don’t get bored? Make optional hard modes for those who are organized and skilled enough to do those difficulty levels!

I can understand it.

I still don’t like it.

To me, it’s not remotely engaging gameplay. Triggering them? A flick of a switch instead of a game mechanic. Watching my tanks get absolutely crushed by the bosses who now hit 2701 times harder while having 300% more health? Not looking forward to it. Heroics have, to me, always felt “tacked on”. I imagine that the designers had a discussion like this about Heroic Sindragosa design:

“Okay, so Ice Bombs should just instantly kill anyone they hit on heroic? We’re agreed on that?”

“Yeah, yeah, anyone who can’t dodge those things deserves to die. What’s next?”

“Hm, good question. Probably should do something with Unchained Magic, right? Maybe it spreads to others if you’re in range of them?”

“Tempting, but… I don’t know. It doesn’t feel right. Sindragosa should be brutal. Think more brutal.”

“DUDE. I’ve got it. Are you ready to have your mind blown?”

“Hah, let’s hear it.”

“Unchained Magic BLOWS OTHER PEOPLE UP on heroic mode!!!”

“Oh MAN, that’s the best idea EVER!”

“Wait, wait. She should also PARRY THRASH.”

“YES! ON BOTH DIFFICULTIES!”

“YES!”

Jackasses. That’s not fun. I loved the Heroic Putricide encounter but not because it was heroic — I liked the mechanics of the plague. THAT was fun and engaging. Unchained Magic and parries? Brutal mechanics. I’m not asking for things to be particularly easy or unforgiving. I’m asking for heroic modes to be less about “boss and everything about the encounter hits harder and has more health” and more about things like the Unbound Plague.

It seems to me that it’s just so rare for there to be fun and engaging mechanics in heroic content. It’s usually just brutally harsh stuff.

Maloriak was engaging because of the new phase. Chimaeron was not. It was just more tank damage. Magmaw wasn’t, it was just more fire and more adds. Atramedes wasn’t, it was, hey, more annoying adds and less gongs. Omnotron was Nefarian fiddling with things and in the 30ish pulls we did on it, it didn’t feel engaging. It felt annoying. Nefarian seemed like it would be more engaging, but I can’t attest to that personally.

In Bastion, Halfus was downright easy on normal so heroic actually felt like you’d accomplished something. The dragons were interesting because of the addition of the twilight realm. THAT was a good heroic mode. Conclave was annoying on normal and on heroic, IMHO, so out of the 7 T11 heroic modes I completed (and attempted an 8th), I liked precisely two of the heroic modes: Halfus, because it wasn’t boring any longer, and Valiona & Theralion, because it was a new mechanic that wasn’t *just* more adds.

And my streak continues. I have a bad habit, since heroic modes have been introduced, of not killing the end-bosses on heroic. I went 4/5 in TOGC, 11/12 in ICC, then 7/13. And now I am 7/7 normal 25-man mode in Firelands and we’re looking at heroic Shannox and all I really want to do is say “screw you, I defeated Rag, give me a new instance.”

Heroics are easy for the designers. Just a few variables to change, a couple of new animations and a couple of new spells and that’s it. Are they challenging for us raiders? Sure. Do they accomplish Blizzard’s desire to have lots of people see their raid content? Yup. Do heroics give us an option to toggle the harder difficulties, allowing more people to see the normal modes without the more serious raiders going crazy farming the same crap for a year? Yes.

I still hate them and I do them because that’s what’s expected of me and because, by golly, I CAN do them. I try to view them as new fights and I get psyched to get them down, but it’s not the same as clearing an older instance. The pure elation I felt when we got Lady Vashj down for the first time or when Archimonde died, none of the experiences these days are comparable to that. My reaction, instead of “YAY, WE DID IT!!!” is usually “Oh thank God, it’s over,” and then I slump in my chair in relief.

So a big thank you to Borsk for helping me to pinpoint what I don’t like about heroic modes and why, even all these years later, the Burning Crusade raid content still leaves me all warm and fuzzy.

[I]t was the last time when finishing the instance meant finishing the instance.

Firelands Clear on 25

Kurn / / achievements, apotheosis, firelands, raiding, ramblings, T12

Oh man, oh man, oh man. What a relief!

On Thursday night, Apotheosis went into Firelands with Baleroc, Majordomo Staghelm and Ragnaros himself still alive and kicking.

Baleroc went okay. I’m still not convinced all the healers are hitting on all cylinders in that fight, but we had one wipe and then got him down on the next attempt, so I’m not even concerned right now.

For Staghelm, I’d completely forgotten about the achievement, “Only the Penitent…” but Majik said over Mumble “Don’t get too close, we’re going to try the achievement here.”

Now, I know the basics:

There are two flame orbs on either side of the trash, sort of in the inset part of the columns. You can’t see them normally from a safe distance, but use a hunter, priest or shaman to take a look. You want to get six people, total, to get up to the orbs (3 on each side) and all need to click the orb once to start a channel.

The trick is, if you get hit by the cast the Druid of the Flame is chain casting (Kneel to the Flame!), the orbs despawn and you’ll need to either try to reset the instance or wait for the next lockout (or maybe a soft reset?) to try again.

I love Indiana Jones and, as it happens, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is my favourite of those movies. The achievement borrows from one of three tasks that Indiana Jones has to do. The clue to the first task is “only the penitent man will pass” and Indiana’s big “zomg!” moment is realizing that the penitent man is humble and will kneel before God.

Since walking into the Majordomo Staghelm area will nail you with the Kneel to the Flame cast that one of the druids is casting and that wrecks the achievement, it’s pretty clear both from just the name of the cast and the reference to the movie that you have to run, kneel, run, kneel, run and kneel your way up to the orbs on either side of the trash. It delights me, to be honest. :D

Anyway, Thursday night, we sent Toga, Merk and Sara over to the left orb and Dayden, Majik and Void to the right side and got the achievement in short order. My entire contribution was “volunteers? Anyone?” and “Okay, click now!”

So that was fun. :)

Majordomo took a couple of tries, but we nailed the third attempt beautifully. 8 minutes in length, 2 deaths, one of whom reincarnated and one of whom got a battle rez and voila. Triple Vanquisher tokens, of course (thanks, Fandral. A lot), but two Flamescythes for our ferals!

And then… it was time for Rag.

