To Hellfire and Back again .... As a Shaman
The speed at which quests stack up and bonus XP accumulates is staggering. I took a portal to the Outlands at level 58. Racked up the two level s quickly to 60 and got my flying mount. This opened up a wealth of opportunities. Collection quests just became 50% easier when you can swoop in and grab whatever you’re after. The back and forth travel got faster. Can I afford an epic flyer? Yes. Probably. I can’t physically get it till I break the level 70 cap on 225 Riding. I’d certainly purchase it for 4200g at Honor Hold. Who WOULDN’T take the 800g tax break? Plus, most people take flying into Shadowmoon Valley like going into Bangladesh, Darfur, or Tiajuana. Avoid it if you can.
I hit Lv64 before I left Hellfire Peninsula. There are THAT many quests in the zone. You can’t avoid making a couple of levels and my drop rate on some of the “kill these for item x” quests were pretty good. I hit 66 wrapping up Zangarmarsh. Get the 30 min buffs to spellpower and attack from the Treant guardians in Cenarion Enclave. Even hybrids can benefit from this cheap and easy buff.
Cenarion Faction. I’ve done this several times and it’s a huge boost to Cenarion Expedition faction gains. DO NOT take any quests in Zangarmarsh without collecting / buying up 200 unidentified plant parts. Ideally the max number is around 300, but the turn ins for the plant parts are repeatable. Grind your faction up to Honored thru turn-ins. Then any quest XP will guarantee your character reaches Revered with the Expedition. All of the tradeskills have one or two good patterns / recipies with this group. Why not max out your faction early? The swamp was going green as the mob level was falling below mine quickly. I needed the faction with the Kurnei in Nagrand as well, so I decided to stick it out. This was also setting up some important quest chains.
Terokkar forest. Not much to say. I hardly knew ye. There were no significant blue drops. I did a few quests and stopped when the rest became green or instance quests. No time to mess around with Auchunei crypts or Mana Tombs. No one goes to those places any more. Off to Nagrand. I got into the zone after hitting Neutral / Friendly with the Kurnei. This is a must. Then you can get the Ortor my Old Friend quest + Sunspring villiage cleansing + Murkblood corruption + another quest. This gives you 5 quests for the same spot. All 5 involve burning or killing something in the area. You can just go to town. The whole carnage took 5 minutes. The flight there and back was more tedious. Shamen don't get AOE, but we can chain lightning rather quickly with Malestorm weapon. We also get wolves and elementals to summon. Too easy.
Gear Upgrades
I gemmed out the Helm from Zangarmarsh and the blue cape from the goblin + Jump-o-Tron . Using a flying mount on the Jump-o-Tron is priceless! I was so over-geared, the Windrock Matriarch was beat down quickly solo and I got the blue DPS cape. Quickly, getting a +22 AGI enchant and crossing cloaks off my list. Both the Old crone and Zelgor the Wise died in seconds. Even 20 minions were trivial matter. Elites like the Felguards and the Demonic Engineers are painful. Luckily, I tagged along with a very nice 80 Paladin and a pair of DK’s at level 69. We did the Ring of Blood and the first Forge Camp: Hate quest chain. Easy 80k xp there plus some gold, potions, and a blue 2H Axe. Am I gonna use the axe? Probably not. I’ve been selling off or replacing my caster set since level 40.
I have the Relic 2 set for Caster Mail Armor. No big. I’ll dual spec Heals at level 70 or 72. This is just to multiply my Raid viability at Lv 80. For leveling, I can stick to grinding out Enhance Shammy dps and shredding anything I meet. Durn the Hungerer? Not quite. Everything else - Yea. It’s toast. I'll ride along with my blues till mid 70s. I've seen 80s with green gear in pickup runs. I plan on being light years ahead of them.
I hit 68 last night . The upper 60’s as a Shaman are just rockin’ good. Level 60, Spirit wolves. Every minute I get to call them in for 15 seconds. I don’t use them enough because, I can’t get mana back from Shamanistic rage. You get that from hitting things. The combined dps of the wolves + myself + totems is too darned high. That’s right. The wolves just tear up stuff for 15 seconds and I have nothing left to hit for mana. 1 minute cool down is quick. Nothing survives long. Mob density is rarely high enough to warrant using them all the time. If I’m in a confined space with enough creatures to absorb all the dps, I’ve screwed up or I’m facing an elite mob alone.
Level 64, Earth Elmental with 10 minute cooldown. Level 68, Fire Elemental with separate 10 minute cooldown. Level 70, Heroism with a 10 minute net cooldown. That’s a lot of dammed power available for oh-shit moments. What shamen don’t get? Aggro reduction. Once I win the threat war, I get to tank. I did a crushing amount of DPS compared to the others in an instance run because I’m a shameless twink. My gear is ugly powerful. However, I don’t get to drop threat. At all. In any manner.
Aggro Reduction
Hunter – Feign
Mage – Invis
Warlock – Soul Shatter
Rogue – Vanish
Priest - Fade
Pally - Bubble
Warrior - ?
DK - ?
Druid -?
Shaman - ?
I can’t think of any way these classes can drop agro. The top 3 classes have Tank specs. Warriors / DKs / Feral Druids can handle a beating. Kitty Druids, Fury Warriors, and Blood DKs get hosed, but I kinda see how that spec is a choice and agro reduction shouldn’t be a guaranteed ability held by all classes. Pure DPS should get aggro reduction. Healers should get aggro reduction. Hybrids…. Meh.
We get Reincarnate. Lol. 100% Guaranteed to drop your threat to 0 every time. Usable every 30 minutes without glyph. Repair costs are at a variable rate for use.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Monday, November 2, 2009
Twink Gear vs Levelling gear
(Building a better Shaman.)
There's twink gear and there's enchanted/gemmed/blue quality stat enhanced equiment for the gods. We classify twink gear as normally lv 18-19, lv 27-29, or Lv 49-50 item sets geared to overpower and dominate PvP battles. This is where spending 1000g to give your 19 rogue an extra 1000 health, firey weapons, and +90 AGI may give you a big edge in combat. Players enjoy "owning" a PvP bracket and dont' plan on getting any further xp.
Buff Levelling gear is a different vehicle alltogether. Relic items are purchassed thru Conquest / Heroic / Valor / Triumph badges and give your players blue quality gear that scales to your level. This in essence means if you buy a Mail BP and shoulder for your shaman.... That's the last one you'll probably need until he hits level 80 and replaces them with Epics. I've checked. Even Outland/Northrend blues don't beat them. Enchant them up and watch the xp fly past.
Relic Chest + Shoulders. Most crucial pieces. Each adds 10% Extra XP from Killing and Quests. The 2 set give a 20% bonus. The pieces don't even have to match.
Relic weapon. Although they are limited by which enchants you can place on them... Relic weapons have no equal. They rock. Crusader + 15 AGI on my two maces. I'm a shaman. You may change which one you buy for your favorite Newbie. At level 1 they are Insanely powerful. At level 41 they're Awesome. At level 61 they're geat. Eventually they will scale to level 80 and be "Good weapons".
Relic trinkets. Know any good level 1 trinkets? I do. The +Haste and the +Spell power trinets also give 2% to your HEalth and 2% to your Mana when you kill stuff for xp. A bonus to levelling indeed.
Overgemming Armor. At level 58, I hit the Outlands and rolled thru Hellfire Penninsula. Great fun. Very few other players. I could just tear across content. Yay! In the first instance, Hellfire Ramparts, I got a pair of Mail pants and a pair of Mail gloves. The pants are spectacular. Three Gem slots plus attack power, AgiI, Sta, and Int. wow. The gloves have two red slots and more great stats. Normally, with newbie JC gems available in outlands, these gloves and pants can last you at least 5 levels. With a 440+ enchanter and 450 JC recipies, you can have a Monster pair of items. +30 STA, +20 Hit, +60AGI. Adda +30 STA +10 AGI armor kit and a +20 Hit glove enchant. Monster powerful gear.
This stuff will be the last set to get till 70. Normally, I would consider it wasteful to spend 5 epic gemsn and blue armor kits on Lv 60 gear. However, I had the gems in my bank. My stuff is all enchanted. Why NOT gear up myself? My dps from level 58 to level 61 went from 250 dps to 500 dps in group. At level 65, I'm getting a necklace of the deep. +21 AGI, +20 STA, +20Atk, and 2 red gem slots. Seriously?? That's gonna be Overpowerd!!
Some socket items are goldmines. If it's a blue with sockets, you have a safe bet. Greens, not so much. At level 80 it all becomes moot, but get as much mileage out of things as you can before you get to the end of Northrend.
There's twink gear and there's enchanted/gemmed/blue quality stat enhanced equiment for the gods. We classify twink gear as normally lv 18-19, lv 27-29, or Lv 49-50 item sets geared to overpower and dominate PvP battles. This is where spending 1000g to give your 19 rogue an extra 1000 health, firey weapons, and +90 AGI may give you a big edge in combat. Players enjoy "owning" a PvP bracket and dont' plan on getting any further xp.
Buff Levelling gear is a different vehicle alltogether. Relic items are purchassed thru Conquest / Heroic / Valor / Triumph badges and give your players blue quality gear that scales to your level. This in essence means if you buy a Mail BP and shoulder for your shaman.... That's the last one you'll probably need until he hits level 80 and replaces them with Epics. I've checked. Even Outland/Northrend blues don't beat them. Enchant them up and watch the xp fly past.
Relic Chest + Shoulders. Most crucial pieces. Each adds 10% Extra XP from Killing and Quests. The 2 set give a 20% bonus. The pieces don't even have to match.
Relic weapon. Although they are limited by which enchants you can place on them... Relic weapons have no equal. They rock. Crusader + 15 AGI on my two maces. I'm a shaman. You may change which one you buy for your favorite Newbie. At level 1 they are Insanely powerful. At level 41 they're Awesome. At level 61 they're geat. Eventually they will scale to level 80 and be "Good weapons".
Relic trinkets. Know any good level 1 trinkets? I do. The +Haste and the +Spell power trinets also give 2% to your HEalth and 2% to your Mana when you kill stuff for xp. A bonus to levelling indeed.
Overgemming Armor. At level 58, I hit the Outlands and rolled thru Hellfire Penninsula. Great fun. Very few other players. I could just tear across content. Yay! In the first instance, Hellfire Ramparts, I got a pair of Mail pants and a pair of Mail gloves. The pants are spectacular. Three Gem slots plus attack power, AgiI, Sta, and Int. wow. The gloves have two red slots and more great stats. Normally, with newbie JC gems available in outlands, these gloves and pants can last you at least 5 levels. With a 440+ enchanter and 450 JC recipies, you can have a Monster pair of items. +30 STA, +20 Hit, +60AGI. Adda +30 STA +10 AGI armor kit and a +20 Hit glove enchant. Monster powerful gear.
This stuff will be the last set to get till 70. Normally, I would consider it wasteful to spend 5 epic gemsn and blue armor kits on Lv 60 gear. However, I had the gems in my bank. My stuff is all enchanted. Why NOT gear up myself? My dps from level 58 to level 61 went from 250 dps to 500 dps in group. At level 65, I'm getting a necklace of the deep. +21 AGI, +20 STA, +20Atk, and 2 red gem slots. Seriously?? That's gonna be Overpowerd!!
Some socket items are goldmines. If it's a blue with sockets, you have a safe bet. Greens, not so much. At level 80 it all becomes moot, but get as much mileage out of things as you can before you get to the end of Northrend.
Warp Speed levelling
Get that Epic landmount at 40! Do this for every alt you have. The recent patch change is just awesome. How many times have I walked a character thru Stranglethorn vale or Desolace because I didn't have a landmount at level 40. Now we can get 100% movement Epic mount? Get to Zul Farrak and have soemone CRUSH Granzilla for your Carrot on a stick + some mithril spurs. Now you can have 107% Movment whenver you're just travelling on quests.
At level 60, get your Flying mount at Honor Hold / Thrallmar. 150% speed and you can now get your faction rep discount. That's Regular flying for hundreds less. Epic flying for almost 800g below cost. Seriously. Speed at movement = speed levelling. Also, running thru the valley of fecund orcs at level 58 is painful. Flying over the whole mess makes the zone a ton easier. Money is easy to get. The cost of the 225 speed riding skill is relatively inexpensive and would make things a great deal more efficient.
More levelling boosters? Keep a high level toon on hand. Too many times in the past I've been waiting for 5 people to kill Knig Bangalash or some other "hard" mob. Now I keep a 73 pally, 80 druid, or 71 Mage on hand for fast travel / buffs / or general killing. Now here's the TRUE secret about keeping a high level toon on hand. Use him/her sparingly. If you keep a level 80 DK on hand, don't use him for even level mobs. Properly geared, you should trounce creatures your level for max XP gain. I have taken out five mobs my level on one occasion in EPL. Use your High level toon for Elites, Giants, and (Group) quests. Solo everything you can. It takes about the same time to solo 5 mobs for 640 xp or than kill 10 mobs for 82 xp with your level 80 partner. For things clearly out of your league, bring in the big guns. Then send him back. Don't get used to a high level crutch. Learn your class.
