A Keiji in Naxxramas

I know that previously I had taken Keiji into Naxx with a PuG. But this time it was different... this time, it was a guild run.

Two days. All bosses. Only trouble was KT (and Heigan, but then again, when isn't there trouble with Heigan? We still one shot the Dance Master.), where we had some issues with positioning and tank death. But we persevered and down he went.

I finally got a shoulder upgrade (woot for tier!) and some nifty boots.

Unholy tanking... still a problem with the Bone Shield, the cooldown being a smidge too long for comfort. Perhaps they should offer a glyph that reduces the cooldown on it?

But otherwise, I believe I did well. It helps that we had some awesome healers and awesome DPS. But I am happy. I finally got Keiji through Naxxramas (10).

Next step... ULDUAR! (I jest, I jest!)

The Joys (Hahahaha!) of Pugging

That was a sarcastic pathetic whimper of a laugh there, by the way.

Boon is out of town, so I decided that my Tuesday was best spent trying to get in some raids on those characters of mine that never get to see the nonlight of Naxxramas. As opposed to cleaning the house or something.

First up: Keiji needs badges. The likelihood of her getting into a VoA run without another DK that needs the chestpiece, IF it drops, is so miniscule that I'm just going to farm up the 80 badges to buy the chest token.

So I advertise myself for any heroic, and 10 man Naxxramas.

I get swooped up for a 10m Nax, almost full except for tanks. Okay, cool. It's a pug, I don't expect completely smooth sailing, but it sounds like they're all familiar enough with the fights and the like.

I'm a little nervous, since though I've been in Naxxramas enough times healing and DPSing to do it blindfolded (I can probably still tell you how many pulls it takes to get to Gargolmar in Hellfire Ramparts), I've never tanked in there before.

So I immediately hit up the other tank in tells, letting him know that while I know the fights in general, I've never TANKED them before and could he kindly let me know anything particular about the tanking aspects that I may not be aware of. He's cool with it. He only needs ONE trinket out of the whole instance, so anything tank-like that drops, it's mine, all mine!

We hit up military first. After one wipe on Raz because I was learning the whole 'charming the people thing, when do I use bone shield, when do I ask for a taunt, when, what, huh?', we down Raz. We down Gothik.

We have a few wipes on the four horsemen. Why, you ask? Because unknown to me, there's only 2 healers. And the unholy DK in full epic DPS gear is doing barely more damage than me, the unholy DK in mostly epic and some blues tanking gear (I knew this part). So the paladin MT goes holy, saying he can heal himself while tanking the guy, and I'd take the 'burn first' group with all the DPS. The RL says we're not going to switch up front, but just burn straight through. With most of the raid doing a little less than 2k damage (and one doing barely more than 1k, granted, he's off in the back tanking one of the mobs back there), I find this an unlikely win scenario.

Surprise! I'm right. We wind up with like, 7 marks before the Thane (and most of the DPS and the other tank) goes down.

Okay. Fine. The boomkin (who is top DPS) says he'll bring in his holy paladin just for the fight, doesn't mind saving the paladin to the raid, etc. A few more wipes, the back goes down, the RL wants to try one more 'no swap', and then finally I'm tanking by myself with the resto druid on me, the paladin MT is on Thane, and we do the swap method, and we win.

Yegads. Oh... guess how many tanking items dropped? Yeah. None. We swap out a few people, get in a nice warlock that pushes mid-2k dps, and we continue to go.

We go to Construct next. To my COMPLETE surprise, we down Patchwerk in one try. Yeah. Never pictured THAT happening.

We get to Globbulus, and one shot him too. The DK keeps dropping his poison cloud in the raid, but other than THAT, no problem.

Then we go towards Gluth. Now, let me say, when we started, we had two mages. By the time we got to Gluth, we had no mages. We had: roguex2, DK dps, warlockx2, boomkin, tree, holy pal, prot pal, DK tank.

We ask the DK if he can kite the adds. He says he can, sure, but doesn't like doing it.

Then when asked if he knows how to do it, he says no. The RL starts to ask if anyone else feels comfortable doing it... and a few of us point out that he's the ONLY class capable of doing it in the raid. Bonus that he has desecration.

Surprisingly, we get Gluth almost down when the DK dies and we lose it. Then the MT has to go. We swap a few more people. Then the holy paladin says he has to go. And it gets called.

No tank drops for Keiji.

I did get asked by the other DK: u unholy tank? can u do that? (I'm paraphrasing and making it more understandable.)

I exit Naxxramas, they're going to TRY again today. I, oh so unfortunately, have work. I spot Vialora outside of Nax. He says he's in a Nax25 pug. I ask if they have room for a warlock? They do!

I join. Through cajolery, we get a few more KoUers in the mix. The RL is armory'ing everyone. Everyone there is in almost full epics, tier 8, etc. This is going to be GREAT, right?

Spider goes down with only one hitch on the Grand Widow, but we two shot her. I'm on the low end of the Recount at about 2800 dps. The top end ranged in the high 3k, low 4k. This is going to go GREAT!

We go to Plague next. Noth no problem... and then we hit Heigan. O. M. G. I don't think I've ever seen so many wipes on Heigan since KoU first went in on 10man. The tanks kept pulling him too close to the stage, so the healers couldn't heal, so the tanks died. Or the tank would be too far away, so we'd move forward to heal/dps, and then the tank would suddenly be too close again. Like, is he backing up on an S curve through the room or something?

I think we wiped 4 times before we FINALLY got Heigan down. Loatheb was a clean kill (with an amusing 'pre-attempt half-wipe' that happened when someone ran in and aggro'd Loatheb when half the raid was still on the bridge outside of his room). (Granted, at the time, not so amusing considering how many times we all just died on Heigan.)

And then the end. We go to Military next. And we cannot get Raz down. Can. Not. Do. It. The 'lead' spriest wouldn't say when she was starting, she'd be told 'when you're ready', and instead of saying anything, would just slip down there and start casting. Then the other spriest would have to rush to pick up his target. And then the one would pull Raz too far to one side, so the other couldn't get him with their MC target. And people were hitting the MC'd targets with AoE damage? And the call-offs weren't good so the MC targets were taking tons of damage. And they weren't telling when one was being released, or weren't releasing on a regular schedule, because he'd be on one, and then suddenly both he and that target were running at the raid. And the healers weren't keeping the MC targets alive, and we'd run out of MC targets to tank him.

So we called it. Kikidas did get wrist and helm out of there, so not a complete loss on my part. Yet again, another one where they said to get in there again today. Alas, alas, unless I'm inconcievably not part of our Ulduar 25 run tonight, busy for that too.

For the final part of my evening, I went as Keiji to a SUCCESSFUL 10man OS guild-run. No drakes, but meh.

Unfortunately, didn't get the bag of spoils. Those badges would have gone a long way towards my chest piece.

So once again, the joys of pugging are rediscovered. To me, the BIGGEST mind-blow was the UBER Nax25 run that turned into a wipe fest. I think personally it was a bit of 'familiarity breeds contempt'. Everyone knows it well, but slightly different, and with us all KNOWING, no one was leading the attempts with 'tank him here' or whatever, or healing assignments, or anything. The most we got was 'you're MT' to one of the warriors.

