Kurn's Q&A 23

Delayed a bit due to fatigue and epic Ruby Sanctum hilarity, here’s my Q&A for the week. I’ll probably wind up doing that form this week sometime or something.

First of all, thanks to all those who “retaliated” against Majik with the following search terms. You totally made my day, hahaha. :)

– why is kurnmogh such an amazing player?
– madrana is the best holy paladin ever
– kurn yeah but can majik heal?
– kurn majik may be able to tank but he still dies without heals
– kurn majik is just a dk they’re all noobs
– sometimes i close my eyes and wonder how i can be awesome like kurnmogh

And, my favourite, and thus, Question #1 this week:

1) kurn who the hell is majik?

My history with Majik dates back YEARS at this point. Honestly, truly, years. Majik was a frost mage who joined our guild back in something like mid-June of 2006.

My first-ever experience with this guy was during the Scourge Invasion of Patch 1.11. He basically said that he could solo all the non-elites guarding one of the Necrotic Shards or whatever.

I was like “yeah, RIGHT.”

He laughed, hit up Ice Barrier, mounted up, GATHERED THEM ALL UP, hit Frost Nova, blinked away and hit Blizzard until they all died.

Solo.

I didn’t do anything. Neither did our regular priest, Crypt (who had been in Majik’s prior guild, where Majik had been the GM) and neither did our warlock, Tia. We just stared at this nutcase in absolute shock and amazement.

A LEGEND WAS BORN. hahaha.

Majik quickly became one of our raid leaders in Zul’Gurub (and later instances as well) and eventually became an officer and he, along with Crypt, Tia, myself and a mage named Tandrace (whom we affectionately called Steve) all ended up doing the Tier 0.5 questline together. And thus started a beautiful friendship.

Highlights include, but are not limited to:

– “That was *spectacular*.” (Heard frequently, usually after a particularly hilarious and/or brutal wipe.)
– “Guys, guys, he’s trying to be sneaky, but I see him and oh God, he’s got a really big sword!” and other assorted quotes from the 11 minute vent lag spike in Dire Maul.
– “Tia, Tia, Tia.” (Chiding our warlock for not soulstoning us, even though she tried and there was no room in her bags and I traded her for her to trade me something and then SOMEONE got us into COMBAT and … yeah. No soulstone.)
– “Not the face, NOT THE FACE!” (Also heard frequently.)
– “I have a plan.” (The plan was for the five of us, with no tank, to jump down on to Venoxis’ platform and “take him from behind with the element of surprise!”. At level 60. We got Venoxis to 98% and considered that a victory.)
– “Hey Maj, pick up engineering.” (He did, spent easily 500g on it, and that was a LOT pre-BC, and got to 300 engineering overnight.)
– “Who’s up for a Venoxis run? C’mon guys, 20 minutes, you get rep, bijous, chance at loot!” (This was frighteningly commonplace, since we only ran ZG officially one day a week. Why did Majik want to do Venoxis? Just one reason: Fang of Venoxis. Along with his Tome of the Ice Lord, the Fang of Venoxis would make him super leet. My hand to God, until he got a better 1H elsewhere, he was using Hypnotic Blade, which drops off Arcanist Doan in Scarlet Monastery. Not even kidding. At all. We actually WENT BACK to SM to pick it up for him.)
– Many hours over Vent spent complaining about the idiocy of any moronic mage taking Arcane Fortitude. (It was Very Bad at the time.)
– Doing a Strat 45 run in 39 minutes with the following group:
* Kurnmogh + Whisper (Whisper, my cat, tanked. I was Marks, FYI.)
* Tandrace, Fire Mage
* Majik, Frost Mage
* Crypt, Holy Priest
* Tia, Destruction Warlock

Yeah. Again. No tank. At all. We actually did the 45 minute run in 39 minutes with no tank. We also did a Dire Maul North Tribute run more than once without a tank (I still feel bad for Tharivol) and did almost everything for our Tier 0.5 quests without a tank, only bringing one in for the special boss in Scholomance and then being in a regular 10-man group for the UBRS boss, nicknamed “Lord Whatshisnuts”. (By Tia.)

And that? THAT is just pre-BC!