The first two attempts were nothing to write home about. Attempt 3 was okay, but nothing special. Attempt 4 was a mindblowing 11 minutes long! And it was one of those heartbreaking, soulcrushing 1% wipes. (Okay, really 11%, but we win at 10.)

Attempt 5, nothing special. Attempt 6 was a ninja pull by mistake (silly treants!) and Attempt 7 was pretty poor.

Try 8? Another 11 minute endeavour and another heartbreaking wipe, this time at 3%. (Really 13%, but still.)

And then, try 9. No one died in phase one. No one died in phase two. No adds on any of the transitions hit the hammer. No person died to Engulfing Flames or Molten Seeds during phase two. Lava Wave damage was minimal.

And suddenly, after 9 minutes at 41 seconds…

Why yes, that IS lava floating around behind my achievement popups, thank you for noticing. ;) About 15 seconds prior to the win, I got blown off the side by a meteor.

9 people were dead. That’s not horribly terrible for a first kill, only one of the 9 was a tank and four of them were healers. We five-heal Rag. So, uh, props to Jasyla for being amazing and keeping Dayden up all by herself for a little bit there!

So that’s both amazing and so much of a relief, I can’t even express. That was our 70th pull overall. I think we’ve spent about 11-12 hours on him, all told. (Granted, that’ll include breaks, run backs, discussion, etc.) But what a relief to get it done.

What I think I’m most proud about, though, is that we didn’t drop down to 10-man at any point in time in order to see how the fights work. We are a 25-man raiding guild. There aren’t a lot of us left, it seems, so I’m really proud that we stuck to our guns and got through the content as a 25-man group, all the way through, for each boss.

We are the only guild on the server, thus far, to defeat Ragnaros on 25-man difficulty as our first kill.

A progressive 10m guild worked on Rag and got him and the very next day went into Firelands as a 25-man group and started pulling Heroic Shannox.

The other main 25-man guild on the server did both Staghelm and Rags on 10m before they got them on 25-man.

So I feel as though what we’ve accomplished is a pretty big thing in this day and age. To stick to our format, which is arguably a little more difficult given the spacing requirements on both encounters, and succeed at it, before anyone else does?

That’s awesome. It is the icing on the cake of killing Ragnaros and clearing Firelands, which alone are two pretty amazing things. But it’s totally awesome that Apotheosis is the first guild on Eldre’Thalas to down Ragnaros in the 25-man mode as our first kill.

I tell you, I kind of love these people.

A free Sunday night this week, I guess. I have absolutely no idea what to do if I’m not raiding!

Keys: Keepsakes from Another Era

Kurn / / achievements, classic instances, general, patch 4.2, raiding, ramblings

When I started playing World of Warcraft, I had no idea what I was doing. I strongly suspect that a lot of people were, or even are, in the same boat. Over time, I educated myself about the game and what I, personally, needed to do in order to advance myself in the game. As I started playing in Vanilla, that meant getting attuned to Molten Core, Onyxia’s Lair and Blackwing Lair.

Along the way, I picked up a bunch of keys. The quests involved in forging the Scholomance key were great experience and fun, if a bit lengthy and, at the time, pricey. Back in those days, keys actually took up precious bag space and it was not at all uncommon for people to not actually own the key to an instance like Scholomance or the undead entrance for Stratholme. Even more common was the single person in the group (a group you had probably painstakingly assembled over the course of over an hour) who had the key had almost certainly left the key in their bank.

The keyring was excellent. No longer would we forget keys in the bank!

I always liked my keys. I even had the key to Searing Gorge on more than one character! The one key that eluded me was Gnomeregan and I picked that up shortly after 3.0 dropped so that I would get the Keymaster achievement when I got the key to Violet Hold in Wrath. I was so, so sad when they removed a bunch of the keys for Cataclysm, like the Scarlet Key and the Key to the City.

It must seem foolish to speak so fondly of an old, antiquated system, to many readers who are newer to the game or who remember all the keys we needed to do heroics in Burning Crusade. But key quests and attunements were bonding experiences.

I can hear the scoffing from newer players. I suspect the older players either think I’m certifiably insane or they’re nodding their heads in agreement.

One of the all-time longest attunements that people regularly did (no disrespect to AQ gong ringers!) was the Onyxia attunement in the original WoW. I’m not sure how bad it was for the Horde, mind you, but for the Alliance, it consisted of something like 16 quests. And we’re not talking easy quests, either. A lot of them had to do with group content and instances.

In particular, the sticking point for a LOT of people was this one quest called “Jailbreak!”. In it, we are tasked to go to Blackrock Depths and free Marshal Reginald Windsor from the prison there. Sounds easy enough, right? Wrong. Not only did you have to form a group of people willing to help you out with this task, but you had to be at the right part of the quest chain to benefit from the pain that was freeing Marshal Windsor. You also needed to have the prison key from the boss in that section of the instance. (Possibly a rogue would also work, but as I was a hunter at the time, I needed the key.)

Then, you had to be really good or really lucky to free Windsor without pre-clearing all the trash along the route Marshal Windsor wants to take, once he’s freed. And guess what? He wanted to exact revenge on several people in the prison (and free someone else) before he would save his own skin.

Not only that, but he would trudge so slowly through the instance that you just wanted to kick him in the ass to speed things up. At one point in time, although this might have been fixed, later on, if you went too far ahead of Windsor, he’d despawn.

So we had to:

– form a group of like-minded individuals (either willing to do Jailbreak! or on it themselves)
– get to the instance
– know what you needed to do once you were there and likely clear both rings in the prison section — possibly killing the prison boss as well
– then free Windsor and wait for him to catch up to you every few seconds

Finally, at long last, Marshal Windsor would run for the entrance of Blackrock Depths.

But were you done?

Hell no.

THEN, you had to go back to Stormwind and WAIT for Windsor to show up. (Sometime AFTER I’d done the attunement, they brought in “Squire Rowe”, who stands by the gates of Stormwind. You talk to him and that essentially triggers Windsor’s arrival.) Then you walk with him through Stormwind (again, he used to despawn if you went too quickly) where he would confront Lady Katrana Prestor and accuse her of being Onyxia and then Bolvar Fordragon (SOB, I miss that guy!) would open a can of whup ass on the guards — who were all disguised dragonkin in service of Lady Katrana Prestor.

