Category: raiding

Ugh, so tired.

Kurn / / gear, paladins, raiding, ramblings, ulduar

Tired, going to bed soon, but I wanted to gripe a little bit. It’s not a big deal, but just voicing my feelings and opinions will make me feel better.

Tonight, well, technically last night. Monday night. Anyways, we did Malygos. And the Elevated Lair Pauldrons dropped.

I have the T7.25 helm, shoulders, gloves and pants. I have the T7.1 (heroes) chest piece. I have, in case you can’t do the math, my four piece set bonus and I have equipped the best breastplate for me at this point in time.

Malygos loot is item level 226, as is Kel’Thuzad loot and some drops (2 drakes+) from Sartharion.

In Ulduar, it is important to wear all your highest item level gear for the Flame Leviathan fight. Even if it’s not your spec, even if it’s cloth and you can wear plate, item level stuff is important as it adds to your vehicle’s damage done and health.

Without knowing until after the raid that 3.1 was being deployed today, the 14th, I considered bidding on the shoulders. But they suck. No haste. No gem slots. And to keep my 4-piece bonus, I’d have to go back to wearing my heroes’ chest, which is really crappy compared to the chest off Sartharion.

But I was considering bidding on the shoulders for the Flame Leviathan fight. Ultimately, I didn’t want to waste my DKP (I’m already in the negatives) when I don’t have best-in-slot gear in all my slots. I could use a cloak upgrade, a trinket, a ring and, oh yeah, a MAIN HAND WEAPON. So I decided I’d pass on the shoulders.

And then got informed by the raid leader that if I didn’t have 226 level shoulders already, I should take them.

Take them? For one fight? Because God knows I will never wear them apart from that one fight. And you’re going to charge me 12.5 DKP for them, bringing me down to -45.5 DKP? When I have four upgrades from Naxx and Sarth I could actually use? When we’re not sure the patch is coming out this week?

As it happens, the patch is being deployed today and T7 DKP will be wiped and we’ll start earning T8 DKP. And we’re not going back to Naxxramas or Sarth or Maly, either. It’ll be all Ulduar. So I got a piece of loot, dipped even deeper into the negatives than I was, but all that will be wiped.

But I’m still a little cheesed off. What if I’d had to bid against someone for a main hand healing weapon off KT? Or the cloak off Sarth+2? What if I’d had to bid and then I’d lost because of this truly useless piece of gear?

I think the raid leaders should, for the most part, trust us to make wise gear choices. I understand a raid leader trying to ensure a smoother raid in new content, believe me, but I was a little cheesed off that a mage was trying to tell me what to do with my DKP with regards to my gear. 20mp5? REALLY? Ugh. I feel dirty even looking at them.

Then, to compound matters (all this after NOT succeeding on 6m Malygos), the port they put up outside was to freaking Ironforge. Thanks, guys.

So I hearthed, after thanking them sarcastically on Vent, and the mage raid leader was like “anyone who took the port to IF, there will be a port to Dalaran there in just a minute” and I was all “Already hearthed, thanks.”

And THEN, the thing that cracks me up, is that the mage raid leader then has the TEMERITY to ask me to go heal Sarth 10 with 3 drakes up.

Hi, you made me wipe 13 times for a total of over 120 gold in repairs tonight, not to mention 13 food buffs and over 130 symbols of kings. Thankfully, I used a flask. Then you told me how to spend my DKP and forced me to take a piece of crap pair of shoulders. Then your port brought me to frigging Ironforge, so I blew my hearth ANYWAYS. And then you have the nerve to ask me to go do something draining and, no doubt stressful, like Sarth 3D on 10-man?

Even if I HADN’T had studying to do for finals, even if I HADN’T had a killer headache, there was no chance in hell I would have healed for him.

Not that he’s a bad guy. I quite like him, actually. But wow, was I feeling bitchy last night. Not sure I’m entirely in the right, either, but I don’t think I’m entirely in the wrong.

Ulduar this week, raids on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Monday. Looking forward to it.

Late-night, last-minute, unexpected run.

Kurn / / gear, paladins, raiding, ramblings

I logged on after the hockey game ended tonight, just to see what was up with my new guild. I guess I should stop saying “new guild”, considering I’ve been there for over a month now, but anyways.