So... top five signs that your PUG isn't all it's shaped up to be (and given the already low expectations of a PUG, these are pretty bad!). These aren't in any particular order. Because how do you order these beauties?

5. One of your six DPS is barely (or not at all) outdamaging one of your tanks.
4. The raid leader doesn't vet anyone, just invites people, and then later on asks: 'Does anyone...'
3. You're heading into Gluth and don't have any class capable of kiting the chow. And the RL doesn't notice.
2. The raid leader insists on doing something, when it's painfully obvious that it won't work.
1. The raid leader first says that there isn't going to be vent. And then after one of the DPS finally offers their vent channel, doesn't want to join it. (Or lead.)

As a top five list, it's pretty pathetic, I realize. And it's largely based on my experiences from yesterday, shockingly enough.

In other news... I got Ironman on Kvasira. *rawr*flex*

Rotational Queries...

In our recent Ulduar 25 run, I had the pleasure of being one of three retribution paladins.

Of the three, I was second in terms of damage. Now, the paladin who topped me is normally a tank (how galling), and does a lot of pugging (how brave), and has really nice gear.

So I just assumed it was an issue more of gear than of rotation or ability or anything like that.

Then I looked at the WWS for the run. With the exception of Exorcism and Ret Aura, my abilities do more damage than his abilities (if you look at the white line. On the green line, his abilities do more than my abilities. I wish I knew how to read this stupid chart better. It seems that the white is damage, the green are how many? Or something... in which case, I'm just not doing ENOUGH). My Seal, Judgement, Swing, Crusader Strike, Divine Storm...

Yet he's out damaging me. (Shut up. I know on the charts it looks like only by 9 DPS. But that's apparently the difference between #1 and #2. So 9 DPS is GIGANTIC. And I have no idea why Micro, who is pulling over 4100 DPS is so low on the charts. Probably because Paladins are awesome and mages are just glorified water boys.)

So I've been trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong.

I'm going to assume it has something to do with my rotation. Which admittedly is my hardest to watch/do thing, given that I'm also often using art of war, and moving, and decursing and all that fun stuff that makes being a paladin so awesome. Which means that my perfect rotation, where nothing is off CD at the same time so I don't 'waste' time waiting for GCD, never happens.

I tend to move in and judge light, to get Heart of the Crusader on the boss. Then I'll try to crusader strike, then divine storm, then judgement will be off cooldown (or close to). I use exorcism whenever I have all three of the others on cooldown (or the boss moves away and I'm not in melee range). I'm not sure if I should use exorcism whenever it's up? It does some nice damage.

I think the problem is that I have one 6s CD and two 10s CDs. And I get confused which one I should be hitting first to try to keep the CD's from overlapping.

I guess it's time with the training dummy for me. Or maybe RetLoL has new information.

OS+1

Normally when I'm in Obsidium Sanctum, I'm the OT, the 'add picker upper' - given that I'm unholy and usually less well geared than the other tanks in the instance.

This time, I was given the daunting task of tanking Sartherion. Not sure if the RL did that because of my magic shield eating a few of his flame breaths, or because he wanted the better geared and more knowledgeable of the tanks on the drake and adds, or what, but there it was.

I wiped the first time on a flame tsunami. See, I didn't know that you had to dance between the two safe spots, and I thought there was just the one spot that was safe from all the flames. I am sometimes... not often, but sometimes... dumb.

So the first time, I went to what I was told was the 'safe spot', not realizing there was a second, and sure enough, the first flame tsunami was right on my back.

The next time, I went ahead and stood in the safe spot that doesn't require me to move from the flame tsunami that arrives from my back, so I just had to dance in and out of one tsunami.

I did die on our successful attempt, as neither I, nor my healer, were prepared for (or knew about!) the mini-enrage Sarth gets when you down one of the drakes. So BAM. Dead tank. Thankfully, the other tank was up to the task of picking up Sarth and the DPS were up to the task.

In the future, gonna try to save a bone shield cooldown for that time and be ready with trinket/other cooldowns. As it was, I went from reasonably alive, to dead, before I realized what happened.

So I can finally say that I've tanked Sarth. Go me!

After that, I went and pitifully DPS'd in Heroic OK. I need badges as Keiji for the Tier Chest. On the herald? Yeah. I slapped on my tank set and actually didn't do too badly in terms of killing my friends.

Ironsoul

The other day I was looking at Kvasira's gear and wondering when I'd ever get out of the Spiked Titansteel Helm and the Titansteel Destroyer.

I don't need the hit rating, for heaven's sake!

And I was commenting to Vialora how I hope that Flame Levi, one of those times I'm in Ulduar-10, drops this neat two-handed weapon that he has.

And usually I'm the only plate DPS in Ulduar-10.

And the other night, Vialora is invited along.

And Flame Levi drops Ironsoul.

And Vialora has more DKP.

But Vialora lives in my house.

And I know how to castrate things.

And make brownies.

Together, those two arguments convinced him that passing so I can get the upgrade was a good idea.

I'm sure my guild thinks I beat him into submission.

But I think 'beat' is too strong a word. Strongly demonic glares and the promise of brownies isn't beating. It's negotiation. It's a compromise.

(In all honesty, Vialora passed out of the goodness of his heart, and the fact that I raid far more often than he does, and would use the weapon more. Also, his equipped weapon was better than my equipped weapon at the time (he is using The Jawbone). So I really do owe him brownies and my very sincere gratitude.)

For the Alliance

Got my bear last night. Yup indeed.

Got into this raid around 4ish or so. Then left the raid because no one was in it and it was being run by what seemed to be a 12 year old with ADD.

Then got into another raid... with the same 12 year old, several HOURS later, during which time we had fun with things like PvPing and Arena'ing.

So we head out to Ratchet. Someone pulls the guards on the 'secret entrance', so we have to rush in before we're really ready. Nevertheless, Thrall dies. We go on our way to TB. We go in a poorly organized group of string cheese, and most of us die on our way to Bloodhoof. (I didn't. Rawr.) And then when we regroup, no one waits for buffs, and no one actually tanks the boss and he's going everywhere and we had tons of adds and it's just a MESS.

A bunch of people leave.

Boon steps up to the plate and says, "LISTEN UP PUKES, IF YOU WANT YOUR BEAR, YOU WILL LISTEN TO ME OR DIE."

And surprisingly, that works. We regroup. We buff. We kick Bloodhoofs (or would that be Bloodhooves?) posterior.

Then we head up to UC. We regroup. We buff. We go through the sewers. We get lost and amusingly dead as a bunch of us run off a cliff in the city and think we're going to land in a nice pool of sludge and instead hit the floor. Sneaky.

We get to Sylvanas. We kick her posterior. Little tip? The best way to figure out where she's going to be next is to watch the pets of the hunters. They'll go over to where she's about to spawn before she actually appears. They're smart little minions that way.