Quest XP + Mob xp = Win. The best way to level is to kill things on a shopping list. I'd rather grind 10 mobs and then get 6k quest xp. Then grind another 10 mobs for another 6k quest xp. I've leapfrogged from 40 to 50 in no time. Now I'm coming up to outland zones thinking about which items to pre-stock and which quests I can multi-task. Kill 20 orcs THEN set towers ablaze THEN collect 16 scraps. Or we can play it smart and nuke, collect, and burn as we go. Really, once you've run thru Hellfire Penninsula once, you can run it a hundred times. Very easy. You get faster and more efficient at it.
Lastly, recapture your rest bonus by logging out at a city or Inn whenever possible. Blue xp is huge. 200% xp gains rock. Coupled with the 20% Relic armor set, you get levels in a fraction of the time it takes everyone else. Now to get my first few drops in Outlands under my belt.
At level 60, get your Flying mount at Honor Hold / Thrallmar. 150% speed and you can now get your faction rep discount. That's Regular flying for hundreds less. Epic flying for almost 800g below cost. Seriously. Speed at movement = speed levelling. Also, running thru the valley of fecund orcs at level 58 is painful. Flying over the whole mess makes the zone a ton easier. Money is easy to get. The cost of the 225 speed riding skill is relatively inexpensive and would make things a great deal more efficient.
More levelling boosters? Keep a high level toon on hand. Too many times in the past I've been waiting for 5 people to kill Knig Bangalash or some other "hard" mob. Now I keep a 73 pally, 80 druid, or 71 Mage on hand for fast travel / buffs / or general killing. Now here's the TRUE secret about keeping a high level toon on hand. Use him/her sparingly. If you keep a level 80 DK on hand, don't use him for even level mobs. Properly geared, you should trounce creatures your level for max XP gain. I have taken out five mobs my level on one occasion in EPL. Use your High level toon for Elites, Giants, and (Group) quests. Solo everything you can. It takes about the same time to solo 5 mobs for 640 xp or than kill 10 mobs for 82 xp with your level 80 partner. For things clearly out of your league, bring in the big guns. Then send him back. Don't get used to a high level crutch. Learn your class.
Quest XP + Mob xp = Win. The best way to level is to kill things on a shopping list. I'd rather grind 10 mobs and then get 6k quest xp. Then grind another 10 mobs for another 6k quest xp. I've leapfrogged from 40 to 50 in no time. Now I'm coming up to outland zones thinking about which items to pre-stock and which quests I can multi-task. Kill 20 orcs THEN set towers ablaze THEN collect 16 scraps. Or we can play it smart and nuke, collect, and burn as we go. Really, once you've run thru Hellfire Penninsula once, you can run it a hundred times. Very easy. You get faster and more efficient at it.
Lastly, recapture your rest bonus by logging out at a city or Inn whenever possible. Blue xp is huge. 200% xp gains rock. Coupled with the 20% Relic armor set, you get levels in a fraction of the time it takes everyone else. Now to get my first few drops in Outlands under my belt.
Dual Wield and + Hit
Just a few weeks ago, I decided to dust off my shaman and get him going again. At level 20, the new patch of WoW gives you tremendous bonuses to grind from a riding mount to Relic gear to XP reduction on pre-60 levels. IMHO the most beneficial things to have while levelling are the 2 piece Relic Armor, a Relic weapon, and a high level "buddy".
I took the Enhancement tree to spec before level 80 and the dps has been really great lately. The combat is very intense and visceral, instead of casting 3 dots and fear or Pyroblast and Fireburst. Totem layout and mana recovery being your biggest steady state issues. Afterwards, it's gearing up correctly. The first big hurdle is level 40 = Dual wield.
By level 30, you get your windfury weapon enchant and your windfury totem. Lava Lash is a talent that gives 100% of your offhand weapon damage instantly every 8 seconds. If your offhand is enchanted with Flametongue, you get 125%. I have a slow offhand weapon and was using the PvP Relic dagger. My dps at level 40 was a respectable 69 dps. Getting a slow mainhand works GREAT with Windfury effects. I got a second Relic Mass of McGowan. I enchanted it with Crusader and jumped up to 96 DPS.
Now my only problem is that I'm missing everything I'm attacking. Missing horribly. Nothing could be worse on scrolling combat text and my Recount than Miss, Miss, Miss, Hit, Miss, Miss, Glancing Blow, Miss, Miss. Wow Dual wield sucks. Maybe I sucked. Time to fix things!
I swapped some gear around and got more +hit. Getting more +hit is actually VERY difficult at lower levels. Nothing has gem slots. The first few talent points after Dual Wield must be placed into your three "Accuracy" talents that give +hit. Re-spec if you haven't done this already. Looking at the DPS charts = Pro hint. DPS charts are entirely for YOUR benefit. I don't like to link charts. They're for me to see the fight. Even on my hunter rocking more than 6k DPS on some fights... it's just not cool. So, looking closely, my dps chart gave me a 25% miss chance against level 42-44 mobs at Level 40. The opponents are higher level. They naturally dodge and parry more. It's an uphill battle. I'm probably killing them more with Lightning shield than my own weapon / spell damage. I have to fix that.
Take your +hit talents. Get the +hit necklace made from Jewelcrafting ( Lev 39 crafted item). Hunt down any +hit items. I wound up getting the Mail legs from Marudon, the DPS ring from Princess Theladras, and some +8 hit mail gloves from the AH. All this trimmed my miss percentage to below 10% and my dps from 96 to 250. What a huge jump!
I took the Enhancement tree to spec before level 80 and the dps has been really great lately. The combat is very intense and visceral, instead of casting 3 dots and fear or Pyroblast and Fireburst. Totem layout and mana recovery being your biggest steady state issues. Afterwards, it's gearing up correctly. The first big hurdle is level 40 = Dual wield.
By level 30, you get your windfury weapon enchant and your windfury totem. Lava Lash is a talent that gives 100% of your offhand weapon damage instantly every 8 seconds. If your offhand is enchanted with Flametongue, you get 125%. I have a slow offhand weapon and was using the PvP Relic dagger. My dps at level 40 was a respectable 69 dps. Getting a slow mainhand works GREAT with Windfury effects. I got a second Relic Mass of McGowan. I enchanted it with Crusader and jumped up to 96 DPS.
Now my only problem is that I'm missing everything I'm attacking. Missing horribly. Nothing could be worse on scrolling combat text and my Recount than Miss, Miss, Miss, Hit, Miss, Miss, Glancing Blow, Miss, Miss. Wow Dual wield sucks. Maybe I sucked. Time to fix things!
I swapped some gear around and got more +hit. Getting more +hit is actually VERY difficult at lower levels. Nothing has gem slots. The first few talent points after Dual Wield must be placed into your three "Accuracy" talents that give +hit. Re-spec if you haven't done this already. Looking at the DPS charts = Pro hint. DPS charts are entirely for YOUR benefit. I don't like to link charts. They're for me to see the fight. Even on my hunter rocking more than 6k DPS on some fights... it's just not cool. So, looking closely, my dps chart gave me a 25% miss chance against level 42-44 mobs at Level 40. The opponents are higher level. They naturally dodge and parry more. It's an uphill battle. I'm probably killing them more with Lightning shield than my own weapon / spell damage. I have to fix that.
Take your +hit talents. Get the +hit necklace made from Jewelcrafting ( Lev 39 crafted item). Hunt down any +hit items. I wound up getting the Mail legs from Marudon, the DPS ring from Princess Theladras, and some +8 hit mail gloves from the AH. All this trimmed my miss percentage to below 10% and my dps from 96 to 250. What a huge jump!
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
450 LW pattern
Nearing the "end" of my Leatherworking journey for my Hunter.
I'm geared to the teeth. 2588 Gearscore on WoWHeroes for your number crunchers. That's between 4k and 6k of hurt on some mob depending on group synergy and buffs. Enough to kill whatever raid target. High end leatherworking can help with that. +130 AP bracer lining. Super cheap personal Epic Armor kits. 450 LW patterns for 245 iLevel gear.
Well, this sunday I won a 245 LW pattern for a Mail Breastplate. I won the roll, then had another LW whine and cry over the pattern because he had 450 LW opposed to my 436 LW. Well the last 14 points of LW are just armor kits or blue items you grind for skill. Not much else.
Why burn 14 skillups on crap? Just for a number. Now that I have a 450 pattern to make, I'm motivated. Also, I have a dozen Arctic Fur on hand and 18 Frozen orbs. Should be short work.
This other LW lost the roll but won the LW pattern. I took my lumps and learned an important lesson. If you're gonna raid Endgaim 25 man content, you better Max Out your dammed LW skill. People aren't gonna care why you're not maxxed. It's just a number you have to have. 450 enchanting for Endgame Formulas. Etc. Etc. Etc.
Sullen, but not out. I kept kiling stuff and rollin on tropy after tropy after drop. Horrible rolls all. Again drops the exact same 450 LW pattern for the Mail Chest. No other LWs in raid. I got the pattern. Happy me. The rest of you suckas and bite me!
Gotta grind out some armor kits for the AH.
I'm geared to the teeth. 2588 Gearscore on WoWHeroes for your number crunchers. That's between 4k and 6k of hurt on some mob depending on group synergy and buffs. Enough to kill whatever raid target. High end leatherworking can help with that. +130 AP bracer lining. Super cheap personal Epic Armor kits. 450 LW patterns for 245 iLevel gear.
Well, this sunday I won a 245 LW pattern for a Mail Breastplate. I won the roll, then had another LW whine and cry over the pattern because he had 450 LW opposed to my 436 LW. Well the last 14 points of LW are just armor kits or blue items you grind for skill. Not much else.
Why burn 14 skillups on crap? Just for a number. Now that I have a 450 pattern to make, I'm motivated. Also, I have a dozen Arctic Fur on hand and 18 Frozen orbs. Should be short work.
This other LW lost the roll but won the LW pattern. I took my lumps and learned an important lesson. If you're gonna raid Endgaim 25 man content, you better Max Out your dammed LW skill. People aren't gonna care why you're not maxxed. It's just a number you have to have. 450 enchanting for Endgame Formulas. Etc. Etc. Etc.
Sullen, but not out. I kept kiling stuff and rollin on tropy after tropy after drop. Horrible rolls all. Again drops the exact same 450 LW pattern for the Mail Chest. No other LWs in raid. I got the pattern. Happy me. The rest of you suckas and bite me!
Gotta grind out some armor kits for the AH.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Leatherworking for Stat-Mongers
I have an Alchemist / Herbalist Hunter. The Icecrown Citadel patch has a number of great 245 / 255 level Leatherworking recipies for Hunter gear. It also has exactly ZERO recipies for Blacksmith Hunters. Blizzard is making a clear line in the sand for our tradeskill choices and I don't want to be left out in the cold when Armorsmithing ( Blacksmithing ) becomes a Plate+Plate+Plate class skill. I give credit to the Hunter Blacksmiths out there. All three of them. An uphill task and thankless job for 2 extra gem slots and a number of blue / epic weapon recipies. Overall, I'm going to drop Herbalism and pick up Leatherworking. Let's not forget the Cataclysm expansion also features a STAT Reworking skill for armor that corresponds to Leatherworking. That's the big cookie for me.
Cons
What do I give up? I can't pick flowers. No 1000 hp regen from our Lifebloom / Heal over time skill. However, I do have two other level 80 characters that are Herbalists, so I won't be screwed for raw materials. Just perks.
Pros
Self-only +130 Attack bracer enchant. Since I already have the +50 bracer enchant, that's a net gain of +80 Attack. Not bad. Also, a my leg enchants are now done for a pittance. Two Nerubian Chitin for a 75 Attack 22 crit self-only Leg enchant. Everyone else? Two Nerubian Chitin, two Arctic Fur ( 60g each ), and one Frozen orb ( 50g ). Nice deal. Next, there's the uber powerful 450 LW recipies dropped in 25 man ToC. I don't go often, but when I do... I want to be able to roll on those. Lastly, there's Reforging armor in Cataclysm.
Leatherworking is SRS BZNSS. Honestly, the skill takes an ungodly amount of skinning to support and a complete guildbank tab of mats to pre-plan. The initial stockpile of skins I had planned to convert my hunter from Herbalist / Alchemist was respectable. 400 Light leather, 220 Medium leather, 90 Heavy Leather, 140 Thick, 70 Rugged, 100 Knothide Scraps, 40 Knothide, and 80 Heavy Borean Leather. Well, that wasn't nearly enough.