Earlier in the day, I’d been playing with my prot set because I’m thinking that’ll be my dual spec. I’d even gone so far as to respec prot to get a good idea of all my stats. 24k health unbuffed, 22k armor, 20% dodge, 17% parry and 17% block. With 542 defense. Not too shabby for a holy paladin. I’d blown some Emblems of Valor on some upgrades (boots, necklace) and picked up some offspec gear in Naxx (shield, pants) so I was toying around with it all, and really, I’m kind of impressed.

So I logged on and I was like “haha, I’m still prot, that’s funny” and was just going about my business, pricing gems to cut and all… when a shadow priest in my guild is like “come heal 8 man Naxx?”

I laughed and responded I’d had very little sleep and was tired, but maybe next reset.

Long story short, 15 minutes of begging by a mage, the shadow priest… I ended up running to the Cathedral in SW and respeccing back to holy. Not only was it going to be 8-man Naxx, oh no. It was going to be … Undying.

Continue reading “Late-night, last-minute, unexpected run.”

Oof.

Kurn / / raiding, ramblings

When I first joined my new guild, I was sat out of “progression” fights, or the more difficult ones, anyways. That means Sapphiron and KT, Malygos and Sartharion with three drakes up.

The first reset, I was in for 3 wings of Naxx. The second reset, all of Naxx and Malygos. The third reset, all of Naxx, Maly and Sarth3D.

Since doing Sarth3D, my job has basically been to heal the living crap out of the tanks who are on the blazes. Also, not standing in bad shit, as per usual. Occasionally I then move to the main tank (on Sarth).

Thus far, not difficult, nothing to worry about.

Tonight, in possibly the most draining raid experience to date, I was one of two healers on the MT.

Not something I’d necessarily care to repeat, lemme tell ya. ;) I was really only on the MT due to a lack of holy or disc priests in the raid. We had one holy priest and then me for two “get out of jails”, as my raid leader puts it. Guardian Spirit and Hand of Sacrifice, which I still always want to call a blessing, combined with the tank’s leet DK cooldowns, was the plan.

Well, neither me nor the priest had ever healed the MT on Sarth3D, so we not only didn’t really know where to stand (to avoid tail lashes and breaths during lava walls) but we also weren’t sure when to blow our get out of jails. The tank whispered us to cue us to cast our abilities on the next flame breath cast we saw — which, of course, meant a focus window on Sarth.

Let me tell you… Watching:

– tank health

– own health

– chat window (for incoming whisper)

– direction of lava wall

– fissures

in addition to then watching the focus window for the next flame breath… not fun! At all! :)

I kind of jest. It was a really challenging night, since we also incorporated a few people in the fight who had never done it with us before, and me and the priest were new to our assignment, but we did get him down and we did learn where to stand and when to cast things and stuff. So it was a productive night. But I am so glad the GM opened up guild repairs from the bank because I died.. I think it was 23 times, total. I think that was over the course of 19 or 20 attempts? Like I said, it was a challenging night, which would have been a lot less so if only we’d had another holy or disc priest in the raid or had done what we normally did with the other drakes, too. I started the raid with 300 symbols of kings. I was down to 54 at the end of the night. (I was on kings for all 10 classes.)

Ultimately, thought, I kept my target up more often than I let him die and I pushed myself to the point where I actually had to take a mana potion. So it was a good night in that I was challenged and an exhausting night because I wish it hadn’t taken quite so many attempts. :)

I really do love this stupid game, 23 deaths on the night or not.

/faceplant

Kurn / / general, raiding, ramblings

What I miss most about being GM of my own guild: Setting the hours.

Tonight, we raided from 7pm-9pm on the PTR and then raided on live from 9-11:30pm. I was on standby during the PTR raid on Iron Council because we couldn’t get 25 people to show up (it’s a PST server so a lot of people are on the West Coast), and I’d already seen the fight, so I didn’t need to see it again to gain experience.

Staying awake for 2 hours of basically doing nothing is not easy. ;)

And then, after that, getting thrown into Construct, Spider, Sapph and KT, short healers (we did basically everything with 4 healers), the adrenaline’s going and all… and I could honestly just collapse right this instant, if I didn’t have crap to do.

Four and a half hours of raiding or at least paying attention to vent and not randomly going AFK or whatever… it’s a little much for me. But it’s a lot better than the alternative of not raiding at all. I’m not really complaining, I’m just commenting.

And Patch FINALLY dropped his damn belt for me, thus allowing me to get the Epic achievement. Wootage.

Also, I’m really frighteningly close to getting 1s GCD in a full raid buff situation. No wonder I actually manage to go OOM if I’m not careful.