In Burning Crusade, we’d disbanded our previous guild, gone our separate ways for the most part, but brought Apotheosis to life on June 1, 2007. Majik was the guy who bought the charter and was a core officer throughout BC, even though the jerk decided to, you know, GO TRAVELLING THROUGH EUROPE at the height of our Karazhan farming, where I was swapping people in and out on every. single. boss. I may not have forgiven him for leaving me with the raid leading duties then. ;)

He was our mage tank on Krosh (and, as freaking usual, I was his healer), he would always put down a Brewfest Pony Keg after Maulgar was down. He did, in fact, Blink into Gruul once while explaining the fight. He once got bounced/feared OUT of Magtheridon’s room during the encounter and basically /danced at us.

He wasn’t there for a Vashj kill of ours, which is probably my biggest regret. Of everyone in the guild who deserved Hand of A’dal, Majik was at the top. But he’d been taking some time off, dealing with school (?) or work (?) and though we TRIED, we couldn’t get Vashj down on this one night that Maj was there. He missed out on the first Kael’thas kill as well, but was the jackass responsible for our setting foot in Hyjal.

Picture it. Sunday, April 27th, 2008. My dad’s birthday had been a couple days earlier and the birthday dinner was that Sunday. I wasn’t there for the officer meeting, I was going to be very late for the raid…

I log on.

I get an invite to the raid group.

They’re in Mount Freaking Hyjal.

22-manning Winterchill waves.

They summon me IN THE MIDDLE OF WAVES and I promptly crash because my computer sucks so bad.

We spend an hour or so working on Rage Winterchill and get him down, Apotheosis-style. With only 24 people.

Thanks to Majik, who decided to go screw around in Hyjal since we were short people, we were able to start working on T6 content while trying to get Vashj and Kael.

Maj was solid in T6 content and we couldn’t have gotten through Hyjal and BT without him.

God, I haven’t even mentioned that he spearheaded the charge against Zul’Aman in our guild. He had an awesome team and they cleared ZA.

These days, Maj is playing a DK and levelling his priest with my brother and me and, as per usual, I’m healing his ass, more often than not. ;)

So… Majik has been a key part of my WoW experience, I don’t just mean “that guy from pre-BC”. I mean someone who has been there with me through Vanilla, BC and now Wrath. I mean someone who has always brought a positive attitude to a raid. I mean someone who has sat there, for hours, helping out mages or other DPS with their spec or gems or enchants. I mean someone who basically weaseled out of being the GM of Apotheosis by virtue of breaking his word to me. (Our GM, Toga, stepped down and Majik and I decided we’d both throw our names in the hat and so I said I’d consider doing it and then Majik was the first to say “GRATS!!!” and I was like “You bastard.”) This guy has one of the best senses of humour ever and I still crack up to the point where I can’t breathe when he gets on a roll. You should have seen him bitching me out IRL, in an Internet cafe here in Montreal, telling me that “Conjured Glacier Water” doesn’t just appear out of thin air. That he has to go to the goddamn Glacier himself, that he has to chip ice into a container and warm THAT and then bring it out when some bitchy “WATER PLZ” person like MY ignorant, needy ass starts griping.

No kidding, I nearly fell out of my chair. In public. Couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see for the tears rolling down my cheeks. It was hilarious.

We tease each other to death, insult each other constantly, but it’s all an act. We know that we can rely on each other, we trust the other knows their class and the encounter. We know we can defy all odds together. And it’s that kind of exuberance, enthusiasm and optimism that Majik brings to every single raid encounter. He’s the “YEAH LET’S DO THIS EVEN THOUGH WE DON’T HAVE A CHANCE!!!!!” person to my “Are you out of your goddamn mind?” attitude.

I like this game, a lot. I’ve played it for a long time. You know how people say it’s the other people they’ve met that keep them playing? Majik is probably the key person for me. I won’t even TRY to reform Apotheosis without him on board. I wouldn’t even consider it.

So. That’s who Majik is. (And no, we’re not dating or anything and no, there’s no interest. Trust us. I only bring it up because someone in Apotheosis once thought we were married to each other and I thought I’d head THAT off at the past.)

2) bol dont beacon my tank macro

While mechanically, this is pretty easy:

#showtooltip
/cast @target Beacon of Light
/ra Beacon of Light on %t, don’t beacon my tank!