We then ride up to Silvermoon. We ride straight up to the group of three people who are in the big shiny area. (Can you tell I know little of Blood Elves?) I don't even know which one is the leader and which ones are just his underlings!

But we get to him. We kick his posterior.

I get my BEAR!

Of course, a few people didn't get the Org achievement, due to releasing or somesuch, so we head on back. Naturally, since most of the people just did all four and got their bear, why would they do it again? (If only for fun, right?) So we get a bunch of people deserting. Including our one tank. So I log in Keiji, we grab a few more puggers (making sure to let them know we're just doing Org) and we charge in for the second time in a night!

I tank the hexing dude. A druid we picked up tanked Thrall. I kept death gripping those few Horde that showed up to stop us into the mix. That was fun. :)

(We 25 Manned Thrall. Yes. We had only 4-5 groups of people, not all of whom were 80.)

And then we run back on out. I'm in combat so I'm running, not riding. Boon stays with me because he's the best. And all the guards are on me... and they don't stop (probably has something to do with unholy blight + DnD (they were hitting Boon! What else could I do but pull them off of him with a DnD... let him die? ... Well, okay, I could do that I suppose...), so we're running and running and this level 80 horde shaman keeps trying to stop us.

I mean, talk about PERSISTENT. He followed us all the way from Thrall's room out. I kept chains of ice on him (and hello, the only cooldown on that is global and frost runes? Seriously? No wonder it seems you can't cross the field in WSG without having to constantly cleanse chains of ice from the flag runner.) and then we were out, jumped into the river, and finally evaded most of the rest of the guards except for two persistent fellows... and that dang shaman!

So the unholy tank and the holy paladin (and how is that for a duo? Unholy and holy together? Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!) went into this epic battle with an elemental shaman! But strangulate, mind freeze, death grip and Boon hammering him got him down. And then he came back up. So we killed him. Again.

I mean, really! Bravo on a good attempt! :)

The highlight was this level 1 orc had followed us out the whole way with the shaman, unflagged naturally, and watched the whole fight. When it was over, I bowed to the level 1...

And then the level 1 logged into their Alliance alt and told Boon that it was the most epic fight he'd ever seen! (I doubt that, but the sentiment is appreciated)

It was, I will admit, very fun.

One-Shot Nax25 and Post-Raid Thoughts

It ran from 6-11pm... well, really more like 6:15ish to 10:30ish. And some of that ish is because of afks, disconnects, and us calling it then uncalling it to finish off KT.

The run went ... bumpy. We had a new tank, so had to spend some time going over fights here and there. And we had a few 'oops' wipes, once on TRASH (so humiliating).

We one shot Spider, one shot Plague (getting Heroic: Safety Dance for those of us who were new), two shot Gothik and the 4 Horsies.

On Gothik, we had some weird thing happen where the mobs didn't respawn on dead side after being killed on live. So we had Gothik come down and over to dead side, along with about 20 elites.

The Four Horsemen we had the back crew go down after the first boss went down. Which then caused everyone to get AOEd to death.

We 2-shot Patchwerk, then finished Abom cleanly.

We 2-shot Sapph because for some odd reason, our MT got two-shot at the beginning and we lost too many DPS before one of the secondary tanks could pick it up.

We had the SLOPPIEST KT wipe ever... the MT got his position wrong, and the melee groups that were supposed to be aligned according to him decided to align themselves according to the room instead... so while I was in the right spot to the left of the tank, I was standing on the group that was supposed to be opposite the tank. And people were standing on the tank. And then the tanks that picked up the Guardians didn't pick all of them up, and they were running around whacking on the healers. It was... not... pretty.

Our second KT attempt went better, of a sorts. We lost all the tanks at the very end, and I wound up tanking KT for the last 300k health. By that I mean he was chasing me and I was backing up and whacking him with everything including the kitchen sink, while the healers kept me alive and the remaining DPS went midieval on his ass.

At the end, I had enough for my 75 badge tier 7.5 pants. Yay me. 10% more damage to divine storm, woot woot!

So... a few thoughts...

I brought in my paladin as she is my 'main' character, my progression raider. Yet with the exception of one or possibly two pieces, there isn't anything she could use out of there, everything that dropped for plate DPS that night was a sidegrade at best. I did pick up a new libram, but that was it.

Yet a few other people who were progression raiders brought in their alts. Well geared, yes, but alts nontheless. Which makes me wonder why I can't bring in one of MY DPS alts? Karika is geared to the gills, but Kikidas can use some upgrades. And while she doesn't do the DPS that Kvasira can do, she still puts up decent numbers.

And don't get me started on Keiji.

Given that I don't log onto WoW anymore, except to arena and raid... my alts are unlikely to get into any runs that give them gear upgrades. And it means that between runs, my progression raider will definately not be getting any upgrades.

I'm okay with this.

I'm still writing, both fanfiction (I snicker at myself) as well as sitting down to write one of the stories that I've hashed around for a while now in my head. Maybe I'll actually finish it, this time.

I found myself slightly frustrated with the raiding. We spent a lot of time doing what I felt was ... sitting around with our thumbs up our ass. The tanks not pulling as loot was being handed out. I don't think there was a single time I didn't have to prompt: "Can we continue clearing?" and have one of the RL's confirm: "Yeah, tanks go fight something.".

We had to wait for Patchwerk to pat away and back again (long wait) because we had to wait for someone who decided to go AFK, one person who disconnected and for healing assignments to be handed out.

I find my tolerance for such disturbances to have dwindled to nothing... not that my patience was ever super high to begin with. But now I don't just have the vague feeling of 'I could be doing something productive' or 'this is inefficient'. Now I KNOW I could be doing something more productive or efficient.

I don't mind raiding. It's fun to get together with my friends and bullshit and have Neshura give me a tell of 'You and your damn DPS!' as I beat her out (it only happened once) on Razvious. But at the same time, I wish I had a hookup to a computer so I can write ideas down as I'm waiting, rather than resisting the urge to alt-tab out.

Overall, I was consistently in the top 10 DPS, depending on fight, usually in the top 5-7. To my own surprise, I broke 3k most often.

I have finally convinced Vialora (maybe) to use Seal of the Martyr instead of Seal of Command. Go me and my awesome powers of persuasion (and recount).

Unfortunately, the tier 7.5 shoulders and leg pieces are bright yellow and blue. My chest piece, gloves and boots are dark red. My cloak is this hideous gray-green and purple.

We need the ability to dye our armor, if only so I don't look so much like a color-blind ginsu knife.

Funny vs. Not Funny

Funny: Someone in your raid is well known for practical jokes (that often involve death). (He pays repair bills)

Someone else who typically falls prey to those jokes (and deaths) encourages someone who does not know said joker to get on joker's chopper.

In the beginning of OS.

With all the trash mobs around.

... said joker goes riding off and dies, along with his companion. And about three or four other people who didn't notice the joker riding off, laughing gleefully. Everyone else is safely zoned out already.

This is before the raid is started, before food, etc. Some people still aren't there.

Amusing.

Not Funny: Someone in your raid is well known for being a chode. Always complains. Tends to die because he does stupid shit and then blames everyone else for his death.