Okay, enough talk. Stuff to do, sleep to get.

Weird runs…

Kurn / / healing, paladins, raiding, ramblings

I was online tonight because I couldn’t sleep due to a headache. So I decided to get on WoW and play with my holy pally’s UI.

After futzing with it for a bit, I wanted to try it out in a raid scenario or something and there in Trade, someone was looking for a healer for Normal Vault of Archavon. So I said I’d go.

I get into the group and I look at the classes. There’s a druid… who is in moonkin form. There’s another paladin, who only has 6k mana. There’s a warlock. Three hunters. A rogue. A death knight. And then they bring in another druid, so I figure, hey, it’s a resto druid. Sweet.

Uh, no. The druid is feral and is MTing.

… so I’m the only healer?

Apparently, I am.

Piece of cake, didn’t lose anyone.

Anonymous WWS here, to protect the stupid:

http://wowwebstats.com/23rhuez5aagak

I’m “Gemini”. The moonkin (“Dew”) tossed out a few heals, and didn’t DPS hardly at all, but really, I healed the living crap out of that place.

/flex

EZ-mode

Kurn / / apotheosis, general, raiding, ramblings

I’m sad. I really, really am.

We went into Naxx25 for the first time as a guild on Tuesday and one-shotted all the bosses in the Spider and Plague wings. And Razuvious only took 3 tries. (Our priests had fun trying to learn what to do.)

Where’s the work? Where are the wipes? The heart-breaking, soul-crushing 1% wipes?

I remember spending all night working to get Venoxis down. I remember several nights of Jek’lik and Mar’li getting the better of us.

I remember the amazing feeling of getting Lucifron down for the first time.

The epic feeling of getting Golemagg down when one of the OTs had died and the other dual-tanked them.

Vashj, pre-big boss nerf, dying on attempt #80-something.

THOSE were epic.

I mean, we didn’t even take kill shots, that’s how fast we were going.

And I KNOW we’re not that leet. I know we aren’t. We’re used to each other, for the most part, of course, so there’s that helping us out, but we still had people dead on Heigan. We’re not ultra uber. So it must be that the content is just EASY.

It’s kind of sad. I hope the other encounters are at least moderately more entertaining, if not more challenging.

I have been lax!

Kurn / / apotheosis, guide, raiding

Haven’t updated this in ages, but as I discover things about this brand-new reality we’re in, I thought I should share.

In the end, we killed Illidan three times. WOOT. Apotheosis did a great job in the end of Hyjal and BT and though the nerf really propelled us through content, we all learned Archimonde the hard way.

And now, we’re doing Naxx. Well, kind of. 25-man runs are starting up in January, because we’ve got a lot of people who enjoy levelling or whose time is limited over the holidays and we really, really didn’t want to be interrupted by the holidays and New Year’s while trying to push to progress. So we’ve gotten off to a shaky and slow start in the 10-mans, but thus far: Spider wing, Plague wing, Death Knight wing clear and we’ve gotten Patchwerk down in plague. People continue to die to the Frogger event, which is HILARIOUS the first couple times and then just annoying afterwards, and Grobbulus continues to kick our asses, although we’re definitely improving.

Heigan was what I thought was going to be a serious progression block for us. My priest, which was on Proudmoore, was running Naxx most Saturday afternoons to try to get a RL friend of mine Atiesh. Which she got. Not once did I live though the Heigan dance. Not once. So when we were trying it in Apotheosis at 80, I took a buttload of screenshots to demonstrate how to do the Heigan dance. I have entitled it dancing with a nelf. True, I’m mostly dead in there, but I’ve now successfully danced my way to LIVING through two Heigan deaths. And I pretty much have it down, now. Woot! Anyways, I decided to share my strat with you fine folks, if indeed anyone ever reads this, in the hopes of helping the confused or frustrated.

What a long road it's been.

Kurn / / apotheosis, general, raiding, ramblings

The last few months have been trying. Since summer, we’ve had trouble filling raids more often than not, people dropping off the face of the game, constant recruitment drives, constant pushing.

Frankly, I’m exhausted.

But. It’s been worth it. 4/5 Hyjal and 5/9 BT pre-3.0.2 nerf.

And since then?

– Battle for Mount Hyjal won.

– RoS one-shotted.

– Mother Shahraz down.

– Council down.

– Illidan to 17%.

It’s been worth it.