On the bottom end, I had plenty. On the top end, I was spending hours upon hours trying to get over the next "break point" for LW production. Skinning is ridiculously easy. I moved zones with my level 70 skinner and did massive AoE grinding for the next leather type. Warlocks. Ya gotta love em! Affliction is my favorite levelling spec and a great grinding spec. Truly non-stop looting critters for pelts. Getting 1600 Borean Leather drops is the hard part. 500 Heavy leather, brutal. There's a reason it's 20g per stack. The range of mobs to drop Heavy leather, for example is exactly 34-37. That's a small area. My lock went from 1-450 Skinning last week, and I've personally killed every critter in Azeroth and the Outlands... twice. The Northrend beasts are AoE-able... and they give xp.
Warlock Skinning
I got from 70 to 72 on the outlands mobs. I also had the 20% Relic gear bonus and full tier 6 armor / trinkets. So I could AoE stuff that would tear apart lesser Warlocks. Like 8 mobs my level. Not to brag, but you just can't die in a 1 on 1 fight with a geared 70 warlock. Not unless you're taking on a 77 mob or something completely immune to magic. Then, you were already dead. Warlocks are just OP with fear + dots + Lifetap abilities. Storm giants + horrific falls into the ocean because I was AFK while flying. That's the only thing that will kill me. Avoiding that, it's just a flood of XP. Made 73 last night doing quests and. WoW. Just wicked easy to grind away.
Leatherworking Progress
I got from 1-250 on Friday. Then took a break to skin some more. Ran out of Heavy Leather. Honestly, if you have enough stuff... you can hit 450 in a day. provided you had a zillion gold and were level 70+ with access to trainers / patterns.
The next day I slogged thru Heavy / Thick / Rugged. Then did dailys on my main. Sunday, I spent killing for Knothide on my Warlock. Then Monday, Northrend and Borean Leather. The same AoE tactics that worked on Clefhoof / Talbuks work on Shoveltusk / Mammoths. I kinda felt guilty tearing thru that many at once, until my first Arctic Fur dropped. We get Arctic Fur off these things?? That's it. I may be on the low end of Northrend skinning mobs, but they still drop Arctic fur, and that's awesome!
Hit 420 by Tuesday. Made some blue items for a slight loss when I resold them on the AH. No worries. Nobody is in the market for Lv78 blues. You're lucky to make a sale. Made 434 LW by Wednesday. Once I hit 435, I'll quit grinding and just make some Endgame armor kits for guildmates and some alts.
After that, I dunno. I'd cool my heels at 440 Leatherworking. Making the last 10 points till 450 isn't really a worthwhile grind. You can't really profit on it anymore. Heroic badge gear, ToC 5 man and Heroic ToC have been handing out free leather epics for weeks now. So Leatherworking is kinda squelched as a flat money-maker. Nothing super until I get a 450 skill recipie. Then I can craft an upgrade.
The rest of my gear is all 213 to 245 level. Nothing super outside of 25 man Onyxia / ToC. Still waiting on a Tier 9.5 tropy to drop for my Windrunner Leggins or when VoA 25 drops a pair of Hunter legs / gloves. Lady luck just being difficult lately.
Cons
What do I give up? I can't pick flowers. No 1000 hp regen from our Lifebloom / Heal over time skill. However, I do have two other level 80 characters that are Herbalists, so I won't be screwed for raw materials. Just perks.
Pros
Self-only +130 Attack bracer enchant. Since I already have the +50 bracer enchant, that's a net gain of +80 Attack. Not bad. Also, a my leg enchants are now done for a pittance. Two Nerubian Chitin for a 75 Attack 22 crit self-only Leg enchant. Everyone else? Two Nerubian Chitin, two Arctic Fur ( 60g each ), and one Frozen orb ( 50g ). Nice deal. Next, there's the uber powerful 450 LW recipies dropped in 25 man ToC. I don't go often, but when I do... I want to be able to roll on those. Lastly, there's Reforging armor in Cataclysm.
Leatherworking is SRS BZNSS. Honestly, the skill takes an ungodly amount of skinning to support and a complete guildbank tab of mats to pre-plan. The initial stockpile of skins I had planned to convert my hunter from Herbalist / Alchemist was respectable. 400 Light leather, 220 Medium leather, 90 Heavy Leather, 140 Thick, 70 Rugged, 100 Knothide Scraps, 40 Knothide, and 80 Heavy Borean Leather. Well, that wasn't nearly enough.
On the bottom end, I had plenty. On the top end, I was spending hours upon hours trying to get over the next "break point" for LW production. Skinning is ridiculously easy. I moved zones with my level 70 skinner and did massive AoE grinding for the next leather type. Warlocks. Ya gotta love em! Affliction is my favorite levelling spec and a great grinding spec. Truly non-stop looting critters for pelts. Getting 1600 Borean Leather drops is the hard part. 500 Heavy leather, brutal. There's a reason it's 20g per stack. The range of mobs to drop Heavy leather, for example is exactly 34-37. That's a small area. My lock went from 1-450 Skinning last week, and I've personally killed every critter in Azeroth and the Outlands... twice. The Northrend beasts are AoE-able... and they give xp.
Warlock Skinning
I got from 70 to 72 on the outlands mobs. I also had the 20% Relic gear bonus and full tier 6 armor / trinkets. So I could AoE stuff that would tear apart lesser Warlocks. Like 8 mobs my level. Not to brag, but you just can't die in a 1 on 1 fight with a geared 70 warlock. Not unless you're taking on a 77 mob or something completely immune to magic. Then, you were already dead. Warlocks are just OP with fear + dots + Lifetap abilities. Storm giants + horrific falls into the ocean because I was AFK while flying. That's the only thing that will kill me. Avoiding that, it's just a flood of XP. Made 73 last night doing quests and. WoW. Just wicked easy to grind away.
Leatherworking Progress
I got from 1-250 on Friday. Then took a break to skin some more. Ran out of Heavy Leather. Honestly, if you have enough stuff... you can hit 450 in a day. provided you had a zillion gold and were level 70+ with access to trainers / patterns.
The next day I slogged thru Heavy / Thick / Rugged. Then did dailys on my main. Sunday, I spent killing for Knothide on my Warlock. Then Monday, Northrend and Borean Leather. The same AoE tactics that worked on Clefhoof / Talbuks work on Shoveltusk / Mammoths. I kinda felt guilty tearing thru that many at once, until my first Arctic Fur dropped. We get Arctic Fur off these things?? That's it. I may be on the low end of Northrend skinning mobs, but they still drop Arctic fur, and that's awesome!
Hit 420 by Tuesday. Made some blue items for a slight loss when I resold them on the AH. No worries. Nobody is in the market for Lv78 blues. You're lucky to make a sale. Made 434 LW by Wednesday. Once I hit 435, I'll quit grinding and just make some Endgame armor kits for guildmates and some alts.
After that, I dunno. I'd cool my heels at 440 Leatherworking. Making the last 10 points till 450 isn't really a worthwhile grind. You can't really profit on it anymore. Heroic badge gear, ToC 5 man and Heroic ToC have been handing out free leather epics for weeks now. So Leatherworking is kinda squelched as a flat money-maker. Nothing super until I get a 450 skill recipie. Then I can craft an upgrade.
The rest of my gear is all 213 to 245 level. Nothing super outside of 25 man Onyxia / ToC. Still waiting on a Tier 9.5 tropy to drop for my Windrunner Leggins or when VoA 25 drops a pair of Hunter legs / gloves. Lady luck just being difficult lately.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Onyxia Returns!
The Big ole Bitch is Baaaaack!
The Original BoB of vanilla WoW, season one, episode 10 was Onyxia.
She's the big deal for old school raiders. I got to level 60 in 9 months and had a laundry list of Tier 0 Blues to show for it. Kudos to the hardcore gruids that brought beefy tanks in "Fire Resist" plate and combined 40 peoples efforts to create an unstoppable Main Tank to face this mighty red dragon. We handled LBRS and UBRS with aplomb. We even tore thru Strat like we owned the place. Once we got to Onyxia, we got eaten. She was an untamed force of nature.
We brought 40 people to kill Onyxia... Because we had to. She was that tough, at first. As the first great expansion loomed on the horizon, players began to gear up in Tier 2 armor sets from Blackwing Lair and the rest filled out entierly in T1 set items for FR value.
We came with potions, buff foods, and whatever miscellaneous charms we could muster. There was no limit on buff potions or consumables, so people loaded up heavy to face this Dragon. Over time, our gear got better. Our Tanks became Beefier. Our Healers had more mana and more spellpower. The group dynamics worked themselves out and we began to breathe easy on this encounter. Near the end of the era, we could take 35 or even 30 people in to face Onyxia. A bad pull, a missed block or a dropped heal meant - Dead Tank >>> Raid Wipe.
There were many many lectures and rants by frustrated raid leaders and Guildmasters. I have to link the famous Minus 50 DKP video. That just brings back.... memories. Yes people get un-hinged. We had alot of egos that conflicted for control. We wiped quite a few times in quite a few guild runs. Those were the STORIES of old World of Warcraft. Before the level caps were raised to 70. Expansion Gear. Flying mounts. Level 80. Deathknights. and the last 7 Tiers of Epic Epic Epic gear. Take a look at the original loot tables to see what the best of the best wore when facing the old Level 60 Onyxia. She BROUGHT the pain. Every once in a while, we got lucky and got her killed before we were overwhelmed.
That creature that people were 5 manning or 3manning a couple weeks ago?? She's gone. THE old girl is back... And she's got some hurt to bring ya.
Enjoy. I'll be the Dwarf Hunter covered in barbeque sauce.
The Original BoB of vanilla WoW, season one, episode 10 was Onyxia.
She's the big deal for old school raiders. I got to level 60 in 9 months and had a laundry list of Tier 0 Blues to show for it. Kudos to the hardcore gruids that brought beefy tanks in "Fire Resist" plate and combined 40 peoples efforts to create an unstoppable Main Tank to face this mighty red dragon. We handled LBRS and UBRS with aplomb. We even tore thru Strat like we owned the place. Once we got to Onyxia, we got eaten. She was an untamed force of nature.
We brought 40 people to kill Onyxia... Because we had to. She was that tough, at first. As the first great expansion loomed on the horizon, players began to gear up in Tier 2 armor sets from Blackwing Lair and the rest filled out entierly in T1 set items for FR value.
We came with potions, buff foods, and whatever miscellaneous charms we could muster. There was no limit on buff potions or consumables, so people loaded up heavy to face this Dragon. Over time, our gear got better. Our Tanks became Beefier. Our Healers had more mana and more spellpower. The group dynamics worked themselves out and we began to breathe easy on this encounter. Near the end of the era, we could take 35 or even 30 people in to face Onyxia. A bad pull, a missed block or a dropped heal meant - Dead Tank >>> Raid Wipe.
There were many many lectures and rants by frustrated raid leaders and Guildmasters. I have to link the famous Minus 50 DKP video. That just brings back.... memories. Yes people get un-hinged. We had alot of egos that conflicted for control. We wiped quite a few times in quite a few guild runs. Those were the STORIES of old World of Warcraft. Before the level caps were raised to 70. Expansion Gear. Flying mounts. Level 80. Deathknights. and the last 7 Tiers of Epic Epic Epic gear. Take a look at the original loot tables to see what the best of the best wore when facing the old Level 60 Onyxia. She BROUGHT the pain. Every once in a while, we got lucky and got her killed before we were overwhelmed.
That creature that people were 5 manning or 3manning a couple weeks ago?? She's gone. THE old girl is back... And she's got some hurt to bring ya.
Enjoy. I'll be the Dwarf Hunter covered in barbeque sauce.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Brewfest 2009!
Brewfest
Dwarven Festival of Drinking, Sausage, Pretzels, Singing, and Mischief? Hells yea!! Where do I sign up?? Brewfest is a good time. If the Undead have one, it's just because they want to offer the same benefits for both factions. Ours rocks harder than theirs.
Drunken stumbling.
Empty mug tossing at robots and other patrons.
Riding competitions / Minigames for coins.
Dress Up in costumes causing a rucus.
Brawling in Blackrock Depths
Epic trinket drops!
STA Trinket1 - Summons a brewmaiden to buff your party with heals and free beer
STA Trinket2 - Summons a dire brewmaiden to throw empty mugs at your foes
Dodge Trinket - Dodge with a Dodge proc.
Spellpower / Healing Trinket - 98 Spellpower with a Haste Proc on heals
Crit / Damage Caster Trinket - 84 Crt with a Spellpower proc on casts
Crit / DPS Trinket - 84 Crit with a 1000 Atk proc on Ranged / Melee hit
The long awaited "Brewmaster" title.
This is great fun!!
I'll link more drops later. So far, I've gotten to Corin Direbrew a few times on my hunter, my warrior, and my Priest. Truly, if your character doesn't have a 200 level Trinket, get there. The boss to defeat is easily reachable by griffon or summons in under 2 minutes from Ironforge. The new BRD boss Drops alot of really cool things this week. Each player can trigger him once per day ( daily quest ), so essentially you'll get 5 chances at trinket drops. Repeat drops are common. The uncommon drops are...
Remote Control to summon a Mole-machine to port your whole party BRD once an hour.
Epic Kodo Mount - Nice little faction mount for Alliance players that want to pimp around.