You're in Ulduar25. He was given command of driving one of the Siege Engines.

Raid Co-Leader says: Don't use the ram command on the siege engines when you're on a ramp. You'll fall through the world. Okay everyone, let's roll out and kill Flame Levi.

Driver: *RAM* *FALLS* *DIES and kills Co-Leader*

Co-Leader says: WTF.

Driver: I was at the bottom of the ramp. I should have been fine.

Now we have to wait for his vehicle to respawn. Which it never does. Finally we have to go escort his sorry ass down to Flame Levi.

Not Amusing.

Flame Leviathon & Thoughts on Ulduar

Ah, the Flame Leviathon. He is becoming known as much a 'come and get your free loot' boss as VR had been (he was sometimes affectionately called 'Loot Reaver').

Why? Ulduar is supposed to be tough, right? Why did my guild go and jump to 'on farm' status for Levi so fast?

It's elementary, my dear Watson. It doesn't matter what you gear is, or what class you are, or what spec you are.

You can go in there with a group of 10 shadow priests and still down Levi.

The hardest part of the whole endeavor is making sure that everyone understands their roles, jobs and the importance of interrupting Flame Vents, staying at Max Range unless you're a Siege Engine, and that if you can get everyone kiting him in the same direction every time, you can lay down this lovely line of tar-fires that he has to drive through.

Our guild leader has said, and to an extent I agree with him, that there isn't much reason why everyone shouldn't be getting together and getting saved weekly in Ulduar if ONLY for Flame Levi. Now, granted, ideally you should be looking for a run that plans on doing everything, because who wants to get saved for a week for a single badge and the possibility of a single piece of loot?

The other interesting thing is the difficulty of Ulduar. Now, I know, people said they wanted more difficult. I am NOT complaining.

But the question my guild is currently facing is 'What do we make our minimums?'. Do we have to complete Maly10/25? What does our DPS need to do consistently? What hit points and armor value do our tanks need? What about those ever hard to quantify healers?

Is it a question of relearning that we have to be on our A-Game at all times? A philosophy that has been largely ignored with Naxx, especially of late.

What if the A game of our guild's top raiders is not good enough? Do we stop trying and run more Nax25/Maly25, etc? Or do we keep trying, striving and seeing if it's a matter of skill, or a matter of gear?

Granted, to a certain extent, you can be the most skilled player in the world and have such poor gear that the worst player in the world decked out in full Tier8 will out DPS you. So gear does make a difference... but not as much as skill, something we all know.

So do we start paring down our raiders and saying, "Not skilled enough, skilled enough, not skilled enough, skilled enough."? And then if we do that, who makes that call? And if we do that, is it worth raiding anymore?

Now, I don't think our guild will ever get to that point. But it's an interesting thought to share anyway.

The Fall of Naxxramas (10), etc, etc

Yes... Knights of Utopia has cleared Naxx-10.

(Woot woot!)

We tend to run a very melee-heavy raid, which just won't work with K'T... so we had our resto druid respec Boomkin and I took my restoration shaman instead of my retribution paladin.

We had 3 DK (1 tank, 2 dps), 1 rogue, 1 warrior (tank), 1 boomkin, 1 hunter, 1 paladin (healer), 1 priest (healer) and 1 shaman (healer). And of course, what would drop?

Yes, that's right. On K'T we had 2 ranged dps and 5 melee classes. We're insane, what can I tell you!

And yes, of course Death's Bite dropped! I sobbed brokenly as I congratulated the DK that won it. And drooled on it, so that it slipped out of his hand and broke his foot, but hey.. I can't help myself.

I was playing around with MaxDPS.com and I can't seem to upload Kikidas into the system so that it actually takes a look at her freakin' stats/abilities. Because I don't HAVE Haunt, because I WANT to try a UA/Ruin build first. Because I want to actually have some utility on things that live less than 2 minutes. :P So sue me. And get off my back. My blog. My warlock.

STOP JUDGING ME!

Ahem.

So I was playing around with MaxDPS.com and I can't figure out how to upload Kikidas. Anyone have any suggestions? They have a little 'input your realm and name here' (get) option, so if they don't really get the character, why do they offer that?

I played around with the dummies in Stormwind, swapping around gear and playing with rotation and abilities. I seem to push about mid 1500's. Now I need to get out of my crappy greens and find some dungeon drops.

In a sad sad side note, I was in regular Halls of Lightning yesterday with a somewhat underleveled group. A 78 DK tank, a 77 disc priest, a 78 mage, an 80 rogue and myself. Right? Okay... so will be a little tough, but should be doable, right?

The TANK... spent most of his time running away from fights and not tanking. No, that isn't me being sarcastic. He literally would turn and run away from a pull. Because he wanted to pull them to a very certain spot and if that didn't happen, he'd RUN AWAY. Because when an underleveled tank would face pull, that just didn't work for him, nosirree. *sigh*

He'd also let mobs get behind him and whack away at his back. So kept dying. When we accidentally pulled the boss the first time, he ran away, even though the group was at full health, full mana and was just waiting for him to pull the boss.

When he said he was doing that because he liked to pull the mobs further back rather than fight where they were, I very astutely pointed out that as the tank, he had these nifty abilities to hold aggro and move the mobs wherever he wanted them to be. Not only the ability to move mobs, but a neat benefit to that would be that his DPS would live and his healer wouldn't get one shot trying to keep the DPS alive!

We got through the fist boss (sob) after way too many wipes and time spent staring at the screen going, "Did the tank just run away, again?" ... with myself and the rogue tanking the lieutenants... thank god for fear. >< ...

... and then on our way to the second boss, even though he had asked for marking abilities to mark the mobs, he wasn't putting up away (I don't have the time! says he), so I go after what he seemed to be attacking first. And it said 'zomg, warlock! love warlock!' and came to try to hug me.

I did a death coil to make it go away from me and back up the stairs. The tank still was ignoring it. So it came back to me. So I did what any good warlock would do...

If I'm going to die, damnit, I'm taking the group with me!!! I feared it... and it went running to another group, naturally.

The priest said, "You gotta hold aggro." ... because the priest was getting whacked like every single time and almost dying ... a lot.

When the tank was like, 'wah, it wasn't my fault! someone pulled another group!'

I said, 'Nope, not your fault. But you still have to hold aggro. I accidentally grabbed another group because I was being attacked. Sorry guys.'

And the tank says, 'emo emo, QQ, I'm gone!' and leaves.

And we pull in a level 80 feral druid and the run goes super smooth after that. (one wipe on Ionus, but that was more bad luck than bad skill)

Amazingly, I think it had something to do with the fact that the tank didn't run away from pulls? Possibly? I can't tell for sure.

I mean, obviously the extra levels on the tank undoubtedly helped, but I really don't think that was the reason we had a problem in the beginning. Just really don't think that was the case at all.

And then back to raid stuff, we took a shot or three at Malygos. Gonna be interesting to see how next week goes.

Karika goes to Naxxramas-25

Yesterday, Boon and Vialora celebrated Vialora's 21st birthday by getting drunk and shooting zombies. Owaru joined in.