Let’s do the math. Since June 1st, 2007, Apotheosis has downed:

KARAZHAN (11): Attumen, Moroes, Maiden, Opera (all three), Curator, Aran, Illhoof, Chess, Netherspite, Nightbane, Prince.

GRUUL’S LAIR (2): Maulgar, Gruul.

MAGTHERIDON’S LAIR (1): Magtheridon.

SERPENTSHRINE CAVERN (6): Hydross, Lurker, Tidewalker, Leotheras, Karathress, Vashj.

TEMPEST KEEP (4): Al’ar, Void Reaver, Solarian, Kael’thas.

HYJAL (5): Rage, Anetheron, Kaz’rogal, Azgalor, Archimonde.

BLACK TEMPLE (8): Naj’entus, Supremus, Akama, Gorefiend, Bloodboil, Reliquary of Souls, Mother Shahraz, Illidari Council.

That is THIRTY-SEVEN boss encounters in 17 months, or an average of about 2 bosses a month. Karazhan doesn’t really count, of course, but we all had to learn and farm various bosses over the course of the last 17 months.

We got Illidan to 17% last night. Standing there, looking at him, it occurred to me that we wouldn’t be there if not for every single person who’s every had Apotheosis under their name. Where would we be today if Grim and Guido hadn’t been there with us to clear T4 and the first half of SSC? Where would we be today if Fog and Netsuge and Kaiu hadn’t been there with us, showing up to raids to do whatever they could to help while helping to hammer out policy behind the scenes?

And what about all the new people? Where would we be today without the new folks who took a chance on us, coughed up 25 bucks and transferred?

The answer to all of those questions is… we wouldn’t be looking at Illidan again tonight. We would not be on the cusp of clearing Black Temple. We would not be able to even THINK about saying we achieved our primary raiding goal that we set when we first created the guild.

It promises to be a good evening. Apart from anything else… the zombies are gone. Thank God.

Wow.

Kurn / / general, guide, raiding

Found a new site (to me, anyways) in the last day or so, called TankingTips.com. For someone who has never played a prot warrior but has to lead said warriors through battle, it’s an AMAZING resource. And is obviously great for prot warriors, too!

Which is better, for example… The Brooch of Deftness or the Shattered Sun Pendant of Resolve? The answer to the age-old (well, since 2.4 anyways) question is here!

Chock-full of great, useful, smart information. Two thumbs up!

Teron Gorefiend – your ass is mine.

Kurn / / apotheosis, hunters, raiding, ramblings

So, my computer sucks. No, really. It does. It’s a laptop, integrated graphics card, etc. It sucks. To the point where if I’m the first on the constructs on Gorefiend, I will probably lag as I die and will miss the shackling of the constructs. I still lag when I’m not first, but at least others can help out at that point.

I have, therefore, been sitting myself out of this fight whenever we have enough healers to cover for me.

Sunday night, we had like, 10 healers online, so I sat myself and asked a couple people to alt or swap out and such.

They did six attempts with a couple of people DCing, a couple of people who had never attempted it, and then one of our mages (who lives in Malaysia with not the greatest internet connection ever) DCed again and finally, I had to swap him out. But who else was available? No one but myself. And on my HUNTER of all things, because we had enough healers.

So I macroed the spirit shackle, spirit lance and spirit volley spells to F1, F2 and F3 respectively, and went in, expecting to wipe the raid. As I have done in the past.

Well, our resident fury warrior had suggested to me that I bubble at the pull to ensure I’m not the first one marked for death. Lacking a bubble entirely as a hunter, I did what any hunter does when he or she doesn’t want to die. I feigned death right after the pull. And got back up after someone else got the shadow of death.

So I’m DPSing merrily away and noticing that the timer for the shadow of death is approaching 30 seconds on the first person who was marked. And that my Feign Death is similarly about to cool down.

As soon as FD cooled down, I feigned again.

And again, someone else got the Shadow of Death debuff.

Popped back up. More DPS. Feigned as soon as I could again.

This continued until Teron Gorefiend was at 25% and I stopped feigning and just poured on the DPS. In that fight, I used drums of battle twice, my trinket once, rapid fire once and beastial wrath once. And had a mana potion.

And didn’t die or wipe the raid. We killed him, our first-ever guild kill. And I was part of it on my hunter. And I wasn’t worthless.

It was hilarious. I was giggling with glee.

That said, bad timing might cause premature triggering of constructs in the raid, so I’ll try to continue to sit out, but at least I know I can help if I need to.