That was a cool part actually, but then we return right to more suck. We then had to go to Upper Blackrock Spire (never you mind that this required a whole other epic quest chain itself AND ten people!) and kill General Drakkisath for the Blood of the Black Dragon Champion. They eventually changed it so it was lootable by anyone with the quest, but for YEARS, it was a green item that only one or two people could loot (more than one could drop). That meant multiple UBRS runs.

Once you got that taken care of, you would receive the Drakefire Amulet — a fire resistance necklace that you needed in your bags in order to enter Onyxia’s Lair.

Epic-sounding, right? No doubt this is why they started out with such things. It quickly loses its appeal, however, when you’re on your third or fourth toon who you decide to attune.

Speaking as someone who was an officer in a Vanilla guild, attuning people was a pain in my ass.

Hell, attuning people to Black Temple in Burning Crusade (even after the attunement was lifted, just so that we could get the Medallion of Karabor for the shadow resistance!) was a pain in the ass.

As much as it was all a pain in the ass, though, it was what you had to do to get into 40-man raid content back then. So people did it. There was a never-ending swarm of people who applied to guilds and needed their attunements done. I can’t tell you how many times I ran Jailbreak or ran people through BRD to get attuned to Molten Core.

But there was something about that shared suffering that bonded people together. No, I’m serious!

To this day, I will always remember getting attuned to Molten Core. I was in BRD for six hours that night. We had a paladin (!) tanking, a paladin (!) healing, another hunter and a mage. It was me and the healing paladin who were there from Fated Heroes. The tank and the other hunter (who was survival! That was SO rare then!) were from another guild and we picked up a mage to help because we were doing what was called an “emp run” — that’s to say we were going to clear the last boss.

That night, I got attuned to the core, got my Shadowforged Key, did an Emp run (which is where the T0 paladin gloves used to drop until they moved them to an easier-to-kill boss), knocked out a ton of quests… it was epic. The only thing we didn’t do was Jailbreak, because no one had gotten to that point in their quests.

And it was FANTASTIC. It was great!

I don’t remember the name of the puggers, but I do remember we were, collectively, awesome.

To this day, I will always remember running with Majik to get his Jailbreak done. We had to do it TWICE. We went in, did it (it took about 45m-1h back then) and then realized that since Majik had died during a pull, he had failed the quest. So we had to reset the instance AND DO IT AGAIN.

To this day, I will always remember getting Toga and a couple of his cousins attuned to Molten Core. We pugged a healer who then joined the guild. (Granted, he guild-hopped on us TWICE in as many expansions, but it was still a great attunement run.)

My own Jailbreak run had my brother on his druid, a dwarf (!) priest from our guild, another hunter from our guild and … someone else. We didn’t know to pre-clear first. We had to blow my brother’s half-hour cooldown Rebirth (battle rez) on the priest at some point and my brother even blew Tranquility at some point. Totally epic!

I will always remember that I essentially soloed a 5-man portion of the Black Temple attunement. I killed a bunch of adds and was well on my way to killing some elite quest mob all by myself, because my guild (love them!) essentially all said they were “too busy” to help me out. So I did this part of Shadowmoon Valley all on my own until some wonderful shaman from another guild whispered me with “invite!” and I invited him and he HEALED ME and we both got credit for that mob.

Going through steps of attunements was a GREAT bonding experience.

Keys were a way that you could show people you cared about your character and its progression — particularly the more difficult keys. Attunements were a way that you could show people you cared about your character AND that you could get through the difficult challenges most of these involved. It also usually proved that you could work as a member of a team and what is raiding if not working together as a team?

So as we anxiously await Firelands and 4.2, let’s take a moment to remember the countless hours spent on getting keys. Let’s take a moment to remember that, once upon a time, we couldn’t just stroll into a raid instance without being attuned, having an amulet, doing a huge number of quests or even paying gold.

Attunements are already a thing of the past, but I’ve held on to my keys all of these years. I’ve been proud of having them, all of them, and so, as I download 4.2, I will take a moment to think about all these entry barriers I successfully navigated and the crazy shenanigans that usually went along with those runs.

Goodbye, my dear keys. I don’t regret a single moment I spent getting any of you.

(Pictured, from left to right, top to bottom:
Prison Cell Key – BRD, Key to Searing Gorge – Quest, Relic Coffer Key – needed for a portion of BRD, Jump-a-Tron 4000 key – Nagrand quest, Boulderfirst Key – Nagrand quest, Coilskar Chest Key – Shadowmoon Valley quest, The Violet Hold Key – Quest, Zuluhed’s Key – Shadowmoon Valley quest, Flamewrought Key – Heroic Honor Hold key, Key of Time – Heroic Caverns of Time key, The Master’s Key – Karazhan key, Reservoir Key – Heroic Coilfang Reservoir key, Auchenai key – Heroic Auchindoun key, Warpforged Key – Heroic Tempest Keep instances key, Gordok Shackle Key – Nagrand quest, Rusty Prison key – fished up in Dalaran.)

80! Again.

Kurn / / achievements, archaeology, baby paladin adventures, facepalm, healing, lfg, ramblings

Ding! My baby paladin is now 80. (Actually, 81, but anyways…)

Regardless of whether or not I end up transferring my baby paladin to Skywall, to help out the fine people of Choice, I’m really glad I started a new paladin.

I know, you think I have a screw loose, but it’s given me some FANTASTIC perspective.

I tanked my way from 68-80, which was alternately amazing and failtastic. Getting Oculus about 9 times in two days, completing it only three times and having my drake bug out on me no less than seven times was pretty bad. By “bug out”, I mean that, at different times, I could not dismount or, shockingly, I could not use my abilities on the drake AND I couldn’t dismount.

The only thing that worked — and even then, it wasn’t guaranteed — was logging off and logging back in.

Only I would log back in and I wouldn’t be in The Oculus. Nope. Nor would I be in the location I was in when I accepted the LFG queue. No, all of that would make sense!

I would end up in the Sentinel Hill graveyard in Westfall. Alive.

Each and every time this happened, that’s where I would end up.

I maintain that Sentinel Hill is the black hole of Azeroth.

At any rate…

So I hit 80 in The Oculus, wherein my drake bugged out TWICE, and then finished up the group. I wasn’t going to abandon these poor people without a tank in Oculus. That’s just mean.