(or something like that – I’m not a macro god!)

I’m curious as to why you’d want a macro like that. Just call out who you’re beaconing or get your healing lead to assign beacons, etc. Also, sometimes two beacons is actually useful. Best example of this is a third tank on, say, Marrowgar. One pally each on two tanks and then both beacons on the third tank. Or both beacons on the mobile tank on Blood Prince Council. Or both beacons on the kite tank on Rotface.

3) can i do dungeons with my friends with real id

No, right now the functionality is restricted to chatting. However, I believe that Blizzard is planning to remove the battlegroup restrictions for Cataclysm, so even if you and your buddy are on two different battlegroups (say, Reckoning and Bloodlust), you should be able to both queue for heroic Oculus or something stupid that no one else wants to do, and be put into a group together. It might even be more intuitive than that. We’ll have to see. :)

4) dealing with infest heroic lich king

Probably the best way (on 25m) is two disc priests. Split up the raid, spam PW:S on your targets. Done. Hopefully. Remember that since it hits SO much harder on heroic that you probably won’t even need to downrank it to ensure Rapture procs.

5) did heroic modes in icc drop only heroic mark

Heroic end-wing bosses in ICC (Saurfang, Putricide, Blood Queen Lana’thel and Sindragosa) all drop ONE heroic token each. And for some reason, it’s almost always Vanquisher. :P Short of heroic Lich King, these four are the only way to get a heroic token. The end-wing bosses will also drop TWO regular marks on heroic.

6) do yellow gems count for spell hit

Yes, Rigid King’s Amber counts for both physical hit and spell hit. Both types of hit (and haste) were combined in Wrath of the Lich King.

7) gearscore is 4626. what should my dps be?

Your gearscore doesn’t matter. IF your gear is properly enchanted and gemmed, IF you’re specced and glyphed properly, IF your chosen pieces of gear are appropriate to your class and spec… IF all of those things are okay, then you should be doing DPS at least equivalent to what your gearscore is. I noticed that when I hit 5k GS on Kurn (properly enchanted/etc/etc/etc) that that was when I could pull 5k DPS under good conditions.

Don’t worry about gearscore. Worry about what’s appropriate for your class and spec. Gearscore can be thrown off by a dozen different factors and, *at its very best* only serves as a marker for potential. That’s it. It’s what you do with gear that’s appropriate that matters.

Read about this “tank” with a very high gearscore, which meant nothing.

8) harvest soul lich king mass dispel

I’m pretty sure you cannot dispel, mass or otherwise, Harvest Soul.

9) terenas menethil clique

I don’t think that’ll work. What I’ve been doing is actually targetting him and hitting my 3 button (Holy Light) and 4 button (Cleanse). You could try making him a focus and clique-casting on your focus frame, though.

Edit — Whoops, my bad. I was primarily thinking about how he doesn’t show up on Grid. I have my Clique set up so that my Grid frames (and my focus frame) are the ONLY active frames, period, that my Clique works with, since I have bound stuff to right-click. If you right-click on your own unit frame to leave a party, or right-click to do any number of things on your target frame, and your Clique is enabled for those frames and you have something bound to right-click, you can’t bring up the context menu.

So having said that, if your Clique is enabled on your target frame, absolutely, go to town.

I forgot until just now that I had my focus frame Clique-enabled. Guess who’s gonna focus Terenas next time she’s inside Frostmourne? That’s right, this lady.

10) world of logs triggered shadow trap?

Well, apart from seeing who took damage from it, you don’t really know who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. There’s no trigger for it listed in the logs that I can see. Sorry! :( Maybe one day, the Shadow Traps will be as vocal about who triggered them as Yogg-Saron’s clouds are now. ;)

12 Replies to “Kurn's Q&A 23”

  1. Actually, regarding question #5.. if I read this right (which I very well may not), then you haven’t actually answered the question. And I happen to have the same question, so here goes:

    Does a heroic end-wing boss only drop a heroic token, or also regular ones?

    My wife’s in the process of doing some heroic modes with her new guild, but she can still use the regular tokens. That’s why I’m asking. Oh, and also because I still wish I could have enough time to play and gear up properly so I too can see LK dead someday. And do heroic modes.