Barman's Shanker - BoP Unique Dagger. Nice for those rogues that don't have Lv 200+ epics.
DireBrew Mace - BoE epic Mace. Please USE the mace if you win. Selling it on the AH is lame.
Did I mention, you can repeat this run every day?
There's chasing pink elephants and riding around Ironforge for the little kiddies. They even have a non-drinking alternative for those that want to remain "Virtually" moral during an Oktoberfest seasonal Event. Whatev. We'll cater to everyone. Have fun all!!
Did I mention that the brewmaster trinkets are the MUST have trinkets for any tank or dual spec tank class? You can't BUY a trinket with +170 STA on it. Two of these bad boys are going to seriously offset any deficiencies you may have with your armor. If your armor is great, then these two will make you even MORE awesome. Repeat it on your tank till you get both.
Dwarven Festival of Drinking, Sausage, Pretzels, Singing, and Mischief? Hells yea!! Where do I sign up?? Brewfest is a good time. If the Undead have one, it's just because they want to offer the same benefits for both factions. Ours rocks harder than theirs.
Drunken stumbling.
Empty mug tossing at robots and other patrons.
Riding competitions / Minigames for coins.
Dress Up in costumes causing a rucus.
Brawling in Blackrock Depths
Epic trinket drops!
STA Trinket1 - Summons a brewmaiden to buff your party with heals and free beer
STA Trinket2 - Summons a dire brewmaiden to throw empty mugs at your foes
Dodge Trinket - Dodge with a Dodge proc.
Spellpower / Healing Trinket - 98 Spellpower with a Haste Proc on heals
Crit / Damage Caster Trinket - 84 Crt with a Spellpower proc on casts
Crit / DPS Trinket - 84 Crit with a 1000 Atk proc on Ranged / Melee hit
The long awaited "Brewmaster" title.
This is great fun!!
I'll link more drops later. So far, I've gotten to Corin Direbrew a few times on my hunter, my warrior, and my Priest. Truly, if your character doesn't have a 200 level Trinket, get there. The boss to defeat is easily reachable by griffon or summons in under 2 minutes from Ironforge. The new BRD boss Drops alot of really cool things this week. Each player can trigger him once per day ( daily quest ), so essentially you'll get 5 chances at trinket drops. Repeat drops are common. The uncommon drops are...
Remote Control to summon a Mole-machine to port your whole party BRD once an hour.
Epic Kodo Mount - Nice little faction mount for Alliance players that want to pimp around.
Barman's Shanker - BoP Unique Dagger. Nice for those rogues that don't have Lv 200+ epics.
DireBrew Mace - BoE epic Mace. Please USE the mace if you win. Selling it on the AH is lame.
Did I mention, you can repeat this run every day?
There's chasing pink elephants and riding around Ironforge for the little kiddies. They even have a non-drinking alternative for those that want to remain "Virtually" moral during an Oktoberfest seasonal Event. Whatev. We'll cater to everyone. Have fun all!!
Did I mention that the brewmaster trinkets are the MUST have trinkets for any tank or dual spec tank class? You can't BUY a trinket with +170 STA on it. Two of these bad boys are going to seriously offset any deficiencies you may have with your armor. If your armor is great, then these two will make you even MORE awesome. Repeat it on your tank till you get both.
LFM VoA - Koralon and Friends.
This is a quick run-down of the whole VoA instance. Typing this out is actually longer than a good team will take to clear the place. Seriously, the instance has 3 bosses total. It used to be only one boss, but he got lonely and the Wintergrasp gods deemed it a trivial challenge. Along came Emalon, the explosive wind boss to give groups a royal headache. Then Koralon arrives to claim the crown. Earth, Wind, and Fire explained...
Fire - Koralon the Flame Warder
People start with the Fire boss on 10 and 25 man VoA because he's the most difficult. If your raid team can't beat this guy, why get saved for the week to the instance. Bring a good team, crush the "First" guy and collect your easy loot from the other two bosses.
Koralon drops Tier 8 PvE and PvP loot on 10 man. He also drops Tier 9 PvE and PvP loot on 25 man. Specifically the 232 and 245 Legs and Gloves for each set. This instance drops Class Specific loot. Bring a good mix of players. Woe to the group that bring 2 warriors, 2 priests, and 6 Mages to see Rogue and Shaman loot drop off every boss this run.
The strategy is simple. Koralon does a fire based AoE at his feet. The melee damage is shared among the tanks nearby. He also does a wide spread flame jet in circles every 30 to 60 seconds. That one hurts some. The flame jet gets harder as the instance progresses. Lastly, and most dangerously, he lobs out a fireball. This fireball does 10k per tick in 25 man. In 10 man VoA, it's a bit less but still seriously harmful to people. If you get hit with a fireball during a Flame-jet.... You're dead. Thx for playing. No amount of quick reflexes will get you safe unless you have ungodly amounts of health. In 10 man, you'll just be hurt badly. Expect a heal from your friendly Druid / Priest to get thru the next flame jet.
Rule 1 - Jump out of the dammed fire.
Rule 2 - Jump out of the dammed fire.
If you're casting a heal spell on the MT, pray another healer is also doing the same because if you don't move, you're going to die. Don't stand in the fire. You can't 9 man this instance. You may be able to do it at 24 or 22, but no one is geared enough to defeat Koralon with Fewer than 8 characters. Koralon hurts alot. He's a Gear check for healers and DPS. If you don't keep the MT alive long enough, the raid wipes. If your dps doesn't bring 3k or more, the raid wipes. If too many people die in fires, the raid wipes. Lots of things can go wrong. Burn Heroism early to maximize the impact of having as many people alive as possible.
Did I mention the floor?? The bright orange glow under the glass floor in Koralon's room is the exact color of the fireballs he throws out randomly. Did I also mention it does 10k per second? You have roughly 1 second to realize the difference during the melee. Ranged DPS and Healers have an easier time. As a hunter, I keep losing my pet to the fire. Almost guaranteed.
Koralon went down and I got Lv232 PvP Gladiator leggings for my Hunter. Rogue Tier 8 pants also dropped. Our guild one shotted this guy last night, after buffing, stat food, potions/flasks, and a solid explanation. We also had Ventrillo and are decently geared. No battle rezz was needed.
Wind - Emalon the Storm Watcher
Okay, hard boss down. Emalon requires coordination, timing, two tanks, and focused DPS. Each Wind guardian will explode if allowed to grow to full height. The guardians to this wing are a good warm-up to Emalon. If your raid wipes or allows the guards to explode, turn around. You're not ready. Emalon has 4 guardians in his entourage. When engaged, MT takes the 4 guardians. OT takes Emalon.
Ranged DPS nukes down Emalon. Don't bother with the 4 adds, yet. Every 30 seconds Emalon does a lightning Nova. Get out of melee range. Offtank stays in to keep the boss stationary? Not quite sure. He shouldn't move from the Right Side of the boss area.
Every 1 minute, Emalon "Overcharges" a minion to explode. The raid has 20 seconds to burn down this minion which gets fully healed, then grows to huge proportions. The raid has three challenges at this moment. 1) Get into position on the Left side of the room BEFORE the overcharge. Running across costs precious seconds. That leads to a wipe. 2) Listen for the command and locate the correct Warder. DBM places a skull on his head and he's the "Bigger" one stuck by lightning from Emalon. 3) Burn him down fast then resume dps on Emalon.
Repeat the Overcharge cycle and continue to hack away at Emalon's health. Emalon will also cast chain-lightning. Try not to stand next to the healers. They get annoyed at being nuked. Recall your pet during Lightning nova and recall him for the ovecharge. My cat has sprint and I Usually keep him near me for a second to add DPS plus some dots for that extra kick during "overcharge". Don't get STUPID. Raids decide to burn down Emalon instead of killing the "overcharge" during the last 10 % of health. If you can't kill him with certainty, the add will explode for 15k to 25k damage and it's a wipe.
Emalon dropped a 213 Caster Belt and Tier 7.5 Priest Pants.
Earth - Archavon the Warder
Seriously>? This guy is a vending machine. A loot piniata. While hunters can't quite solo him or use this boss for melee practice, he's not really a challenge any more. He drops Tier 7 and Lv 200 PvP Chest Armor. Super easy fight for 2 Emblems of Conquest.
Bring Two tanks. 1 tank + 1 pickup tank. Two healers. Rest DPS. Archavon will dps the tank and cast rain of spikes on a random opponent. Heal thru it and avoid standing next to the cloth casters. Every 45 seconds he will jump somewhere randomly and emit a low-level poison gas cloud. Don't stand in it. The MT will move the boss. You can cut thru it, but the damage is like 2k per second so I don't recommend fighting within for an extended duration.
Burn heroism only because it's up again. You can phone in this fight if your group or raid is in Ulduar or can handle Toc 10. Still, bring your alts for free gear and badges.
Lv 200 PvP Hunter chest and Tier 7 Warlock Legs droped. Okay. Guess I didn't have one. I banked it for later, being the only Hunter in our 10 man.
Earth, Wnid, and Fire. Nice tribute to a classic 70's funk band. WTG Blizzard. BTW, thanks for the loot. We'll be back next week.
The 25 man VoA is like this... but harder. Dots hit harder. The DPS threshold for Emalon is higher. Sadly, Archavon is still a joke. Still, Koralon drops Emblems of Triumph and Tier 9 gear. Last run it was all Priest or Rogue set pieces. So he's still on the menu. Next week, we hit up VoA 10 and VoA 25 again.
Fire - Koralon the Flame Warder
People start with the Fire boss on 10 and 25 man VoA because he's the most difficult. If your raid team can't beat this guy, why get saved for the week to the instance. Bring a good team, crush the "First" guy and collect your easy loot from the other two bosses.
Koralon drops Tier 8 PvE and PvP loot on 10 man. He also drops Tier 9 PvE and PvP loot on 25 man. Specifically the 232 and 245 Legs and Gloves for each set. This instance drops Class Specific loot. Bring a good mix of players. Woe to the group that bring 2 warriors, 2 priests, and 6 Mages to see Rogue and Shaman loot drop off every boss this run.
The strategy is simple. Koralon does a fire based AoE at his feet. The melee damage is shared among the tanks nearby. He also does a wide spread flame jet in circles every 30 to 60 seconds. That one hurts some. The flame jet gets harder as the instance progresses. Lastly, and most dangerously, he lobs out a fireball. This fireball does 10k per tick in 25 man. In 10 man VoA, it's a bit less but still seriously harmful to people. If you get hit with a fireball during a Flame-jet.... You're dead. Thx for playing. No amount of quick reflexes will get you safe unless you have ungodly amounts of health. In 10 man, you'll just be hurt badly. Expect a heal from your friendly Druid / Priest to get thru the next flame jet.
Rule 1 - Jump out of the dammed fire.
Rule 2 - Jump out of the dammed fire.
If you're casting a heal spell on the MT, pray another healer is also doing the same because if you don't move, you're going to die. Don't stand in the fire. You can't 9 man this instance. You may be able to do it at 24 or 22, but no one is geared enough to defeat Koralon with Fewer than 8 characters. Koralon hurts alot. He's a Gear check for healers and DPS. If you don't keep the MT alive long enough, the raid wipes. If your dps doesn't bring 3k or more, the raid wipes. If too many people die in fires, the raid wipes. Lots of things can go wrong. Burn Heroism early to maximize the impact of having as many people alive as possible.
Did I mention the floor?? The bright orange glow under the glass floor in Koralon's room is the exact color of the fireballs he throws out randomly. Did I also mention it does 10k per second? You have roughly 1 second to realize the difference during the melee. Ranged DPS and Healers have an easier time. As a hunter, I keep losing my pet to the fire. Almost guaranteed.
Koralon went down and I got Lv232 PvP Gladiator leggings for my Hunter. Rogue Tier 8 pants also dropped. Our guild one shotted this guy last night, after buffing, stat food, potions/flasks, and a solid explanation. We also had Ventrillo and are decently geared. No battle rezz was needed.
Wind - Emalon the Storm Watcher
Okay, hard boss down. Emalon requires coordination, timing, two tanks, and focused DPS. Each Wind guardian will explode if allowed to grow to full height. The guardians to this wing are a good warm-up to Emalon. If your raid wipes or allows the guards to explode, turn around. You're not ready. Emalon has 4 guardians in his entourage. When engaged, MT takes the 4 guardians. OT takes Emalon.
Ranged DPS nukes down Emalon. Don't bother with the 4 adds, yet. Every 30 seconds Emalon does a lightning Nova. Get out of melee range. Offtank stays in to keep the boss stationary? Not quite sure. He shouldn't move from the Right Side of the boss area.
Every 1 minute, Emalon "Overcharges" a minion to explode. The raid has 20 seconds to burn down this minion which gets fully healed, then grows to huge proportions. The raid has three challenges at this moment. 1) Get into position on the Left side of the room BEFORE the overcharge. Running across costs precious seconds. That leads to a wipe. 2) Listen for the command and locate the correct Warder. DBM places a skull on his head and he's the "Bigger" one stuck by lightning from Emalon. 3) Burn him down fast then resume dps on Emalon.