After the run, I race-changed from dwarf (as adorable as male dwarves are) and went human female, as I usually prefer to be, regardless of the class. There are a few reasons for it — Diplomacy, The Human Spirit, Every Man for Himself — but also because I don’t think I could get used to being that short as a dwarf in a raid situation…

Anyhow! Then I started scrambling for gear so that I could queue up as a healer for Cataclysm instances.

Problem 1) Heirlooms listed 1-80 do not work at 80 any longer. They might have, once upon a time, but that no longer works.

Problem 2) I had essentially nothing in a few spots and spent some cash here and there. My shoulders, sadly, are now the Ornate Saronite Pauldrons.

The ilvl requirement for Blackrock Caverns and Throne of the Tides is 226. I laughed. That’s 25-man Ulduar-level stuff! It’s kind of neat to see how much gear has changed so much. I did Ulduar two years ago and 226 ilvl stuff is now what your average should be in order to get into the entry level dungeons for Cataclysm.

I suppose it’s because it was just so easy to gear up to T10 at the end of Wrath but they also wanted to let those who maybe hadn’t done anything since Ulduar come in and get right into things.

I managed to get that ilvl up to 230 and finally, I could queue up. That was ALSO very strange to me. That I had to try to gear up for these starter dungeons? I walked straight into BRC, TotT, Stonecore and Vortex Pinnacle on Madrana without being challenged by the LFG tool. I guess being in mostly 277 gear will do that. Even Kurn, who was in mostly 251 gear, had zero issues queueing.

Things are blurring together for me. I dinged 80 and picked up the Patina-Coated Breastplate and the Bands of Fading Light. It seemed very weird to pick up those items to head towards Blackrock Caverns or Throne of the Tides instead of Naxxramas, let me tell you. I feel as though I’m skipping current content by skipping out on the WotLK raids, although I know I’m not. It just seems so strange to not raid those instances at 80. The disconnect between my “normal” pally and my “baby” pally is messing with my head.

I finally was ready to queue up for the entry-level Cataclysm dungeons and I looked, in horror, at my mana bar.

I had about 30,000 mana.

Do you know the last time I saw the number “30,000” next to my mana bar on Madrana? I was raid-buffed in Ulduar as we worked on Vezax. My raid thought that I had bribed a GM to give me extra mana.

So I queued up and was teleported to BRC and realized I was pulled in to a group that had lost their healer.

I took the portal that was up and found myself at the forge area.

The mage, who was the group leader, was an offensive jackass, whose first words are not “Hi, guys” or anything, but rather “dk i hope you know this fight cuz the last 3 tanks didnt.”

“I know all the fights,” he responds.

“we’ll see,” says the mage.

I’m like “wtf did I just walk into here?”

The DK pulls the boss, since the trash is done, and he, himself, stands on the grated outer ring. And the boss is, you know, nowhere near the center flame area.

After about 10 seconds of this, the mage says “lol might as well give up he will never die”

And I got pissed, because all of this could have been prevented if only the mage had said “please don’t forget to move the boss in and out of the fire in the middle so he gets the debuff.”

But he didn’t. Instead, he was like “I hope you know the fight” and the poor tank is then forced to be on the defensive.

So, while healing, I manage to type out “(tank’s name), please move him in and out of the central fire to debuff him.”

Instantly, the DK drags the boss into the central fire.

And proceeds to stand there.

And wipe us.

So I release and run and NO ONE ELSE IS. “Run back, please,” I say.

Two people (the tank and a DPS) release, one person goes offline and the obnoxious mage says “no i’m waiting for the tank to drop group because i’m not fucking running with him”

I tried to vote-kick the mage, but couldn’t initiate any more party kicks (I guess that means they vote-kicked people out before?). And when he still wouldn’t release after the rest of us got back to the instance, I dropped group.

LFG tool: 1, Kurn: 0.

My next queue took me to a partly-finished Throne of the Tides where the group was at Erunak. The paladin tank was all KINDS of vile, spouting profanity (which I don’t generally have an issue with) and teaming it up with perjorative terms against a variety of minorities, gay people in particular.

He pulled the boss and then, partway through the fight, dropped group. >.>

Not that I was upset to be rid of him or anything, but wow. What a champ.

The mage then remarked, “what a fuckin homo”.

I was about halfway through typing something along the lines of how equating “gay” and the like with “stupid” is not cool, but the rogue in the group beat me to it.

“Homophobic much?”

“yea,” responded the mage.

“Did you know that over 800 species on the planet can be gay, but only one can be homophobic?”

I LAUGHED. “Well-said. I’m with you, man.”

That effectively shut up the mage and the rogue and I chatted a bit in whispers about why homophobes are annoying mouth-breathers. Good times.

Finally, we get a new tank, a druid. And the group is suddenly awesome.

We had zero issues with Erunak or the last dude and then requeued for BRC specifically. Easy full clear, then randomed up again and got BRC again, whereupon I got a tanking shield and a healing shield. Then another requeue and we ran a full TotT run.

The fifth member of the group changed a bit — it was a DK, then it was a DPS warrior, then it was an enhancement shaman — but the druid, the rogue, myself and even that mage made a pretty good team, despite the earlier ugliness.

I went on one more BRC run later on, whereupon the tank pulled one of the fire elementals around Karsh and accidentally pulled Karsh, too. I was like “greaaaaaat, that’s going to be a wipe,” BUT NO.

The tank was superb. Not only did he make sure to get the boss debuffed, but he picked up the other add when it approached us and marked it with a skull. He used Divine Guardian, used all of his own cooldowns. I used Aura Mastery and HoSac (OH GOD, I have missed that spell!) and everything was fine. HORRIBLE pull. FANTASTIC execution.

The one major complaint I have about my experiences getting to 81 through the dungeon finder tool is this:

No one seems to know how the hell to interrupt.

Every conceivable BAD spell that could be cast DID get cast, without interruption, almost without exception.

I was that exception and Rebuke has a 10s cooldown.

Shadow Strikes on the Evolved Twilight guys in BRC? All me. Never could reach Corla to interrupt that Dark Command and, as a result, got feared and my worshipper evolved at one point, but anyways.

And that’s even asking them to do so. Like, “Hey guys, it’d be really useful if you could interrupt that Healing Wave on that mob, or Bore on this mob or Shadow Strike…”

Nothing.

Alas.

Still. Level 81. Getting there!