  2. Aww, that story is so nice. Getting together with old WoW friends rocks!

    Also, question #9. I’m not sure what the person is asking, but I do use Clique to heal the dude (and Valithria). I just target him and use my Clique bindings on the target frame.

  3. Kurn: thanks for the answer, even though I currently only run 10 mans regularly. I figure it’s probably 1 heroic, 1 regular token there.

    And ehrrm.. you’re lucky! I seem to have some trouble sleeping lately and now I’m down to around 5 hours of sleep per week. Works wonders when I’m at work :-/ (NOT)

    By the way, when I used Healbot I also just used the focus frame to heal other friendly targets (escorting Thrall in CoT: Escape from Durnholme for example). Probably works the same as Grid+Clique.

  4. Kurn!
    I’ve been lurking here for a while! and now I miss Maj :( You guys need to come back to ET so we can all kick Deathwing’s as together!

  5. BAHAHAHAHA. I just dove into some classic talent trees, right? I had NO IDEA mages had a wand spec! They HAVE to bring it back!

  6. in vanilla wanding was damn useful for leveling :P

    IIRC my priest did most of his damage via his wand and actually casting was WAY too damn mana intensive :P

    that is something I completely agree with them for Cata. Wands == Stat Sticks.

  7. There’s nothing quite like that special bond, is there? I’ve met some awesome people while playing WoW, and I wish every day that I could meet several of them in person. I don’t make the same distinctions between “Online” and “Real life” friends that I used to. The companionship of these people has affected my “real life”, and I’ll be forever grateful for being able to call them my friends.

    I don’t know what my GearScore is on either of my characters, and I have no real intention of finding out. I do the best I can with what I have available, and it seems to be more than adequate.

    Someone whom I follow on Twitter (I believe it was you, in fact) pointed me to FemaleDwarf a few weeks ago, and that’s proven to be a valuable resource. I brought in my guy from the Armory, punched in the buffs that I typically have, made sure it had the right shot priority listed, and lo and behold, I put out what it says I should be. I must be doing something right, then. ;)

  8. oman, Kurn, why did you have to bring up Yogg! My head is going to explode thinking of pre-nerf Yogg with the MCs and everyone yelling “IT WASN’T ME!”

    BTW, your story is so awesome. :D I’m so glad you have people like that still around. (Most of mine have gone away. :( )

  9. Jen – good call, I was thinking Grid. If you have Clique set up so that it’s not JUST your Grid frames, this is definitely possible. Will edit. :)

    Kaboomski – No, you can’t get heroic tokens out of 10m. On 10m regular, you don’t get tokens. On 10m heroic, you get 1 regular token. 10m reg = 251 items, 10m heroic = 264 items. You can’t get 277 gear from 10m.

    Yeah, see above comment to Jen.

    Sham – awww. :) So glad to see ya. :) We’ll be back on ET for Cataclysm. We’re working out a deal with regards to our roles for Cataclysm. ;)

    Osephala – oh, good point. The answer is “YOUR FACE”.

    xmolder – no kidding, some of the old mage trees were horrifying. Man, I remember having to spec 21 points into arcane for Evocation. I never maged it up back then, but I was definitely well-acquainted with a few of them. :)

    thansal – that’s actually something I missed out on, re: wanding. My first toon with a wand was my mage, rolled in early BC. I guess I was lucky? :)

    Will – My online friends are, in many cases, as close to me as my RL friends, but some of them don’t know my real name, etc, etc. I certainly spend more time with some of my online friends than I do my RL ones!

    Yeah, if you’re following FemaleDwarf, you’re probably doing pretty well. Don’t forget to use it to see if a piece is better/worse, see what differences gems make, etc. Even if I get the sweet new trinket off RS 25 on my hunter, I still should not gem all ArPen, apparently!

    Codi – Pre-nerf Yogg was HILARIOUS. I almost miss the MCs. Fan of Knives and kick were horrifying, though, ahahaha. The clouds were awesome — I remember that I “called” being the pally up at the top with Righteous Fury on to draw the adds towards me so I never had to worry about clouds. ;D

    Mailynn – I still remember doing Magtheridon with you! hahaha!

    All – I’m so glad so many people enjoyed hearing who the hell Majik is and that my nostalgic ramblings were fun for some people to read. :)

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