So Neshura, Posolutely and myself were at loose ends. And lo and behold, an ex-guildie was trying to get together a 25-man Naxx.

So I ask what he needs. Healer, DPS.

I tell him I have a restoration shaman and Nesh was on and Pos was on in the form of Abs the warlock.

He wound up tanking, but ... I offered Abs! Don't look at me that way.

So, they somehow wound up with 6 healers... but I was the only shaman healer, and one of only two shaman at all. The other was elemental and geared very nicely.

So, we hit the spiders first. And what should drop but the Shield of Assimilation. A caster ring also dropped, but I figured I'd go for what I know I can get. :)

Then we hit up the Widow, and the Atonement Greaves dropped. I asked if, even though I already got a drop, if it was going to just get sharded, if anyone minded if I took them.

And lastly, Maexxna donated the Quivering Tunic to the righteous cause of gearing up Karika.

We didn't get any others down, but I figure.. that's good enough for one night, right?

Woot woot. Go shammy, go shammy, go!

VoA and OS-10 Man... and Gluth, you dog!

Yesterday we went ahead and hit up VoA and OS-10 Man. And walloped everything. Where 8 of the 10 people present had never been there before.

On these guys, where they aren't undead (grumble), I was lowest on the DPS meter. LOWEST! I sob, I writhe in shame, and I wonder what I was doing wrong. I know I can hit higher than 1800, but in VoA and OS, I was somewhere in the 1800-2100 range.

Was it the Heath Bar that I was eating at the time? Who knows!

But I did notice that when I was Johnny on the Spot in terms of hitting my next spell as soon as it became available, my DPS jumped at least 100 points. :P I think in VoA it was low because of all the dodging about we melee'ers had to do. And in OS, again, lots of running around. And one of the tanks kept moving. *narrow eyed glare* No movey of the mobs. Moving mobs make melee DPS irritable.

Then since we waltzed through those two raids with nary a scratch (I think the only death we had was Boon, who DI'd Kyuushi (Sartherion has 5% health left, oh my god, we're going to fail, someone DI me!) after Sartherion was dead. Don't ask. It's a joke of some sort between the two of them.)), we decided to hit up the Abomination Quarter in Naxx-10.

So we went ahead and two-shotted Patchwerk -- when the MT dies because the OT didn't yet have secondary aggro to eat the hateful strikes, usually means a wipe. Because then the OT becomes the MT, and the new OT is the retribution paladin, who dies very quickly.

And then we cleaned up Globbulus. And then we went to Gluth. Gluth, the doggie that we've never managed to get down before. We had issues with the kiting of the Zombie Chow.

In the past, we'd have one kiter, who would try to do all three waves. This never worked well because the stacking debuff got too high.

Our next best attempt was we tried to have two kiters, swapping them out between waves so the debuff fell off. The problem with this was that the second kiter, a hunter, couldn't gain enough aggro on the chow to pull them off the healers.

Finally though, last night we had two retribution paladins in the raid.

I took the first wave. Hunter's laid their freezy trap in the middle grate, and I ran around in circles. With righteous fury and exorcism and judgements, not to mention the very very useful holy wrath, I kept aggro on all the chow, kept them from eating me, and was able to stop them in place when decimate triggered.

The second wave the other retribution paladin took. It was his first time kiting, as opposed to me who has tried about three other times to kite them, and he wound up dying towards the end of his 'wave'. Given that the mobs were way in the back anyway, and decimate was close, I stayed on the boss. When decimate hit, I ran back, holy wrath'd and then went back to kiting.

Third wave went much the same as the first. The hunter traps started to get misplaced to the side, but given the multi-tasking the hunters had to do, who am I to complain? (Silly hunters.) I had to blow my bubble towards the end, but then holy wrath'd them in place. Then decimate fell upon their heads and they died.

But without a second kiter, I had to take the beginning of the fourth wave while still under the effects of the earlier debuffing I took. I did my best, but when the stacks start to climb into the 40-50 range... anyway, I went ahead and died as far back in the chamber as I could, so they'd have the longest time to get to Gluth. And Gluth died before they could reach him (and before he could enrage).

All in all, a beautiful (or at least, not horribly decimated) one-shot of a previously unattainable boss. Two ret pallies and the boss dead? DEAL!

We then stopped Naxx and took a brief detour into Dustwallow Marsh to go ahead and down Onyxia for the achievement.

On a side note, Iceravens from our guild... solo'd her. It took him, he says, about 35-40 minutes. I don't know if he was prot or ret specced for the attempt. But I don't know whether to be proud (I am!) or sad (a 40 man classic raid boss is now soloable?).

Tip Toe Through the Tulips

So, through dint of much effort and gold, my beloved Boonybaby went and made me some shinies!

Spiked Titansteel Helmet, Titansteel Destroyer and Spiked Titansteel Treads...

(These boots were made for walking, and that's just what they'll do, one of these days these boots will walk all over you!)

(Ah Nancy Sinatra.)

Don't you just love people who make you pretty shinies?

Anyway...

He made me these items because I was grousing about having a GREEN quality weapon. I was quite ashamed. And such shame should never be shouldered by a retribution paladin.

So he fixed it! Yay!

Yesterday I was invited to visit another guild in a raid on Wintergrasp and Obsidian Sanctum. 'Twas very much fun. Alas, I only got a bag out of the deal, but I'll live somehow.

Then as a guild, we ventured into Naxx-10.

Our brave explorers were the two meatshields, warriors Posolutely and Balendin, three never-ending-health-potions, the paladin Boon, the druid Kyuushi and the priest Janril and the five 'we kill you!' damage dealers, the mage Micromachine, the hunters Wolfinme and Neshura, with their companions the kitty Max and the albino devilsaur Petunia and then the two paladins, Iceravens and Kvasira.

We one shot the fist two bosses in the 'Eek, get them off of me!' quarter, then had a hard time with the big spider. We had the strategy down well... it was just a matter of the tank getting crunched in a web-wrap during the last 30%.

Finally, it came down to the wire! The tank was dying (again, what a lazy gnome.)! I used Lay on Hands and poof, he was back alive. But then he died. And then someone else died. And then it was eating me! (eek, get it off!)

So I bubbled. Boon bubbled. We hammer of wrathed, holy shocked, crusader striked, Neshura (who was still alive. I think she fainted and then woke up again) plunked it full of arrows and then it .. died.

And it was me. And Neshura. And 10 little spiders! (eek, get them off!)

A ret paladins work is never done.

After that, we pushed on to the plague quarters, and we wiped on the first gargoyle patrol.

See? See? That's juju!

"OMG! WE JUST KILLED MAEXXNA! WE ARE SO 7334!"

"... did we just wipe on a patrol trash mob?"

We killed Noth, after one wipe (or was it two? I was losing count) and then had to call it a night as some of us have to work in the morning. (like me, very sad.)

So, I was wrong in how many times we'd wipe on the way to the first boss... but we probably wiped 5 times on Maexxna before we got it right.

So I get the consolation prize of a level 80 shaman.