My ilvl is now 270, which is HILARIOUS, considering it’s all greens and some blues and my beautiful Vibrant Alchemist Stone. I keep looking at the ilvl and going “so that’s midway between ICC25 and ICC H25…” and wondering if I could heal heroic Dreamwalker. ;)

I’ve also been digging like a fool on Kurn (for the baby pally, for the Ring of the Boy Emperor and potentially Tyrande’s Favorite Doll. I’ll reforge the mastery to spirit on the ring and the doll will be useful while I wait to make/turn in a Tsunami deck.) and I am sad to report I got the More Skills to Pay the Bills achievement the other day. 525 in all four secondaries. I kind of hate myself.

There are guild updates, too. I need to boast about our heroic Magmaw kill and such, but we’ll see if we can nail heroic Atramedes tonight, too and then I’ll put it all in a single post.

Perseverence

Kurn / / achievements, apotheosis, blackwing descent, raiding, ramblings

It’s said that insanity is defined by doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Raiding can be kind of insane.

You rely on 10 or 25 people to do their jobs perfectly each and every time. In the beginning of raid content, even the slightest error can mean a wipe. As you gain gear and experience and familiarity with the content, slight errors happen with very little issue. Even huge mistakes can be forgiven, later on. But as you’re learning it and just after you’ve gotten that sweet, sweet first kill, execution is everything.

Last night, on our 65th overall attempt on Heroic Maloriak, we got him down.

65 times we went up against this guy. 64 times, we wiped, usually in hideous combinations of Dark Sludge, Scorching Blast, Frost Orbs and Flame Jets. Oh, and Arcane Storms during green phases. Ow.

This incarnation of Apotheosis is very different from the Burning Crusade version. We were learning, all the way throughout BC about how to lead a guild, how to lead/organize raids and how not to be douchecanoes.

We’re a lot more experienced now, after getting through BC together and the start of Wrath together before going our separate ways and seeing what else was out there for us. I know I learned a lot about my personal desires and personal limits when it comes to this game, as well as how NOT to run a raid group. I picked up a lot of tips on how to be more businesslike about running raids and guilds.

The biggest difference between now and then, though, is the attitude the people bring with them to a raid night. In Burning Crusade, it was like “aw, man, we’ve wiped on this guy for an hour. BLAH, I don’t want to do this anymore,” but obviously, progression means wiping and learning. This version of Apotheosis is very, very into killing bosses and new challenges. I rather suspect that if I were to poll them, 90%+ of the raiders would prefer trying a brand new boss fight than farming old content.

I like a good farm night just like anyone else, but once the fight is done successfully, it’s time for me to turn my attention away from it and move forward to the next. Or at least, that’s what I’m supposed to do. In Burning Crusade, I was constantly re-organizing old fights, re-explaining, just for repeat kills, at least in SSC and TK. (It got better in Hyjal and BT.) Shockingly, I CAN turn my attention to future challenges with Cataclysm’s Apotheosis. We have (knock on wood, lest I jinx us) never not done a repeat kill successfully the next time. Some are messier than others, some are super clean, but the second kill is always better than the first.

Getting the first kill is always such a relief, for me. It means that the effort we’ve invested in the fight together has paid off. It means those wipes were all worth it.

Currently being 3/13 on 25-man, in a guild comprised of my long-time WoW friends, is totally worth it all to me.

Yes. Even worth this. ;)

So we’ll keep trucking along. Don’t know that we’ll go 13/13, don’t know that we’ll get heroic Nef or Cho down before 4.2 arrives. But this group really doesn’t have much quit in them, I’ll tell you that. They make me proud to be their guild master.

Defender of a Shattered World

Kurn / / achievements, apotheosis, guild, raiding, ramblings, throne of the four winds

It’s almost 7am as I start to write this. Apotheosis killed Al’Akir almost 8 hours ago. I went to sleep and woke up at about 6:30 just because I couldn’t stop thinking “Holy crap, we killed Al’Akir!”. Most of my guildies in the raid, myself included, got the Defender of a Shattered World title. Apotheosis is now 12/12 on normal modes to go with our pretty, shiny, 1/13 heroic modes.

That is one hell of a fight. And I don’t mean it in a good way, either. Hands down, my least-favourite fight in Tier 11 content. That said, I do feel pretty smug after having beaten this guy. :)

It was on our 59th attempt that we killed him, although, to be fair, 16 of those attempts were in February. Our work on Al’Akir really feels like it started in the last couple of weeks.

This brings us to 12/12 normal modes, as I’ve mentioned. I know, it’s just like clearing T7 and getting Champion of the Frozen Wastes, right? But it’s doing it at the proper, that’s to say “intended”, gear level. We’ve done it in 346 and 359 gear, not in T12 or T13 or T14. We’ve cleared the normal modes of entry-level raiding in this expansion with a group of people who largely didn’t know one another six months ago.

And then, there’s me. I just posted a long-winded, sappy post on my guild forums about how I basically love everyone, but something I didn’t say there (but will obviously get back to the guildies — and that’s okay) is that I’m relieved. I am SO relieved. I almost can’t even put it into words.

So many people who joined the guild did so because of me. I’m the one who started asking around if people wanted to come back to Apotheosis for Cataclysm. I’m the one who was talking excitedly about her old guild on her blog and, for some unknown reason, got a lot of responses and applications because of it. Really, if Apotheosis didn’t make it out of T11, it was almost certainly going to be my fault. I would have let down my old crew, I would have let down the people I’d drawn in, I would have let down the people who had, collectively, paid hundreds of dollars to transfer. And, of course, its success has very little to do with me — it’s a lot more to do with everyone I’ve assembled here. I would take all the blame if things hadn’t worked out, but the credit for it working out goes to the ladies and gentlemen of Apotheosis.

I can’t tell you how thrilled I am that Apotheosis is through T11 normals. The pressure is off me. I’ve put together a team and the team is performing. The guild has a personality, it has a life of its own, now. If things go to hell now, chances are, it wasn’t my bad. ;)

It’s still intimidating, though. While I’m not terribly concerned about everything falling apart, this is the most progressed I’ve been in my own guild, ever.

In Burning Crusade, we cleared Black Temple, but only ever pulled Kalecgos in Sunwell Plateau three times before calling it an expansion. We also only formed on June 1st, 2008 and the expansion had come out back in January, so we were constantly working our way through content that had already been nerfed and used the 3.0 patch to steamroll our way past Reliquary of Souls, Mother Shahraz up to the Council and Illidan himself. (Much less steamrolling when we hit the Illidari Council.)