Repeat the Overcharge cycle and continue to hack away at Emalon's health. Emalon will also cast chain-lightning. Try not to stand next to the healers. They get annoyed at being nuked. Recall your pet during Lightning nova and recall him for the ovecharge. My cat has sprint and I Usually keep him near me for a second to add DPS plus some dots for that extra kick during "overcharge". Don't get STUPID. Raids decide to burn down Emalon instead of killing the "overcharge" during the last 10 % of health. If you can't kill him with certainty, the add will explode for 15k to 25k damage and it's a wipe.
Emalon dropped a 213 Caster Belt and Tier 7.5 Priest Pants.
Earth - Archavon the Warder
Seriously>? This guy is a vending machine. A loot piniata. While hunters can't quite solo him or use this boss for melee practice, he's not really a challenge any more. He drops Tier 7 and Lv 200 PvP Chest Armor. Super easy fight for 2 Emblems of Conquest.
Bring Two tanks. 1 tank + 1 pickup tank. Two healers. Rest DPS. Archavon will dps the tank and cast rain of spikes on a random opponent. Heal thru it and avoid standing next to the cloth casters. Every 45 seconds he will jump somewhere randomly and emit a low-level poison gas cloud. Don't stand in it. The MT will move the boss. You can cut thru it, but the damage is like 2k per second so I don't recommend fighting within for an extended duration.
Burn heroism only because it's up again. You can phone in this fight if your group or raid is in Ulduar or can handle Toc 10. Still, bring your alts for free gear and badges.
Lv 200 PvP Hunter chest and Tier 7 Warlock Legs droped. Okay. Guess I didn't have one. I banked it for later, being the only Hunter in our 10 man.
Earth, Wnid, and Fire. Nice tribute to a classic 70's funk band. WTG Blizzard. BTW, thanks for the loot. We'll be back next week.
The 25 man VoA is like this... but harder. Dots hit harder. The DPS threshold for Emalon is higher. Sadly, Archavon is still a joke. Still, Koralon drops Emblems of Triumph and Tier 9 gear. Last run it was all Priest or Rogue set pieces. So he's still on the menu. Next week, we hit up VoA 10 and VoA 25 again.
Monday, September 21, 2009
XT-002 ( 25 man )
"That's one awfully big robot!" Raath said counting his ammo.
"Wonder what it drops?"
XT-002 has a couple of fun Gimmicks. Watch the Tankspot Video if you have tactical questions about it. Mine's more of a personal account of pitfalls and personal triumphs.
Step 1 Clear the corners. Big robot brings big adds. Best to clear what ya can.
Step 2 Assign a spot for Light Bombs and Gavity Bombs. Light bombs deal raidant energy. Gravity bombs leave a black spot of damage in their wake. Light right. Gravity Bombs Left. MT and OT switch out. Ranged DPS does alot of split DPS. We're assigned Bomb detail and add control. I wouldn't run my cat off a boss to charge a time-bomb. Too dangerous. Rather just pew pew pew it down and resume dps. Bring your cat out of Boss range for short range AOE Tantrums or keep a Mend going. DPS the bombs that walk up from the 4 corners. Someone should call it. If you get a gavity bomb, run away to a side. If you get a light bomb, run away to the other side. Resume DPS.
Step 3 When XT-002's heart pops out, nuke it down but not all the way. If you have alot of DPS, you CAN trigger hardmode. That boosts the robot's damage output, makes the Light/Gravity bombs hit harder, heals XT-002 to Full, and taxes the healers greatly. Otherwise, any damage done to the exposed heart transferrs to the Robot. Rinse repeat, and the robot goes down. Trigger hardmode and the robot gets REALLY pissy.
We stuck with regular mode XT. Hardmode is.... Way hard. We lost our MT/OT with our 25 man pug in regular mode. The remaining DPS had to finish him at the end.
Twisted Visage dropped and I won the roll. Woot!! That thing is best in slot for alot of un-capped Hunters. My other weapons are +Haste/+ArPen. Since I'm hit capped, the weapon is overkill, but with Tier 9 pants, I lose 59 Hit and will want it back badly. Luckily, this thing has alot of +Hit/+Crit to make up for it.
Get gear beacuse you need it, or Get gear because of what you plan on getting soon, or Lastly get gear because every other hunter on server has one. 5,000 other hunters can't be wrong. This thing does look great. I got it enchanted and keep it for my future Tier 9.5 set. Just waiting on a Epic Lv245 item Tropy from ToC25 to get my Triumphant Windrunner pants. Then.... Boom!! Tier 9 two piece bonus. Both items will cost me 105 Emblems of Triumph. I'll be able to afford it soon. Soon.... my precious. Lol. If VoA 10 / VoA 25 go my way, I'll just GET the pants/gloves.... but I'm never that lucky. It's always Shaman or Rogue gear.
"Wonder what it drops?"
XT-002 has a couple of fun Gimmicks. Watch the Tankspot Video if you have tactical questions about it. Mine's more of a personal account of pitfalls and personal triumphs.
Step 1 Clear the corners. Big robot brings big adds. Best to clear what ya can.
Step 2 Assign a spot for Light Bombs and Gavity Bombs. Light bombs deal raidant energy. Gravity bombs leave a black spot of damage in their wake. Light right. Gravity Bombs Left. MT and OT switch out. Ranged DPS does alot of split DPS. We're assigned Bomb detail and add control. I wouldn't run my cat off a boss to charge a time-bomb. Too dangerous. Rather just pew pew pew it down and resume dps. Bring your cat out of Boss range for short range AOE Tantrums or keep a Mend going. DPS the bombs that walk up from the 4 corners. Someone should call it. If you get a gavity bomb, run away to a side. If you get a light bomb, run away to the other side. Resume DPS.
Step 3 When XT-002's heart pops out, nuke it down but not all the way. If you have alot of DPS, you CAN trigger hardmode. That boosts the robot's damage output, makes the Light/Gravity bombs hit harder, heals XT-002 to Full, and taxes the healers greatly. Otherwise, any damage done to the exposed heart transferrs to the Robot. Rinse repeat, and the robot goes down. Trigger hardmode and the robot gets REALLY pissy.
We stuck with regular mode XT. Hardmode is.... Way hard. We lost our MT/OT with our 25 man pug in regular mode. The remaining DPS had to finish him at the end.
Twisted Visage dropped and I won the roll. Woot!! That thing is best in slot for alot of un-capped Hunters. My other weapons are +Haste/+ArPen. Since I'm hit capped, the weapon is overkill, but with Tier 9 pants, I lose 59 Hit and will want it back badly. Luckily, this thing has alot of +Hit/+Crit to make up for it.
Get gear beacuse you need it, or Get gear because of what you plan on getting soon, or Lastly get gear because every other hunter on server has one. 5,000 other hunters can't be wrong. This thing does look great. I got it enchanted and keep it for my future Tier 9.5 set. Just waiting on a Epic Lv245 item Tropy from ToC25 to get my Triumphant Windrunner pants. Then.... Boom!! Tier 9 two piece bonus. Both items will cost me 105 Emblems of Triumph. I'll be able to afford it soon. Soon.... my precious. Lol. If VoA 10 / VoA 25 go my way, I'll just GET the pants/gloves.... but I'm never that lucky. It's always Shaman or Rogue gear.
Ulduar 25 - Flame Leviathan
Super Tank!
Like the Super Kitty, Super Toilet, and the Super Bike.... this is one wish we wish you didn't make there, Timmy Turner.
The Flame Leviathan is a big ass tank. So darned big that we had to get into vehicles and destroy that thing with the combined might of tanks, pyrite, rockets, seige vehicles, and motorcycles. What a mad melee. Great fun tho. The vehicular combat of the first encounter doesn't even need a proper class balance or healers. Just folks that know how to operate machinery.... You've all had 10 levels of WotLK vehicles to learn. Griffons, then dragons, to tanks, and such. Now you're doing it with style for Level 226 Epic drops.
Step 1 Repair your stuff and re-arm. Brann and his personal army have a vendor, reagent, and repair dudes there. Ulduar 25 is a long instance. Hit them up then get into a tank for mayhem.
Step 2 Start the circus and attack the ground troops. Iron Dwarves die by the handful. Explosions, rockets, Evil gnomes on helicopters, and giants to nuke. Motorcycles create oil slicks to snare foes. Tanks shoot flames into them to create fire pits. Everyone else just shoots madly in circles. Primary targets are Giant constructs, then Turrets, then ground troops. It's just mayhem. As long as folks aren't AFK, you can roll over anything here with focused fire. First time at the controls and you'll figure out 3 easy buttons to operate your choppa. I had someone show up late and she rode "shotgun". Sure it's also called riding "bitch", but since the game has SO FEW female gamers, I chose to take the high path and be respectful. The first and second vehicle slots do all kinds of jobs. On every vehicle except the motorcycle. For that, she just hung around. There's an eject button that launches the player, but I'd rather not pitch the pally healer into a fire-pit or wedge her under the 10,000 ton Leviathan. We just dropped Oil slicks and ran around nuking smaller foes with our Air-Horn of doom. Great fun.
Step 3 Layer the "Doorway" with pyrite charges. There's a steady stream of pyrite being ferried around by propeller. Shoot it down and the Explosive charge will parachute to the ground. You want to keep that handy in the battle area. It's ammo for your tanks. Shoot down 20+ charges and then trigger the two door guards. That starts the Leviathan fight.
Step 4 "Run away Little girl!" One tank object becomes fodder for the Leviathan's wrath. The leviathan gives chase. You run away in a circle. The rest of the raid shoots pyrite and sets the tank on fire. Like 17 charges of 8 stacks each. Burn baby burn.
Motorcycles make oil slicks to slow down the Leviathan. Those catch fire and also burn the big guy as well. Try not to get smashed by it. DPS again. Down goes Super Tank.
Collect your Phat Lewt. Welcome to Ulduar 25!
Zero Hunter skills needed. Just remember, getting out of your vehicle is deadly before the gates are cleared. Those turrets and casters hit hard and your bike has 50k health. After seeing the amount of cannon fire, napalm, bullets, and Mad Max vehicular gnomeslaughter... you'd want to stay in your tank until the first event is wrapped up. After FL goes down, the rest of the place is open for exploration.
I'd be Geared to at least Naxx level. You could to Uld 10 in all Lv 187+ Blues, but you better be a Cracker-Jack team of professionals. As the number of idiots increases, the gear requirements increase and flawless execution of strategy becomes necessary. With a bunch of Lv 200 Epics on each character, the place becomes easier.
At our level, an average Pug should be able to grind 3/5 of Ulduar 25 man. We hit a few achievements, but nothing in Hardmode. Hardmode Ulduar 25 is for the established guilds with a few guests. All the raiders ARE epicced out and your DPS needs to be 3k or more.
Like the Super Kitty, Super Toilet, and the Super Bike.... this is one wish we wish you didn't make there, Timmy Turner.
The Flame Leviathan is a big ass tank. So darned big that we had to get into vehicles and destroy that thing with the combined might of tanks, pyrite, rockets, seige vehicles, and motorcycles. What a mad melee. Great fun tho. The vehicular combat of the first encounter doesn't even need a proper class balance or healers. Just folks that know how to operate machinery.... You've all had 10 levels of WotLK vehicles to learn. Griffons, then dragons, to tanks, and such. Now you're doing it with style for Level 226 Epic drops.
Step 1 Repair your stuff and re-arm. Brann and his personal army have a vendor, reagent, and repair dudes there. Ulduar 25 is a long instance. Hit them up then get into a tank for mayhem.
Step 2 Start the circus and attack the ground troops. Iron Dwarves die by the handful. Explosions, rockets, Evil gnomes on helicopters, and giants to nuke. Motorcycles create oil slicks to snare foes. Tanks shoot flames into them to create fire pits. Everyone else just shoots madly in circles. Primary targets are Giant constructs, then Turrets, then ground troops. It's just mayhem. As long as folks aren't AFK, you can roll over anything here with focused fire. First time at the controls and you'll figure out 3 easy buttons to operate your choppa. I had someone show up late and she rode "shotgun". Sure it's also called riding "bitch", but since the game has SO FEW female gamers, I chose to take the high path and be respectful. The first and second vehicle slots do all kinds of jobs. On every vehicle except the motorcycle. For that, she just hung around. There's an eject button that launches the player, but I'd rather not pitch the pally healer into a fire-pit or wedge her under the 10,000 ton Leviathan. We just dropped Oil slicks and ran around nuking smaller foes with our Air-Horn of doom. Great fun.
Step 3 Layer the "Doorway" with pyrite charges. There's a steady stream of pyrite being ferried around by propeller. Shoot it down and the Explosive charge will parachute to the ground. You want to keep that handy in the battle area. It's ammo for your tanks. Shoot down 20+ charges and then trigger the two door guards. That starts the Leviathan fight.