Brand New Year, Same Old Tricks

If you've been wondering where I have been (and I know you've missed me... it's been over 10 days since I've been around! How did you ever survive?), I was in Florida!

Florida, by the way, is just south of Un'Goro. The raptors are just a bit smaller, but still everywhere. And don't get me started on the size of the pterrodax's!

Anyway... so it's a brand new year. Have you guys made your Resolutions?

I made mine in November, shortly after my birthday. How am I doing with that? Meh. The wagon has fallen off the beaten path, but it's still stubbornly chugging along. Had to fix an axle here, a wheel there, but it's still plugging along.

But enough about the boring real world... how about in WoW?

Just because it's a virtual world doesn't mean you can't make resolutions for it, too.

Want that Traveler's Tundra Mammoth? Is your resolution to farm an hour (or more!) a day for funding?

Drooling over some piece of gear but feel you'll never be able to get into the instance it drops in? Have you decided to work towards bettering your character and your gear in ways you can?

Are you a DPS class that's getting outDPS'd continuously by the tank? Have you looked into what's going wrong? Do you have recount? Do you have appropriate gear for your class? Etc.

Since I'm perfect, I have no Resolutions in WoW.

(I'm kidding.)

We've started to hit Heroics with our Paladins (by 'we', I mean Boon and Kvasira) and ran our first two last night - Heroic Violet Hold and Heroic Culling of Stratholme.

We're going to be venturing into 10-man Naxx this weekend, just for a looksee and to see how many times in one night we can die. Any wagers?

I'm guessing we wipe at least 5 times. On our way to the first boss.

My shaman dinged 78 yesterday and so naturally I made Seraphelia (Boon's Blood/Frost DK) tank CoS at 78 too.

We made it through with only one true wipe. We had people die here and there, and I had to pull out all my tricks to keep my mana up. And at one point, I was tanking when Seraphelia died on a pull. Why did Seraphelia die? Because I thought it would be funny! (No, I'm kidding.)

It was very fun, in my opinion and I think Seraphelia did just swimmingly. The only true wipe was on Mal'Ganis, because no one realized he had a frontal arc AoE and I just couldn't keep everyone alive. (Bad shammy, BAD!)

Seraphelia however, kept giving me the hairy eyeball because we had three 78's in the instance. ("What part of 80 instance do you not understand, K?!")

*giggle*

Oh, it's good to be back.

The Nerfing of Burning Crusade (rant)

First of all... I want to apologize in advance because the tone of this post is going to seem elitist.

I am frustrated with the nerfing of the Burning Crusade. I understand the reasons they had to do it, to get rid of crushing blows, reduce the need for chain-potting, etc.

But I am frustrated. I worked really hard on some of my characters for some of the gear that I have. Do I want to be the only one to get the gear? No. I'm happy for people who get upgrades! It's exciting for everyone involved!

But the other day a new 70 retadin in my guild got into BLACK TEMPLE.

BLACK F-ING TEMPLE.

Wearing blues and a few epics.

He got upgrades, which is great for him! I'm happy. Part of it was that he's friends with people who raid BT. But without the nerf... he'd not have gotten to go until he did the whole dance routine of upgrades. Even in a guild that raided BT regularly pre-nerf, he'd have to have a certain minimum of gear before they'd take him in, right?

Maybe not, because there are people who have always gotten into raids they did not have the gear to compete in.

But I look at that and something inside dies just a little bit as I look at Kvasira and I think of all the work I did in upgrading her gear to compete in a raid and make her raid viable in terms of DPS, not just raid saving or buffing.

And then I look at the gear level of people who are in Karazhan, and SSC and BT and ...

*sigh*

Normally, I could care less about it. It's just that I worked so frikkin hard to get Kvasira geared up... and all my work... I should have just waited for the nerf bat to hit BC and paid some guild to let me run with them in BT. I'd have gotten better gear for less work.

Now, I do NOT think that PvP gear or badge gear are 'welfare epics'. You work HARD for that gear, both in terms of running heroics (or even Karas) until you have the badges you need to upgrade a single piece of gear, as well as running countless battlegrounds (and if you're Alliance... losing countless battlegrounds) to upgrade a single piece of gear. Even if it isn't 'hard' in terms of skill (face it, we've all run with people who can't tell their ass from their elbow in a heroic or a battleground... they get the same amount of badges and honor (not quite, they changed honor gains in BG's) as the people who are doing their jobs...) - it's still a lot of time dedicated to running heroics and battlegrounds.

(And yes, yes, yes, I know, people dedicate a lot of time to raiding and just because you're in a raid doesn't mean you'll get every single drop that would benefit you, don't try to trip me up with the nittygritty details. This is a rant, damnit, logic has no place here!)

I guess I have a problem with the perception that people don't have to work as hard as I did to get to the same place.

Because people look at my gear, be it badge rewards or pvp rewards, and know exactly what I had to do to get that.

Someone carried (or not carried with the nerf bat) through BT or some other insane place like that and gets the gear... people look at that gear and say, "Woah, that guy raids BT!".

*sigh*

100 Badges and More!

Last night Knights of Utopia hit Gruul's, with some of our new allied guild friends, Dragon Knights, and friends of friends. The usual sort of thing. :)

Now, we did have a mix of people in there who have done Gruul's before, but we had a LOT of people who never have done it at all.

And we one shot High King and Gruul. 1% of Gruul's life and there were no tanks left alive! And we (the kickass DPS and the kickass healers) still did it.

And that put me at 99 badges. And we said... maybe we should try Magtheridon?

And we did and we got him to 32%... and then every other attempt, barely past his first blast nova. :( No warlocks also didn't help, just a lot of hunters. :) So we had infernals going everywhere. We also need to work on the blast nova timing. Someone was clicking way too early, before he started to cast, when the 'countdown to blast nova' countdown started.

So I had to try to find a way to get just a single badge... and I never ever get badges from the Shattered Sun Supply packages.

But I did! And now I have the Embrace of Everlasting Prowess!

Woot woot.

Oh, oh, oh. Mini-fangirl issue. I wrote an email to BBB about Hurricane+Barkskin as an aggro generating tool and what his thoughts were and how he used it... and he wrote me back! *squeal*

To imp, or not to imp: that is the question:

I've touched on this in the past and have agreed to disagree in the past with other warlocks over this subject.

I originally posted it because we had a low performing warlock in our Karazhan runs that was demonology/destruction. And they'd bring out and sac their succubus instead of giving the tanks the Blood Pact buff.



I had someone, presumably a high performing demonology/destruction warlock tell me that warlocks shouldn't feel obligated to sacrifice their DPS to give the tanks a fort buff.

I disagreed then and I still disagree now (with qualifiers, as most things have).

Blood Pact at max rank (non improved) gives 66 stamina. Improved it gives 86.
Stamina improves health by 10 health points per one point of stamina (10.5 if you're a tauren!).
Feral druids recieve an additional 20% if they have Heart of the Wild (tauren druids 25%).

(In an aside, c'mon Blizzard. Favor Horde much? ... Ooh, next blog idea. Racial imbalance.)