In Wrath, Apotheosis didn’t even kill Thaddius on 25-man. Attendance was awful, people were unhappy, progression was bad due to attendance and recruitment was bad due to progression. We had the potential to kick some ass, but it just didn’t pan out.

So now, my guild is the #2 25-man raiding guild on Eldre’Thalas. Overall, we’re still something like #11, if you take all the 10-man guilds into consideration, but… well, I don’t. It’s not that I don’t take 10s seriously (really!), but I really think 10 and 25-man raiding are very different beasts and so I don’t think of us as the #11 guild on ET. I see our 10-man guilds on the server as doing their thing and the 25s are doing our thing.

And, to my utter shock and delight, Apotheosis is doing WELL at “our thing”! We finished at #9 guild progressed guild in Burning Crusade, #6 Alliance guild, and that was with a 5 month delay on anything guild-related. We farmed Karazhan for three months before we got Maulgar and Gruul down. And even with that, we finished pretty well.

This time, we had our shit together. This time, we had a team ready to go. This time, we are SO much smarter than we were in Burning Crusade. (Seriously, who puts a moonkin in the tank group, back when the 5% crit buff they brought was party-wide only?) And this time, we don’t have the progression or attendance issues we had in Wrath.

Rank doesn’t mean a lot to me, truly, whether it’s server rank or US/world rank, but it’s always nice to see where you fit in. GuildOx says we’re the 706th ranked 25-man guild on US servers. So we’re not vodka or Premonition or Midwinter or Edge. We’re still here, we’re still kicking and we’ve cleared 12/12 normal modes, ready to add to our heroic Halfus kill with more heroic kills.

So freaking relieved. And so freaking proud of my peeps.

Why Nefarian Sucks

Kurn / / achievements, apotheosis, blackwing descent, guild, healing, raiding, ramblings

Before I begin, I’d like to state that I actually quite enjoy the Nefarian fight. At least I do on 25-man difficulty, which is what I’ll address here. (I don’t imagine I’ll ever see it on 10-man and I’m okay with that.)

However, the fight sucks on a wide variety of levels. Why is this?

The encounter requires almost perfect execution. This, in itself, is not a bad thing. Perfect execution is something we should always strive for in every encounter. The problem is actually that it requires almost perfect execution from ~9 people at separate times and sustained good execution (even very good execution) from everyone else.

1) The tanks. If your Onyxia tank isn’t turning her appropriately, your raid will be fried by her lightning. If your add tank isn’t despawning the adds appropriately in P1, your P3 add tank is screwed. If your Nefarian tank doesn’t drag Nefarian far enough away from Onyxia, they get the Children of Deathwing buff and will pretty much 2-shot both your Ony tank and your Nef tank.

2) The interrupters. While this will be somewhat alleviated in 4.1 because all interrupt abilities will no longer miss, that’s not the case today and it hasn’t been the case since the launch of Cataclysm. That means that, right now and up until 4.1, you need people able to interrupt every single cast of Blast Nova in P2 who are reliable. In the 25-man version, Blast Nova is cast every 8 seconds, so unless you have 3 enhancement shaman lying around, you probably need 4, 5 or 6 dedicated interrupters. Tanks generally have low hit, so they miss. Healers are generally the same, plus they also have this thing called “healing” to do while on the platforms. Granted, the amount of hit needed is only 5-6% since the mobs you’re interrupting are level 85, just like us. So in some cases, a tank would be okay for this. For the most part, however, in order to have interrupts that don’t miss, you need a mix and match of melee DPS who are probably going to be hit-capped. If one of them misses one interrupt, you may be able to pull through, but in our raid group, 2+ Blast Novas means an immediate wipe or means that some people die due to the extra damage and leaves us wiping somewhere under 10%.

3) The healers have to push in P2. Honestly, you’ve got to pull out all your tricks, especially if you’re planning on pushing 1-2 Electrocutes (see below) in this phase. I take 7 healers to Nefarian and put two on each platform, along with one of our three tanks on each platform, meaning there’s five DPS on each platform as well. The extra healer generally gets dropped on to the NE platform and is usually an Atonement disc priest, so they’re able to smite the add and heal that way. However, the tricky part is that we have to keep up this insane kind of burn phase for ~3 minutes and, in the case of my guild, two Electrocutes. All the while, we’re dealing with Shadowflame Barrage (which inflicts pushback — and while I try to make sure a paladin and a shaman are on each platform, they’re both using Resist aura/totem so that we get the Shadow and Fire covered from the paladin and the nature covered from the shaman), healing people up after they pop out of the lava —

  • A word about the lava. Getting out of the lava is not hard. The lip of the platform sucks and, yes,  there have been times where I’ve jumped around, flailing like a jackass. The lava does not suck. What sucks is Blast Nova being cast right as most people are jumping up out of the lava on to the platform. What we tend to do is have everyone with an interrupt try to get the first one except the person designated to be the second interrupter. But it still sucks.

— and generally trying desperately to make sure people are topped off just before Electrocute hits. I pop everything — Aura Mastery, Guardian of Ancient Kings, Divine Favor, Avenging Wrath, Holy Radiance, even sometimes Lay on Hands, though I prefer to hold that and my mana potion for P3. I also try to sneak in a Divine Plea right at the P1/P2 transition so it’s up again sometime in P2. It’s one of the crazier healing moments in the game and, the way we do it, it lasts almost the full three minutes.

This isn’t bad, but it sure means we’re pretty taxed as we push P3, with Electrocutes coming every 20 seconds or so, plus the healers chasing the add tank don’t get a chance to rest. Further, because I’ve had to blow all my CDs in P2, most of them (Guardian of Ancient Kings in particular) don’t come back up in P3. That’s why I try to save my mana potion and my Lay on Hands for P3, because I know that’s all I’ll have left to help me out with maybe two Hands of Sacrifice, if I’m lucky. So yeah, healing in any role on this fight can suck.

4) The add tank in P3 has got to be on top of his or her game. Running the adds around, dodging Shadowflame, stunning (and not stunning) as is appropriate. I have not healed the add tank so I’m not really sure what this insanity looks like, but I understand that the basic concept of this boils down to “making split-second decisions over the course of about 3 minutes, the results of which will either kill you and wipe the raid or will save you and the raid.”