Step 4 "Run away Little girl!" One tank object becomes fodder for the Leviathan's wrath. The leviathan gives chase. You run away in a circle. The rest of the raid shoots pyrite and sets the tank on fire. Like 17 charges of 8 stacks each. Burn baby burn.
Motorcycles make oil slicks to slow down the Leviathan. Those catch fire and also burn the big guy as well. Try not to get smashed by it. DPS again. Down goes Super Tank.
Collect your Phat Lewt. Welcome to Ulduar 25!
Zero Hunter skills needed. Just remember, getting out of your vehicle is deadly before the gates are cleared. Those turrets and casters hit hard and your bike has 50k health. After seeing the amount of cannon fire, napalm, bullets, and Mad Max vehicular gnomeslaughter... you'd want to stay in your tank until the first event is wrapped up. After FL goes down, the rest of the place is open for exploration.
I'd be Geared to at least Naxx level. You could to Uld 10 in all Lv 187+ Blues, but you better be a Cracker-Jack team of professionals. As the number of idiots increases, the gear requirements increase and flawless execution of strategy becomes necessary. With a bunch of Lv 200 Epics on each character, the place becomes easier.
At our level, an average Pug should be able to grind 3/5 of Ulduar 25 man. We hit a few achievements, but nothing in Hardmode. Hardmode Ulduar 25 is for the established guilds with a few guests. All the raiders ARE epicced out and your DPS needs to be 3k or more.
Toc 10 - Anub'Arak
What is this with WotLK and big creepy bugs??
Seriously, I get the wierd factor with evil insects and the Undead Lich king. Bravo. We make the connection. Now we face yet another arch-opponent bug boss. After defeating the 10 man Faction Champions, the twins and this guy are just cake. Follow the strat, stand on the snowdrifts, DPS the adds, and you have a dead boss. No healing blocks or any wierd gimmicks. Just pew pew the frost orbs down and keep moving.
Phase 0
Enjoy the cutscene. The Lich King shows up and Lord Tiron Fordring asks him to lay down his Uber-Magic-MindControlling sword of Awesomeness... and walk away. No hard feelings. That line just had me in stiches. Arthas was not amused. He shatters the floor and sends the players into the caverns below the Argent tournament to face an ancient horror in the cold and dark below. Woooot! Thanks buddy.
Phase 1
DPS the boss. Ranged DPS, Nuke the floating frost orbs and make a couple dozen snow drifts. Try not to fall asleep. Don't linger on the snow drifts as it slows your movement / attack.
Phase 2
DPS the boss. DPS the small bug adds that appear. The boss will "Target" someone to impale from below. Just keep on the snow and you'll be fine.
Phase 3
At 30% health, Anub-Arak casts degenerative swarm and leeches 5% of your health per second from everyone in the area. Don't quote me on the numbers. Basically, it's a DPS/Healer challenge. Your raid will be reduced to 50% health or lower. Boss gets minimal regen from a weakened party. Your DPS goes all out to finish him. MT is the only one kept at 100% health. No one dies and everyone blows their cooldowns. Rest of you at 25% health rush to kill the boss who's leeching you all slowly. Tricky, the first time you do it. The third time you do it, it can be phoned in. Hunters, keep your pet alive but barely. The health leech is so slow, your renew can easily keep up. Even if your pet dies, the boss isn't far behind.
Down he goes, come collect your candy.
High Lord Tirion Fordring also appears after the fight with a friendly handshake and a free portal back out of the pit to Dalarn for your raid. WooT! How about that?!
Seriously, I get the wierd factor with evil insects and the Undead Lich king. Bravo. We make the connection. Now we face yet another arch-opponent bug boss. After defeating the 10 man Faction Champions, the twins and this guy are just cake. Follow the strat, stand on the snowdrifts, DPS the adds, and you have a dead boss. No healing blocks or any wierd gimmicks. Just pew pew the frost orbs down and keep moving.
Phase 0
Enjoy the cutscene. The Lich King shows up and Lord Tiron Fordring asks him to lay down his Uber-Magic-MindControlling sword of Awesomeness... and walk away. No hard feelings. That line just had me in stiches. Arthas was not amused. He shatters the floor and sends the players into the caverns below the Argent tournament to face an ancient horror in the cold and dark below. Woooot! Thanks buddy.
Phase 1
DPS the boss. Ranged DPS, Nuke the floating frost orbs and make a couple dozen snow drifts. Try not to fall asleep. Don't linger on the snow drifts as it slows your movement / attack.
Phase 2
DPS the boss. DPS the small bug adds that appear. The boss will "Target" someone to impale from below. Just keep on the snow and you'll be fine.
Phase 3
At 30% health, Anub-Arak casts degenerative swarm and leeches 5% of your health per second from everyone in the area. Don't quote me on the numbers. Basically, it's a DPS/Healer challenge. Your raid will be reduced to 50% health or lower. Boss gets minimal regen from a weakened party. Your DPS goes all out to finish him. MT is the only one kept at 100% health. No one dies and everyone blows their cooldowns. Rest of you at 25% health rush to kill the boss who's leeching you all slowly. Tricky, the first time you do it. The third time you do it, it can be phoned in. Hunters, keep your pet alive but barely. The health leech is so slow, your renew can easily keep up. Even if your pet dies, the boss isn't far behind.
Down he goes, come collect your candy.
High Lord Tirion Fordring also appears after the fight with a friendly handshake and a free portal back out of the pit to Dalarn for your raid. WooT! How about that?!
2nd Profession
I'm going to start a 2nd "production" Profession soon. Ages ago, I took up Skinning and Leatherworking. Then dropped it around 90 skill when I realized at level 20 my created items were always lagging behind my level. Once you can reliably make an item, its benefits are negligible or a downgrade to your current equipment. Armor kits were handy, but I used a number of materials like potions more often. Upon reaching level 25, I switched over to Alchemy / Herbalism. Those have served me well for years. Now I have three other high level characters with Herbalism / Inscription, Herbalism / Mining, and Blacksmithing / Mining.
I am seriously flush with materials. So much that, I m considering dropping Herbalism. Plus, the extra two gem slots could bring another +40 AGI to my character. That's hawt. Alot of Characters are Enchanter/Jewlers or Blacksmith / Engineers. A number of Endgame tanks also have double profs. ( +39 Sta gems and +30 Sta Enchants can add up quickly).
The Bad? Blacksmithing to 400 is a much longer trek. Mithril is always scarce and Thorium is a downright pain in the ass to find. The sheer bulk of materials could sell for several thousand gold pieces on the Auction House. If I need to two-box materials for mid-level zones, I'll have to bring my son's Paladin along to mine it.
The Ugly? I get some Blacksmith only recipies... which are mostly plate and some low level weapons and mail items. Getting to 450 is meh. Nothing at the top end of the skill is worth upgrading a Hunter. Re-forging is only rumored to be in the expansion and the expansion is still months to a year away. Also, not having Herbalism is going to dink up my Alchemy.
Herbalism is a natural pair to Alchemy. Now, dropping that for Blacksmithing robs me of a self-sustaining Potion/Elixir habit. The Northrend Flask rocks tho. It makes up for alot. Can't say enough nice things about the Eternal flasks in this expansion as well. The amount healed is paltry, use it in combat at your own peril. The amount of mana returned is also horribly small. The 1 minute cooldown outside of combat is just awesome.
I also lose out on a 1500 point emergency heal over time from Max level Herbalism. That may cut back on my effectiveness, being dead. Hopefully, I can put out that much MORE DPS to counteract that handicap. The heal is in addition to any Healthstone and Potion.
I am seriously flush with materials. So much that, I m considering dropping Herbalism. Plus, the extra two gem slots could bring another +40 AGI to my character. That's hawt. Alot of Characters are Enchanter/Jewlers or Blacksmith / Engineers. A number of Endgame tanks also have double profs. ( +39 Sta gems and +30 Sta Enchants can add up quickly).
In the Catalcysm expansion, the Re-forging skill allows Blacksmiths to redo the stats on mail and plate gear. That has untold benefits in the future. +40 Agi +20 Spirit Bracers? Not a problem. Just re-forge those babies into +40 AGI +20 Sta or +45 AGI +10Sta +5 Int bracers. Stat molding and crit/hit shifting. That kind of control over gear is just wicked powerful. Where do I sign up??
The Good? I get two gem slots to place in my equipment. One in my Gloves and one for my Bracers. Also, the first 100 points of Blacksmithing goes by ridiculously fast. I'm also sitting on a metric ton of Copper, Tin, Silver, Gold, Fel Iron, Adamantite, Khorium, Cobalt, and Saronite. Lastly, I can afford to burn a couple thousand gold maxxing out my skills.
The Bad? Blacksmithing to 400 is a much longer trek. Mithril is always scarce and Thorium is a downright pain in the ass to find. The sheer bulk of materials could sell for several thousand gold pieces on the Auction House. If I need to two-box materials for mid-level zones, I'll have to bring my son's Paladin along to mine it.
The Ugly? I get some Blacksmith only recipies... which are mostly plate and some low level weapons and mail items. Getting to 450 is meh. Nothing at the top end of the skill is worth upgrading a Hunter. Re-forging is only rumored to be in the expansion and the expansion is still months to a year away. Also, not having Herbalism is going to dink up my Alchemy.
Herbalism is a natural pair to Alchemy. Now, dropping that for Blacksmithing robs me of a self-sustaining Potion/Elixir habit. The Northrend Flask rocks tho. It makes up for alot. Can't say enough nice things about the Eternal flasks in this expansion as well. The amount healed is paltry, use it in combat at your own peril. The amount of mana returned is also horribly small. The 1 minute cooldown outside of combat is just awesome.
I also lose out on a 1500 point emergency heal over time from Max level Herbalism. That may cut back on my effectiveness, being dead. Hopefully, I can put out that much MORE DPS to counteract that handicap. The heal is in addition to any Healthstone and Potion.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Toc 10 - Twin Valkyrs
Everyone likes a pair of twins. Arroogah. oh wait.... They're undead winged twins of pure evil destruction? Okay. What do they sound like? Ohh. Well okay. What's the gimmick with the doublemint twins?
Two valkyr that share the same health pool. Deadly AoE and big Heal abilities. Avoid one and Interrupt the other... you're home free.
Light Valkyr. Made of light energy.
Dark valkyr. Made of dark energy.
Four Aura-Portals in the room. Two of each color on each side.
Split your team into two groups.
5 Light team on Dark Valkyr.
5 Dark Team on Dark Valkyr.
Two colors of spheres will flood the arena and fly around in random directions. Light spheres buff Light Aura'ed players. Dark Spheres buff Dark Auras. Hit the wrong sphere and it blows up doing short range AoE damage. Collect a chain of "buffing" spehres and you go into an overdrive mode doing extra damage to the opposite color. Collect a chain of "bad" spheres and you die. Healers and Tanks. Watch your back.
Have a tank for each Valkyr and a dedicated healer. Dps these bitches down.
Fast, easy fight once you execute the transitions and interrupts. The big problem is when someone screws up a "special".
Light shield / Dark Sield. One of the sisters will put a major heal on herself if you don't interrupt her by nuking down the shield with melee/spells and Stunning the caster.. You must adpot the opposite color and everyone - EVERY DPS CLASS nukes down the shield. You have like 12 seconds. Slow transitions = Raid wipe. If that interrupt doesn't happen, you're hosed. The twins will slowly die without those heals. Otherwise they heal to full.
Light Nova / Dark Nova is the other ability. Massive AOE nuke that destroys the whole arena. If you're wearing black and it's a white nova. You'll die. Find the color. DPS the opposite Valkyr for Extra damage. Then resume your normal color to dps your Normally assigned Valkyr. Again, slow transitions = wipe.
* For Nova - Even the OffTank and Off Healer have to switch. Everyone in the room will get hit. So everyone in the room must quickly adopt the right color to be "immune" to the effects.
Rinse and repeat this process. They nova twice. They Shield twice. Then they fell down and died of.... natural causes. Expect a 25% health drop per phase if they don't get off a heal. Your mileage may vary. Easy peasy.
After the Faction Champions, these girls are a "Loot Piniata". I got the 2H Defiance sword off them last run. Placed a +20 AGI gem inside and enchanted it with +85 Attack. Boo Yea! I'm rocking 5K Attack self buffed with 43% crit while hit capped. Now I'm upping Armor Pen Ratings and Haste next.
Two valkyr that share the same health pool. Deadly AoE and big Heal abilities. Avoid one and Interrupt the other... you're home free.
Light Valkyr. Made of light energy.
Dark valkyr. Made of dark energy.
Four Aura-Portals in the room. Two of each color on each side.
Split your team into two groups.
5 Light team on Dark Valkyr.
5 Dark Team on Dark Valkyr.
Two colors of spheres will flood the arena and fly around in random directions. Light spheres buff Light Aura'ed players. Dark Spheres buff Dark Auras. Hit the wrong sphere and it blows up doing short range AoE damage. Collect a chain of "buffing" spehres and you go into an overdrive mode doing extra damage to the opposite color. Collect a chain of "bad" spheres and you die. Healers and Tanks. Watch your back.