That's 660 health or 860 health depending on if you have an improved imp or not. I don't do math, so I'm not going to figure out how much feral druids would get.

(caveat: My values are obtained by research through WoWWiki. Please point out any errors.)

So the question becomes... when does it become more valuable to a raid to have a demonology specced warlock keep out (or sacrifice) their minion versus keeping an imp out for blood pact?

That's a very tricky, subtle, variable line.

Master Demonology gives you a variety of buffs if you have out certain minions (or if you sacrifice certain minions with Demonic Sacrifice).

Demon: . . Master Demonology: . . . . . . . . . . .Demonic Sacrifice
Imp: . . . . .Decreases threat by 20%: . . . . . . . Fire Damage increased by 15%
Succubus: Increases (spell) damage by 10%: Shadow Damage increased by 15%

In the beginning, when we were starting Karazhan, our tanks needed every little bit of health they could get, to counteract long drawn out boss fights and low healer mana pools (and low tank health pools). Underperforming DPS raidwise that couldn't be made up by one person increasing their damage by 10 or 15%.

Now, our runs are staffed by awesome healers and tanks that are close to 19k-20k health buffed (14-15k unbuffed). Is that extra bit of health worth it? Not for the tanks necessarily, but I still say it's situational.

Splash damage can effect the 8k health priest, who may benefit from that extra 600-800 health? (Counterargument is that healers should be able to keep people up, and there's a reason we have minimum health requirements for raids. Additionally, a high performing warlock that's performing even higher? Possibly the difference between a raid wipe and a raid success.)

(Case in point: This last weekend we downed Halazzi in ZA. Both tanks were dead at 4% boss health. We still downed him. One of the last DPS still standing was our Demonology warlock. Was that the difference? It's unlikely that the blood pact buff would have saved anyone in that group, but the extra DPS could have been the difference!)

For the warlocks who complain that they have to hit soul shatter early and then back off on DPS because they're hitting the threat cap ... having the imp out for the reduction in threat (20%!!!) may be beneficial, and then they can buff the group as well.

We ask people all the time to not DPS to their utmost for the benefit of the raid. We have mages in ZA who spend several fights doing nothing but chain-sheeping mobs. We sometimes need to have hunters chain-trap mobs in the Moroes fight if we're short on priests.

Do we need to have them do it all the time (mages in ZA, sorry.. you're out of luck!), no. But we don't hesitate to expect someone to stop DPSing to help the raid.

A drop in 10 or 15% of their damage to benefit the raid (or allow them to keep DPSing with that tasty 20% threat reduction)... where do you draw the line? When do you say their DPS isn't as important as the extra health?

Has anyone calculated how much more damage they could do if they could go nuts on the boss with 20% threat reduction? In addition to the 30% of salvation? The 2% on their cloak? If they have Destructive Reach, 10% on their SB and Immolate?

C'mon, who isn't drooling at the thought of a 52/62% threat reduction for their top damaging class that sometimes has to simply STOP damaging at all to stay below the tank in threat?

So I've moved SLIGHTLY from my original thoughts.

At very high health pools on tanks and healers and DPS, the small amount of health from blood pact may not be worthwhile ...

(though we still expect our Kings and Fortitude buffs. Why don't we say that little bit of health isn't worthwhile, either? Where do we draw the line on that? We eke out every last little benefit we can get to buff ourselves, why are we not demanding Blood Pact? And yes, I hear you demonology people going: We're ekeing out the most of our damage with that tasty 10-15% damage increase!)

(Maybe the difference is that Kings and Fort doesn't negatively affect the classes casting them, whereas Blood Pact could technically negatively affect the warlock as they then lose out in proverbial damage done.)

... while the increase in damage may be.

At lower health pools or where lots of people may be taking damage or for the mage tank in Gruuls...

Do you see my point? (Rambling and tangental though it may be.)

Where does the benefit to the raid outweigh the benefit to the individual? When does the benefit to the individual outweigh the benefit to the raid?

Such are the questions of our lives. I'm happy to hear comments, criticisms and thoughts! Because honestly.. where do YOU draw that proverbial line? And what is your rationale for drawing it?

Casual Raiding: Progression

Yet another article in my 'Casual Raiding' line of misinformative blogs!

As you know, we've been hitting ZA for two hours on Sunday nights. We usually hit Nalorakk and Akil'zun and call it an evening.

Last night, we cleared to Nalorakk in record time... and then had a mage take an emergency phone call. We tried to bull through 9-manning it, and though we didn't actually wipe, we wound up losing out on the chest anyway because and I don't know how... we managed to pull Nalorakk along with the last mob that was sheeped.

We're special.

One wipe on Nalorakk due to bad luck in terms of his deafening roar and low health on the other tank.

We did the gauntlet without any wipes and killed Akil'zun without any wipes.

We had almost a half hour left of our allotted two hour time!

We decided to try our hand at Halazzi again, the Lynx boss.



I don't recall now if it was 2 or 3 attempts, but regardless... second to last attempt: 13%.

Last attempt: 4%. We'd have done it too, if it weren't for you kids!... er, if the rogue hadn't died at the first spirit split. Stupid Lynx.

Oh... and I tanked it. RAWR. And got the Charmed Amani Jewel put into my Tameless Breeches. Yay nummy stamina. Nom nom.

Mini-Rant and Other Things

Two of the blogs that I read recently discussed the PvP/Badge/PvE Tier gear question. Namely: Is it right that people can PvP or Heroic their way into T5 and T6 equivalent gear?

Neither said it was out and out wrong and people in "welfare epix" should be stoned on sight. Both posted their opinions on it and asked what other people thought (or implied that they ask, since it's a public open to comments blog).

One wasn't as happy with it and was recounting how in the past PvPers were crying how people in T2 armor were owning BG's and the dearth of people willing to do heroics for gear or badges since they can grind their way through some BG's and honor to get gear.
The other was kind of equivocal about it and said how he thinks progression gear needs to be fixed so that newcomers to level 70 don't have to PvP to "catch up quickly" to their raidmates for the high end raid encounters.

Both of them had people saying rather nasty things to (and in one case, about) them.

Now, one is BBB and I'm sure everyone who reads me reads him and knows all about the issue.

The other is a newer (to me) feral druid blog I've encountered. The blog was well written. It wasn't inflammatory. It basically outlined the blogger's point of view on the issue and WHY they had that point of view.

That's what a blog is for. Now, some blogs cater to the theorycrafters. Some cater to the ... not-theorycrafters. But in the end, a blog is a personal place unless it's something like WoWInsider, where you should expect a certain level of writing and a certain level of information (facts, not opinion). But a personal blog is just that. Personal.

We make it public because that's the type of people we, as a society, are. We want to say our thoughts outloud and in most cases, hear your opinions on it.

If the person posted his thoughts about why he thought TRB's opinion wasn't well thought out... that's one thing. This person however, said that the blog was boring, sounded like something off of trade-chat and that maybe the blogger should consider stopping blogging all together.

Now, maybe he does think it's boring. Maybe the trade chat he frequents is more high-brow than the trade chat that I'm used to reading. But his response was very rude and highly uncalled for, IMNSHO.