5) Electrocute is nature damage. Okay, this is probably more of a pet peeve than an outright reason why this fight sucks, but it just didn’t seem to be a complete list without this as a mention. As a paladin, my Resistance Aura resists Shadow, Fire and Frost damage. Aura Mastery boosts those resistances, normally at 195, effectively doubling those resistances to 390 for six seconds. (According to this scary, yet useful, math post on Elitist Jerks, this means our base resist is ~20% against a level 88 and Aura Mastery bumps it up to the 35% level.)  Shaman are the ones in the raid (generally) who bring nature resistance in the form of Elemental Resistance Totem or glyphed Healing Stream Totem. (Hunters can also help with Aspect of the Wild, but who wants to give up the RAP from Aspect of the Hawk?) Shaman do not have a burst resist mechanic like Aura Mastery, so 195 Nature/Frost/Fire resistance is all you get from their totems, or, as noted before, ~20% resist. That means, on average, about 20k of that ~100k damage is resisted if you’re in range of a shaman’s totems or a hunter’s Aspect of the Wild. But short of personal cooldowns, there’s not a lot you can do to mitigate Electrocute damage beyond relying on someone’s totem.

6) Due to the unreal reliance on a specific handful of people, finger-pointing is hard to avoid. On the one hand, I enjoy clearly-defined roles so I know who screwed up. On the other hand, boy, does this fight piss people off and BOY, does it make people leap on each other, many armed with poorly-interpreted log data. (Pet peeve: people reading the logs who have no idea what they’re reading.)

Seriously, tempers get frayed, strategies are questioned and really, it’s just a matter of finding the right variations that work for you and then executing them. Execute the fight, we win. If any of those people (interrupters, tanks, healers) screw up, that’s almost certainly a wipe. And then you have to trace the root of that failure. So someone died to Electrocute because they weren’t topped up by the healers. Did Blast Nova contribute to the low health? Was the healer completely oom because of healing through Blast Nova? Who let the Blast Nova or Novas through?

The key to analyzing this fight is finding the root cause, not just saying “oh, so-and-so died to this”.

Wait, Kurn, you LIKE this fight?

I do. I like the feeling when Nefarian dies, knowing that the people we relied on were (almost certainly) on their game. I like knowing that we beat a tricky encounter. I like pushing myself in P2 and I’m constantly pushing to make myself better at it so I’m not practically oom when I start healing the Nefarian tank in P3.

We didn’t get Nefarian down this reset. Some roster changes, some changes in roles… we had two 1% wipes, but couldn’t seal the deal.

I don’t like it, but I’m okay with what it means. It means that we probably extend Blackwing Descent until next week. If we do, it means that we have 5 less bosses to kill, which means more time on other stuff. Heroic Halfus, normal Al’Akir, these are the fights we’ll be looking at, and because we’re probably extending the instance, we’ll have the time to do so. With only 9 hours of raiding a week, we can easily waste a lot of time. Maybe cutting out 5 farmable bosses is a way to do that.

All I know is that Nef will die this coming reset and that I’m looking forward to some new stuff, too.

Oh yeah, and the Defender of a Shattered World title, too!

Whew.

Kurn / / achievements, apotheosis, cataclysm, ramblings

Kurnmogh is now 85.

It wasn’t hard. I took my time — fishing, farming and the like. My LW is 509 (still…) but my fishing and cooking have actually MOVED. I even did some archaeology. I’ve done some instances.

I’ve only finished two zones entirely; Deepholm and Uldum. Love them both.

I was asked on Thursday why I level my hunter first. There are SO many reasons for my levelling my hunter first.

1) I like playing the hunter solo better than playing the paladin solo. Questing, farming, etc, it’s all about Kurn.

2) Tradition. I level Kurn first. That’s what happened at 60 (I was 60 for a couple of months before I did anything with Madrana) and 70 (levelled her so that I could actually get into a guild) and 80 (Kurn will always be my “fun” toon).

3) Leatherworking. I distributed the professions among the officers as fairly as I could, taking alts into account as well, and we’re power-levelling (as best we can) everyone’s professions. It’s working really well — 525 Alchemy and Inscription! With JC and LW and enchanting getting there, with tailoring and BS coming up. Kurn is the only officer toon who would get a substantial amount of playtime who’s a leatherworker and it helps that I skin, too.

4) Comfort. Knowing the quests and dungeons as a DPS lets me focus on healing when I’m on the paladin. Or at least what to expect as I quest or dungeon. Even with my beta experience, some things were new this go-through. It was great to finish off Deepholm and awesome to actually kill the colossus in Uldum and all those quests, too.

5) Rested experience. With the rested I’ve been accumulating on the paladin, combined with the 5% extra experience from Fast Track (Level 1) that comes from being a Level 2 guild, Madrana’s levelling experience will be quicker than Kurn’s.

6) Bottlenecks. Not levelling my healer ASAP means that I won’t have many other healers to compete with for the entry-level dungeon guild runs. The problem with being a GM who has a blog that’s mostly healing-related is that I have a LOT of healers and they’re all awesomesauce and all chomping at the bit to get in there and HEAL.

7) Okay, yes, part of levelling Kurn first is to satisfy people who mock me for insisting that Kurn is my main and Madrana is my alt. As I explained to a few of my officers a while back, Kurn is who I am and Madrana is what I can do, sort of like how Clark is who Clark Kent is and Superman is what Clark can do. :P

Not a perfect analogy, because I’m not really a 7ft-tall blue-skinned male night elf, but you get the point.

Getting Kurn to level cap first is my way of acknowledging to myself (and to others who care) that Kurn is still my main and Madrana is just who I take with me to work every day. It’s never been more true than in this last expansion where Madrana is who I applied to raid as to no less than four guilds. I never would have dreamt about raiding on Kurn in 25-man heroic ICC, but as Madrana? HELL YEAH.

I may or may not have a slight case of multiple personality disorder when it comes to my in-game identities and toons…

Anyways. Kurn to 85. Next up, Madrana levelling and some more farming of ore and herbs! Oh, and leather. Stupid leather!

Stood in the Fire

Kurn / / achievements, cataclysm, ramblings, world events

I’ve always loved dragons. The idea of slaying them, the idea of fighting them, the idea of befriending them and riding them… all amazing things. Onyxia was the classic raid I wanted to do most because HEY! It’s killing a big freaking dragon!!