Have a tank for each Valkyr and a dedicated healer. Dps these bitches down.
Fast, easy fight once you execute the transitions and interrupts. The big problem is when someone screws up a "special".
Light shield / Dark Sield. One of the sisters will put a major heal on herself if you don't interrupt her by nuking down the shield with melee/spells and Stunning the caster.. You must adpot the opposite color and everyone - EVERY DPS CLASS nukes down the shield. You have like 12 seconds. Slow transitions = Raid wipe. If that interrupt doesn't happen, you're hosed. The twins will slowly die without those heals. Otherwise they heal to full.
Light Nova / Dark Nova is the other ability. Massive AOE nuke that destroys the whole arena. If you're wearing black and it's a white nova. You'll die. Find the color. DPS the opposite Valkyr for Extra damage. Then resume your normal color to dps your Normally assigned Valkyr. Again, slow transitions = wipe.
* For Nova - Even the OffTank and Off Healer have to switch. Everyone in the room will get hit. So everyone in the room must quickly adopt the right color to be "immune" to the effects.
Rinse and repeat this process. They nova twice. They Shield twice. Then they fell down and died of.... natural causes. Expect a 25% health drop per phase if they don't get off a heal. Your mileage may vary. Easy peasy.
After the Faction Champions, these girls are a "Loot Piniata". I got the 2H Defiance sword off them last run. Placed a +20 AGI gem inside and enchanted it with +85 Attack. Boo Yea! I'm rocking 5K Attack self buffed with 43% crit while hit capped. Now I'm upping Armor Pen Ratings and Haste next.
ToC 10 - Horde/Alliance Champions
The faction Champions are badass. They deserve to be the best representatives that the Horde can muster against your 10 or 25 man squad. If they played smartly, they would win every time. They are just UBER. These are PvP demigods set in a PvE setting. For the 10 man event, they are six NPCs at 430k health each of different classes and specialized abilities. They have a random aggro table and will focus on a specific player for a few seconds before wandering away to beat on someone else. They can be taunted, but don't have a specific aggro table.
Good News - They don't have an aggro table. They could leave you alone for a majority of the fight, and horribly mangle your other raid members.
Bad News - They don't have an aggro table. They could all randomly decide that it's Dwarf Hunter day, and you could wind up with a Mortal Strike Warrior, Rogue backstab, Deathknight, and an Enhance Shaman violating you at once. Yea. Sometimes, it's just unfair. That's PvP.
Divide and Conquer? - You'll die. Plain and simple. You can't face these guys 1 on 1. In the small encounter, the fight is stacked 6 on 10 but they have 430k health and the melee guys hit like trucks. The priest's Renew does 30k health. Nobody is that powerful. Ridiculous things like LoH by the paladin make this fight just insane if you try to whittle them eac down by yourself. CC / Fear what you can, Gang up on the healers, and whittle them individually down.
Say your prayers and die like a man? Not on my watch. I've had some seriously uphill battle that have come out with our side winning in PvP. The Raid leaders called a wipe and we kept digging until we got the enemy healers. Then the event all comes together. Then we beat this awful hard hard event. For this fight, there are no real tactics. You take out what you can, and CC / Distract / Snake trap / Frost trap / Ice Trap / Fire Trap whatever you can. Hardest mob to kill? The first one.
Fear is your friend. Banish Boomkins / Trees. Gouge, Sheep what you can. Ice trap big threats. Frost trap the rest so you can kite them. AOE is reduced by 75% here so you just can't shred them en masse. You'll have to grind these Heroes one by one. Interrupt / Lock down whatever you can.
Special props to my Boomkin friend for using cyclone to stop the Shaman >> Druid >>> Rogue and single handedly being a huge pain in their ass. No single player wins this fight. It requires every player looking out for themselves and using all of their skills to monkeywrench the opposing team.
Know your class and pray they don't gang up on you. Fear bomb. Use all of those Protection tank interrupts and sheild reflection skills. Rogue kick and improved Fan of Knives are UBER here for neutralizing casters. These mobs are immune to Mind Control. Don't try it. They take a while to kill, and the aggro table will help then hurt you as random times as the fight wears on.
Battle rezz. Blow your cooldowns. Get an early lead and maximize your focused damage. Look out for your buddies. There are 100 zen philosophies for trying to build a flexible team that can take out a vastly superior flexible team. Their weakness is the "computer AI" controlling their abilities. I've seen Undead mage spend her time nuking snakes from snake trap. Polymorphing my cat pet. And then the little witch will Ice Block just before we finish her off. They're smart, then dumb. You just have to know the other classes and what each one is weak against.
Gang up on their casters. Spread out yours. Guard your team-mates. Look out for your buddy and talk on Vent when you need help. Cheer your friends on. Dont' release if you die. There is no re-entry on this event. Army of the dead, Raise Ghoul, Fear pet, Feign Death, Misdirect, Mortal Strike / Aimed Shot use them whenever you can. Once the first healer goes down, you're 1/4 of the way there. Take out two of them, and the rest come alot easier. This is not a mana fight because the Shaman can 3 shot clothies at 6k per hit with his Windfury Totem and Dual wield. Burst damage. Evasion, and Focused Fire whatever you can bring down. There is no MT here. Everyone will have to run around and fend for themselves a little.
Every single time you face these six, respect them. They are the BIG Dogs of this event and will rip your team apart if you don't use everything in your bag of tricks. This means consumables, potions, flasks, and cooldowns whenever possible. Resilience is a joke here. Don't bother. Bring as much spikey aggro creating damage as possible. Stack up on Stamina if you think that'll help. Ice block, Vanish, Deterrence, shield wall, Feign, and Fade all you want. Whatever gets you thru it while bringing down their healers.
Survival is goal #1. Sure they say Killing is goal #1 but it isn't. I'll tell you why. If you don't look out for yourself before that first healer is dead, they will take you apart before you kill them. So, Focus fire and stay mobile. Watch out for yourself. Track your buddy and keep him alive as well. Interrupt / trap / and snare whatever you can reach without getting yourself killed. This event is complex and random. We're not geared enough to even think of this event on heroic difficulty. I've beaten the Regular 10 and Regular 25 man versions. Regular was tough enough.
After beating this, you've done something special in 10 man raiding.
General Strategies :
1) Fear shit whenever possible.
2) Frost Trap / Banish / Polymorph. Use everything you can that will disable a player. Remember diminishing returns. Cyclone one guy. Then cyclone another. My son did great on his boomkin and locked down a number of NPCs out of healing and Nuking others.
3) Heal your buddy. Every person is essentail to winnning. Tunnel vision kills.
4) Don't let one or two deaths lead to a wipe. Keep calm and don't give up.
We try to take out those annoying healers 1st (Priest > Shaman > Pally ). Then the Rogue / Warlock. Then whomever you feel like killing. Then Tanks, then the Boomkin / Mage. Pets and such are usually ignored as their damage is annoying but not lethal.
This was the 1st time I've used the PvP trinket to get out of a Polymorph in a long time. They Need to Nerf the Horde. Freaking 430k health on a priest? What the Eff were they thinking? Glad to know the Alliance Champions are equally impossible.
We've wiped multiple times to these guys. If you're 1 shotting this event, you're very good, or very lucky, or VERY well geared. Plan on a few wipes here. If you bring Pickup players or substitute players in, expect more deaths. The more cohesive your group is, the better you'll do. Experienced teams approach these PvP dudes with caution. Good luck. Enjoy the spoils.
Good News - They don't have an aggro table. They could leave you alone for a majority of the fight, and horribly mangle your other raid members.
Bad News - They don't have an aggro table. They could all randomly decide that it's Dwarf Hunter day, and you could wind up with a Mortal Strike Warrior, Rogue backstab, Deathknight, and an Enhance Shaman violating you at once. Yea. Sometimes, it's just unfair. That's PvP.
Divide and Conquer? - You'll die. Plain and simple. You can't face these guys 1 on 1. In the small encounter, the fight is stacked 6 on 10 but they have 430k health and the melee guys hit like trucks. The priest's Renew does 30k health. Nobody is that powerful. Ridiculous things like LoH by the paladin make this fight just insane if you try to whittle them eac down by yourself. CC / Fear what you can, Gang up on the healers, and whittle them individually down.
Say your prayers and die like a man? Not on my watch. I've had some seriously uphill battle that have come out with our side winning in PvP. The Raid leaders called a wipe and we kept digging until we got the enemy healers. Then the event all comes together. Then we beat this awful hard hard event. For this fight, there are no real tactics. You take out what you can, and CC / Distract / Snake trap / Frost trap / Ice Trap / Fire Trap whatever you can. Hardest mob to kill? The first one.
Fear is your friend. Banish Boomkins / Trees. Gouge, Sheep what you can. Ice trap big threats. Frost trap the rest so you can kite them. AOE is reduced by 75% here so you just can't shred them en masse. You'll have to grind these Heroes one by one. Interrupt / Lock down whatever you can.
Special props to my Boomkin friend for using cyclone to stop the Shaman >> Druid >>> Rogue and single handedly being a huge pain in their ass. No single player wins this fight. It requires every player looking out for themselves and using all of their skills to monkeywrench the opposing team.
Know your class and pray they don't gang up on you. Fear bomb. Use all of those Protection tank interrupts and sheild reflection skills. Rogue kick and improved Fan of Knives are UBER here for neutralizing casters. These mobs are immune to Mind Control. Don't try it. They take a while to kill, and the aggro table will help then hurt you as random times as the fight wears on.
Battle rezz. Blow your cooldowns. Get an early lead and maximize your focused damage. Look out for your buddies. There are 100 zen philosophies for trying to build a flexible team that can take out a vastly superior flexible team. Their weakness is the "computer AI" controlling their abilities. I've seen Undead mage spend her time nuking snakes from snake trap. Polymorphing my cat pet. And then the little witch will Ice Block just before we finish her off. They're smart, then dumb. You just have to know the other classes and what each one is weak against.
Gang up on their casters. Spread out yours. Guard your team-mates. Look out for your buddy and talk on Vent when you need help. Cheer your friends on. Dont' release if you die. There is no re-entry on this event. Army of the dead, Raise Ghoul, Fear pet, Feign Death, Misdirect, Mortal Strike / Aimed Shot use them whenever you can. Once the first healer goes down, you're 1/4 of the way there. Take out two of them, and the rest come alot easier. This is not a mana fight because the Shaman can 3 shot clothies at 6k per hit with his Windfury Totem and Dual wield. Burst damage. Evasion, and Focused Fire whatever you can bring down. There is no MT here. Everyone will have to run around and fend for themselves a little.
Every single time you face these six, respect them. They are the BIG Dogs of this event and will rip your team apart if you don't use everything in your bag of tricks. This means consumables, potions, flasks, and cooldowns whenever possible. Resilience is a joke here. Don't bother. Bring as much spikey aggro creating damage as possible. Stack up on Stamina if you think that'll help. Ice block, Vanish, Deterrence, shield wall, Feign, and Fade all you want. Whatever gets you thru it while bringing down their healers.
Survival is goal #1. Sure they say Killing is goal #1 but it isn't. I'll tell you why. If you don't look out for yourself before that first healer is dead, they will take you apart before you kill them. So, Focus fire and stay mobile. Watch out for yourself. Track your buddy and keep him alive as well. Interrupt / trap / and snare whatever you can reach without getting yourself killed. This event is complex and random. We're not geared enough to even think of this event on heroic difficulty. I've beaten the Regular 10 and Regular 25 man versions. Regular was tough enough.
After beating this, you've done something special in 10 man raiding.
General Strategies :
1) Fear shit whenever possible.
2) Frost Trap / Banish / Polymorph. Use everything you can that will disable a player. Remember diminishing returns. Cyclone one guy. Then cyclone another. My son did great on his boomkin and locked down a number of NPCs out of healing and Nuking others.
3) Heal your buddy. Every person is essentail to winnning. Tunnel vision kills.
4) Don't let one or two deaths lead to a wipe. Keep calm and don't give up.
We try to take out those annoying healers 1st (Priest > Shaman > Pally ). Then the Rogue / Warlock. Then whomever you feel like killing. Then Tanks, then the Boomkin / Mage. Pets and such are usually ignored as their damage is annoying but not lethal.
This was the 1st time I've used the PvP trinket to get out of a Polymorph in a long time. They Need to Nerf the Horde. Freaking 430k health on a priest? What the Eff were they thinking? Glad to know the Alliance Champions are equally impossible.
We've wiped multiple times to these guys. If you're 1 shotting this event, you're very good, or very lucky, or VERY well geared. Plan on a few wipes here. If you bring Pickup players or substitute players in, expect more deaths. The more cohesive your group is, the better you'll do. Experienced teams approach these PvP dudes with caution. Good luck. Enjoy the spoils.
ToC 10 - Lord Jaraxxus
Great comedic relief. A level 83 elite Gnome Warlock summons a super-sized demon from some hellish dimension to do his bidding and take on the player raid. The demon resents being summoned, 1 shots the foolish Gnome, and turns to give the players some trouble.