If you find someone's blog boring... you don't tell them to shut up. You stop reading their blog. Problem solved! Just because YOU find the blog boring, doesn't mean that other people do. Doesn't mean the person blogging does. So, just wander away and go be rude to someone else, plzkthx.

Now, onto other things. Non-WoW related. Go cry somewhere else if you're going to complain that my warlock blog is delving into bear tanks and real life briefly.

Wii Fit is ... addicting. And kind of embarassing to realize how out of shape I really am! I've unlocked everything so far. I typically spend most of my time on the Yoga and Strength training, with the advanced step aerobics and hula hoop exercises and a random assortment of two or three balance games each day.

Today.. I did the shoulder stand. I wasn't exactly STRAIGHT... but I did it. And damn does that feel good to accomplish!

I need to work on getting the wiimote to register right for the tricep extension exercise -- I'll do it but it won't register that I did it! And the push-up and side-plank exercise... sometimes won't register that I just grunted and groaned my way through a knee's down but complete push-up. Which makes me feel unappreciated!

Back to WoW!
I took my rogue into Kara last night. She got three drops - a something I can't remember (I want to say a ring, but I can't find it right now), a cloak and her gloves. Three drops. Out of the whole damn place. Everything that dropped was cloth healing gear or mail or plate! Hate. you. Karazhan.

She was 5th out of 6 DPS. She was pushing around 450-500 DPS. The people above me are all people who are in mostly epics, compared to my blue-geared rogue. I meet the "minimum" requirements that my guild requires, so I didn't feel too bad about coming in, but I was well aware that I wasn't as much of a help. I did however... live through Prince. The other rogue... did not. GO ME!

Boon wants to get his tank Fyzzgig up there, so expect more ret paladin stuff (yay, Kvasira!) to follow.

Plans for Kikidas are to try to figure out did I really DE my Spellstrike Hood, or is it just hiding from me? I can't find it anywhere, and I'm such an armor-hog (you should see my bank), I can't imagine that I DE'd it, but I can't find it anywhere! She's also going into ZA now so maybe I'll get something new and shiny! It's progression ZA, but ZA nontheless.

Hope everyone had a great 4th of July!

Casual Raiding: Zul'Aman

Yet more in my 'casual raiding' line of posts.

To rehash: Knights of Utopia -- small casual raiding guild.
Raiding highlights to date: Almost full Kara clear in 3.5 hours (minus the dragons.)
Individual raiding highlights: A good portion of our active raiders have participated in some way or another in Magtheridon and Gruuls and a small portion of our active raiders have been in SSC, TK and ZA.

The plan: Start progression in Zul'Aman this last Sunday.
The people: Posolutely the warrior tank, Owaru the paladin tank, Boon the paladin healer, Orzag and Kiljara the priest healers, Neshura and Wolfinme the hunters, Ravensfire the rogue, Harikin the mage and try to find one more DPS (preferably a warlock.)

And... we know what happens to the best made plans, right? Posolutely went into ZA, thinking that the reset timer would allow him to go with us on Sunday. Not...

So, Posolutely the warrior tank came as Absitively the warlock. Kiljara the priest came as Kathe the bear tank. And we pulled in a friend of Abs, another paladin healer.

Our plan: 2 hours. 2 bosses.

We almost did it!

We had a few trash pull mishaps, namely on the stairway up to the bear boss, Nalorakk. But we were able to one-shot Nalorakk. (The fact that he's considered the 'easiest' boss of ZA nonwithstanding... we one shotted Nalorakk.)

Kathe tanked the troll phase and Owaru tanked the bear phase. We had one hairy moment (get it, hairy?) when the troll resisted my taunt, but Owaru was able to do something (I dunno what, he's a paladin... it's a mystery to me) and I was able to eke ahead and get its attention.

I had to pop out of bear form and heal a time or two. I had to innervate one of our priests. But when all was said and done, we had a dead Bear Lord. Not a dead bear tank.

The Akil'zon gauntlet had us wipe I think three times before we got the maneuver down pat. (And by this time, the pug healer disconnected (before the gauntlet, but after the Bear Lord)without warning... and yes, the person knew this was a progression raid and wipes were inevitable, and yes, the person knew that regardless of how well we did, it would end at 9pm or after Akil'zon, whichever came first.... so we had Harikin the mage step out and come in as Yorkshire the priest healer, and we grabbed another rogue from our guild to come DPS for us, Gobblez. (Timmay! Gobblez! TIMMAY!))

Alas, we did not get Akil'zon down. Kathe slapped on healing gear and helped keep the raid alive. We were debating whether this dropped us too low on DPS. We were going to swap her out and bring in Kikidas (rawr! Kikidas eat Eagle Lord. *nomnom*.) but we wound up running out of time and had the gauntlet respawn.

On Azil'zon our biggest problem was coordination of the Electrical Storm collapse. Too early and we were getting eaten by Static Disruption. Once we called it too late and someone didn't collapse in time... and guess who the storm was centered over? We also had a bit of a difficult time with the birds. We had our warlock try to dot them up as they flew by. We didn't (and we thought of this afterwards) have the hunters also hit the birds a time or two. Next time...

We got him to about 50% though, and for a small guild that on the WHOLE hasn't ever fought him before... not too shabby, IMNSHO. I think if we hadn't had the gauntlet respawn right around 9pm, we'd have done it. Our best attempt at him was our last attempt at him and it was also the attempt where the collapse didn't happen quite right and the raid got wiped.

By the way -- when you're tossed up in the air, druids can catform once released from the storm and avoid taking any fall damage (even if you're a healer and not a feral druid pretending to be a healer, you get reduced fall damage, so still worth it to shift.)

Now, here's the problem with being a small guild trying this out. I'm going to name our top DPSers (by top DPS, I mean people who consistently come in the top 4 and 700+ DPS average) in the guild, and I want you to pick who you've discovered, by my posts, is actually one of our tank or healer alts!

Ravensfire, Dhark, Neshura, Tasogare, Absitively, Kikidas

That's right! Of those FIVE DPSers, only TWO of them are not usually otherwise occupied in a tank or healing role! Ravensfire and Neshura are the only two of KoU's top DPSers who isn't usually required to fill a healing or tanking role. What this means is that even though if you put all five of us in a run together, put in two tanks, two healers and one other decent DPS, we'd slaughter your world... what it really means is we have two 700+, and a bevy of up and comers who average 400-500.

So likely, we're going to be in Karazhan yet more, getting them the gear and experience. We also need to do Netherspite and Nightbane, since those are coordination-listen to the raid leader call instruction fights, and we need more of that experience for ZA and beyond. This isn't necessarily a bad thing for Kathe, since just about all of her upgrades will come from badges (or PvP)... but it can be frustrating! Especially since we ate the Bear Lord. He's nothing more than a juicy bear burger to us now. (And yes, I had to put a wowhead link in here. Because I can, damnit.)

Off to more fun Alliance PvP with Kathe the Resto/Balance druid! WOoooo... *cry*