Granted, I could probably do without Malygos for the rest of my days, but I genuinely like most dragon encounters in World of Warcraft.

So the idea of Deathwing flying around Azeroth roasting things and people is amazing to me. I LOVE this idea. I also decided I wanted the achievement.

First, I found this thread on the WoW forums.

Second, I found this video that shows you where in the Wetlands the guy is standing.

At about 7:30pm on Saturday, I started hanging out at the hills by the Gnoll camp to the southwest of the windmill. (Northeast of the area in the video.) I was joined by a number of guildies. I took some breaks, slept, logged back in aaaaaaaand nothing. A variety of guildies amused me on Mumble and such or even chilled out with me.

I took time out to fill in an ICC10 heroic raid with the guild on my hunter (my paladin is saving last week’s lockout for next week, since we did 11/12 and want to down LK as a guild this last week pre-Cata), which got me the 49 rep I needed in order to get Exalted with the Ashen Verdict. After the run ended, I cut myself a couple of gems and sent them to my hunter and as I was doing so, BAM, one of my newest guildies got roasted in Andorhal in the Western Plaguelands!

I did a quick MC run with some of the guild, on my shaman, then returned to the Wetlands by about 12:45am ET (server time).

And I waited.

Tia waited with me too and I told her to park Tia there and hop on to another toon, if she wanted, and I would tell her if the sky went red.

So Tia, Darista and myself were chatting amiably in Mumble when… the sky goes red.

I had been in the process of taking a sip of Coke, which I nearly spewed in my excitement.

“TIA!” I managed to choke out.

“OH MY GOD!” she said, realizing my tone could only mean one thing.

I slammed on my Fraps record button (which, sadly, did not record my own voice!). Elapsed time from the sky going red to recording is about five seconds.

Here’s the video. You can watch it in HD on YouTube.

So, let’s see. Exalted with Ashen Verdict. Roasted by Deathwing. It’s been a productive night. :D Thanks to all the members of Apotheosis who kept me company!

Oh, and my achievement shot, which I think is hilariously appropriate…

The New Adventures of Old Azeroth

Kurn / / achievements, cataclysm, classic instances, dungeons, ramblings

I don’t know how he does it, but my brother is responsible for the fact that I have so many alts. And on Thursday, I rolled another.

My mage is hanging out on Skywall with Choice because they’re awesome. Similarly, my druid is over on another server with my RL Friend the Resto Druid. My hunter, paladin, shaman and priest are all on Eldre’Thalas, guilded in Apotheosis.

My brother, Majik and our friend Tia were all in their early 20s on some alts earlier this week. Fog’s levelling a warrior, Tia’s levelling a pally and Majik is also levelling a pally tank, as he mentioned on the first episode of Blessing of Frost, our brand-new WoW podcast.

They were all at about the same level and were encouraging me to roll something and “GTF” to my 20s so we could all instance together.

I thought about it. A lot. I didn’t want to be a rogue. A death knight moved me out of their level range, obviously. I also didn’t want to be a DK. ;) I didn’t want to be a warlock, either. I then thought about my mage. I really like my mage. I haven’t gotten to play her much at all during Wrath, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like her.

So I decided I’d level another mage on ET.

But what race? There’s human, the old standby. And gnome, but, uh, no thanks. Then there’s the new combinations of dwarf and night elf. Dwarf was very tempting, since I love the male dwarf casting animations and I love their emotes… but I just race changed my shaman to a male dwarf. Which left night elf? Ugh. I HATE the night elf casting animations. Like, so much. I hate when I have to rez my pet or hearth on Kurn. Makes me cringe.

So I stuck with human. I know. I’m boring. But I’ve found that when in doubt, 10% extra rep is never a bad thing. I’d also get to go through the human quests again (probably the quests I’m most familiar with) and really get a good idea of how things have changed.

So my new mage was born and was promptly given the Tattered Dreadmist Mantle, the Tattered Dreadmist Robe, the Discerning Eye of the Beast and, best of all, the Dread Pirate Ring. Hello, 25% extra experience. How are you this fine day?

Well, I rolled her on Thursday and when I went to bed on Friday, she was 28.

I’ve done:

– the vast majority of Elwynn (LOVE the Hogger change! ADORE flight points everywhere!)

– just about all of Westfall (OMG, Hope! Loved the return of Gryan!)

– all of Redridge (and while it was a little long, it was FAR less tedious than the old quests. And yay for the bridge!!)

– 1 Stocks run, 1 Deadmines run, 2 Blackfathom Deeps runs, 1 SFK run and a few minutes of a Gnomer run — I really dig most of the changes (BFD seems mostly unchanged to me, but I never did run that place much) and the Deadmines was fun because I’ve done the heroic version on beta and it was nice to see it at level. SFK seemed okay. A little faster than previously.

So the mage is having fun.

On Tuesday night, I was exploring the new world a bit on Kurn and went to Strat Undead.

So different! I mean, most things are the same — I recognized a lot of my same, old pulls and even Stonespine is there! — but the chapel’s being rebuilt and Aurius, our friend the paladin to whom you give the Medallion of Faith, is no longer there.

You also no longer need a key.

The bosses are the same, for the most part. Just lower level. And while they don’t seem to drop T0 gear any longer, there are some familiar drops, such as the Chitinous Plate Legguards. There’s also no more 45m run/debuff given to you when you open the gate to the gauntlet. RIP, 45m Baron run.

I also think there are fewer aboms to kill outside of the Slaughterhouse.

Anyways, I hadn’t spoiled myself or done any research about Strat. Spoilers ahead!

The Baron’s gone. In his place is Lord Aurius Rivendare. Without a doubt, this is that same paladin who would come to our aid after giving him the Medallion of Faith. I didn’t even realize it until after I killed him. I suspect I’ll have to quest around EPL to find out what happened to the Baron and why Aurius is now the Lord of Stratholme.

The good news in all this is that I got Rivendare’s Charger.

The funny thing is that I haven’t even tried for it. Sure, I’ve probably killed Baron about 150 times, all told. Probably more, really, when you count Madrana’s kills. I’ve never even seen it drop. I’m certainly not someone who went farming for it daily or even weekly and probably not even monthly. I just lucked out. :)

Thus far: Baron Rivendare – 200+, Kurn – 0. But Aurius Rivendare – 0, Kurn – 1. Heh. I like that record. :)