Lord Jaraxxus is a pushover. MT will tank him. Offtank picks up Demons he summons and Infernals when they appear. DPS them down, and resume dps on the boss. Collect phat lewts.
If there's any rule, you can learn from years of raiding in Warcraft its.... "Don't stand in the dammed fire!!" Seriously. If you're on fire, dont' stand next to me. Don't stand next to the MT, Melee, or the Healers. Just burn quietly off to the side and resume dps when you get healed. Fire burns you. Fire burns those around you. This kind of unholy green fire leaves piles of flames on the ground. Jaraxxus casts Infernal fire randomly. Run away and leave the piles away from the Raid.
Jaraxxus will also deal a red flame dot called Consume Flesh. Hurts you and heals him. Don't let your friendly Dwarf hunter die to that thing. I got that stupid dot like 3 times. Jaraxxus also casts a heal? Dunno. Whatever it is, keep a rogue / paladin / whatever to stun with that thing. NEED to.
He aslo summons friends. Nuke the 4 armed demon witch flayer when she appears. If she aggros you, she'll bounce you 40 feet into the air and smack you around like a rag-doll. Not big damage, but annoying and the Offtank should be able to pick her up most of the time. We just burn her down fast and resume dps.
Infernal spawn. Another pain. Infernals are annoying in 10 man. In 25 man you'll have a warlock to banish one and dps the others. Finish them and nuke the boss.
I have yet to see the team that can beat the Northrend Beasts and NOT kill Lord Jaraxxus on the first try. He's a vending machine for Epix and Badges. Just don't let adds get out of hand and keep up the interrupts.
The next Trial is the big stopper for the 10 man and 25 man Trial of Champions.
Lord Jaraxxus is a pushover. MT will tank him. Offtank picks up Demons he summons and Infernals when they appear. DPS them down, and resume dps on the boss. Collect phat lewts.
If there's any rule, you can learn from years of raiding in Warcraft its.... "Don't stand in the dammed fire!!" Seriously. If you're on fire, dont' stand next to me. Don't stand next to the MT, Melee, or the Healers. Just burn quietly off to the side and resume dps when you get healed. Fire burns you. Fire burns those around you. This kind of unholy green fire leaves piles of flames on the ground. Jaraxxus casts Infernal fire randomly. Run away and leave the piles away from the Raid.
Jaraxxus will also deal a red flame dot called Consume Flesh. Hurts you and heals him. Don't let your friendly Dwarf hunter die to that thing. I got that stupid dot like 3 times. Jaraxxus also casts a heal? Dunno. Whatever it is, keep a rogue / paladin / whatever to stun with that thing. NEED to.
He aslo summons friends. Nuke the 4 armed demon witch flayer when she appears. If she aggros you, she'll bounce you 40 feet into the air and smack you around like a rag-doll. Not big damage, but annoying and the Offtank should be able to pick her up most of the time. We just burn her down fast and resume dps.
Infernal spawn. Another pain. Infernals are annoying in 10 man. In 25 man you'll have a warlock to banish one and dps the others. Finish them and nuke the boss.
I have yet to see the team that can beat the Northrend Beasts and NOT kill Lord Jaraxxus on the first try. He's a vending machine for Epix and Badges. Just don't let adds get out of hand and keep up the interrupts.
The next Trial is the big stopper for the 10 man and 25 man Trial of Champions.
ToC 10 - Northrend Beasts
Northrend is the place WoW gamers go to test themselves. Ulduar is difficult. Hardmode is truly Hard for alot of players. Eventually, Icecrown is going to supercede that place with ToC and Arthas's Stronghold / Castle being the top of the level 80 difficulty chain.
This post deals with the 10 man event at the Argent Tournament. The Trial of the Crusader with four contests, consisting of seven fights. You may add/remove players from the party. Leave to repair/reload / re-buy reagents. Even spread the Trials out over a number of gaming sessions, if you want to progress slowly or you're still learning the fights. Our guild does them all in one evening. We'll substite about 1/2 way along because people need to come and go during the night. Probably 3 to 4 hours tops. If you one-shot all of the encounters, you can finish just over the 2 hour mark, but we aren't that pro. If you're that good, do the 10 man on Heroic.
The first "trial" consists of the Northrend Beasts. Jormok the Impaler, The Twin Terrors, and Icehowl. That's right. You have to beat 4 bosses here before you even see a loot chest or a Badge of Triumph. They really make you EARN those. Let's take apart things one by one.
Jormok seems like a tank n spank. Big melee boss with a nasty spear. The spear is a random stab with Mortal Strike. Usualy in Close melee range. On his back are Elite Snobolds. They ride along and launch large clusters of napalm. These random fire bombs suck. Stay out of the fire. Randomly, every 20 of seconds, one of his riders will jump off and land on a player. He will be stabbing the player with a low level damage ability. You can't target the mob on your back, so players will have to rely on others to get the annoying Snobold off. Roughly 40-60k health and then DPS can resume back no Jormok. Jormok will also do an AOE stun / spell lock via his thunderstomp. Healers, watch for this as a lockout + mortal strike can mean a dead tank. Kill the Snobolds. Stay out of the fires. Keep the casualties to zero.
If you're having people die to Jormok, your raid is doomed. He's the warmup act. The real issue is TIME. You cannot re-enter the 10 man ToC during a trial. Battle rezz and Jumper Cables are usable, but you're constantly in combat. Save those for phase 2. Finish phase 1 with as much mana, health, and cooldowns as you can. Also, in 10 man ToC, every casualty reduces your chance of finishing a tough event. Healers get a workout.
The Twin Terrors are Dreadmaw and Acidscale. These guys suck and will break an unprepared team. One is a fixed mob and the other one is a moving target that leaves clouds of poison gas behind him. Dont' stand in the poison. Rogues and Hunter pets die here. Don't stand in front of either snake unless you're MT or OT. This fight gets more complex, really fast. Dreadmaw will be tanked by the Offtank and spits paralytic poison randomly around the room. One ore more people will get the poison. Usually it's anyone in front of him. He also has a short range an earthquake effect for minimal damage. Hunter Pets die yet again. The paralytic poison will stun you then kill you if not cleansed. You have to run to the MT by the Other snake. ( Still following ?) The MT will be taking damage from Burning Bile. The only cure for the Paralytic poison is Burning bile from the other snake. That's right.... If you turn green, run on over to the MainTank who's glowing red from Burning Bile. Poison damage stops and your movement debuff clears. Don't cross the poison cloud behind the worm.
I was a dumbass my first try on 25 ToC and just died in the poison cloud. Run to the TANK to clear your debuff. Then resume pew pew pew. I believe pets are immune to Paralytic Poison. Snake traps may offer a distraction, but the pulse AOE on Dreadscale shreds them before they can be good substitute targets. Seriously, that paralytic poison has no cure. You can't dispell it and it ticks away horribly fast. Run to the MT (Red Tank) when you turn green. People will call your name out in vent. Then resume your job. If a primary healer gets hit, the Tanks and other healers will have to "improvise" until that healer gets cured.
Use two tanks. If one dies, I'd recommend a Battle Rezz. I've seen a single MainTank take over tanking for both worms, but the odds are stacked against surviving that fight. We won, but that was chaotic as both tanks wound up dying and I feigned to get in somre additional DPS before the worms came for me. We finished the worms on ToC 25 with just DPS and healers standing then battle rezzed the MT for Icehowl. For 10 man, you should be rather smooth with the kill, using vent and staying out of poison clouds. The second event is the big hurdle.
Burn your cooldowns on this fight. You don't want to worry about multiple poisonings, toxic gas clouds, worm bile, and random damage for too long. Get it over with. Aggro doesn't seem to be a real problem here, but use Omen to keep aggro on the tanks. If another player gets burning Bile instead of the MT / OT.... that shit hurts. You've messed up and may not get the steady stream of heals the MT was getting to stay alive. Alot of PuGs fall apart here. Coordination and Cooperation is key to winning against the Twin Terrors.
Count your dead. Bandage up. Clear the doorway for Icehowl.
There's a 5 second pause to announce the next foe, but no real break in this fight. This guy is a simple tank and spank with a couple tricks. Icehowl doesnt' cast. He is a brutal melee opponent. Every 30 seconds he will breathe frost and freeze opponents in place in front of him. Face him away. He will also thunderstomp the ground and send people to the walls. The raid is stunned and he will pick a random player to charge. You get a DBM warning. You hear bells. You even get an 8 second speed buff. As soon as you can move away, GTFO. He will 1 shot whomever he hits or any fool in his path. If you don't move, you will die and Icehowl gets an enrage buff to his damage. Icehowl is a dammed cookie at the end of the encounter. If you aren't horribly lagged, you can easily escape his charge and Icehowl will slam into a brick wall. He's stunned for 15 seconds and takes extra damage. Pound away at him and have the MT pick him up. Then Rinse and Repeat. Icehowl is easy peasy. Get your badges and epic loot. That challenge down, you can talk to the Arena master for the next Crusader's Challenge.
This post deals with the 10 man event at the Argent Tournament. The Trial of the Crusader with four contests, consisting of seven fights. You may add/remove players from the party. Leave to repair/reload / re-buy reagents. Even spread the Trials out over a number of gaming sessions, if you want to progress slowly or you're still learning the fights. Our guild does them all in one evening. We'll substite about 1/2 way along because people need to come and go during the night. Probably 3 to 4 hours tops. If you one-shot all of the encounters, you can finish just over the 2 hour mark, but we aren't that pro. If you're that good, do the 10 man on Heroic.
The first "trial" consists of the Northrend Beasts. Jormok the Impaler, The Twin Terrors, and Icehowl. That's right. You have to beat 4 bosses here before you even see a loot chest or a Badge of Triumph. They really make you EARN those. Let's take apart things one by one.
Jormok seems like a tank n spank. Big melee boss with a nasty spear. The spear is a random stab with Mortal Strike. Usualy in Close melee range. On his back are Elite Snobolds. They ride along and launch large clusters of napalm. These random fire bombs suck. Stay out of the fire. Randomly, every 20 of seconds, one of his riders will jump off and land on a player. He will be stabbing the player with a low level damage ability. You can't target the mob on your back, so players will have to rely on others to get the annoying Snobold off. Roughly 40-60k health and then DPS can resume back no Jormok. Jormok will also do an AOE stun / spell lock via his thunderstomp. Healers, watch for this as a lockout + mortal strike can mean a dead tank. Kill the Snobolds. Stay out of the fires. Keep the casualties to zero.
If you're having people die to Jormok, your raid is doomed. He's the warmup act. The real issue is TIME. You cannot re-enter the 10 man ToC during a trial. Battle rezz and Jumper Cables are usable, but you're constantly in combat. Save those for phase 2. Finish phase 1 with as much mana, health, and cooldowns as you can. Also, in 10 man ToC, every casualty reduces your chance of finishing a tough event. Healers get a workout.
The Twin Terrors are Dreadmaw and Acidscale. These guys suck and will break an unprepared team. One is a fixed mob and the other one is a moving target that leaves clouds of poison gas behind him. Dont' stand in the poison. Rogues and Hunter pets die here. Don't stand in front of either snake unless you're MT or OT. This fight gets more complex, really fast. Dreadmaw will be tanked by the Offtank and spits paralytic poison randomly around the room. One ore more people will get the poison. Usually it's anyone in front of him. He also has a short range an earthquake effect for minimal damage. Hunter Pets die yet again. The paralytic poison will stun you then kill you if not cleansed. You have to run to the MT by the Other snake. ( Still following ?) The MT will be taking damage from Burning Bile. The only cure for the Paralytic poison is Burning bile from the other snake. That's right.... If you turn green, run on over to the MainTank who's glowing red from Burning Bile. Poison damage stops and your movement debuff clears. Don't cross the poison cloud behind the worm.
I was a dumbass my first try on 25 ToC and just died in the poison cloud. Run to the TANK to clear your debuff. Then resume pew pew pew. I believe pets are immune to Paralytic Poison. Snake traps may offer a distraction, but the pulse AOE on Dreadscale shreds them before they can be good substitute targets. Seriously, that paralytic poison has no cure. You can't dispell it and it ticks away horribly fast. Run to the MT (Red Tank) when you turn green. People will call your name out in vent. Then resume your job. If a primary healer gets hit, the Tanks and other healers will have to "improvise" until that healer gets cured.
So, MainTank takes damage from Burning Bile and kites around not leaving the raid in a poison cloud. OffTank taunts the immobile snake and everyone DPS'es him down. About 40 seconds into the fight, both worms burrow underground, then trade positions. Alot of groups just stay on the Poison worm and deal with the enrage when the the Burning Bile worm loses his buddy. I'd be okay with the MT taking a bit more damage. Honestly, DPS can then focus on 1 target and finish the battle without complication. The alternative, is to split dps and worry about 1 to 4 people getting poison then getting cured for the whole encounter. bleh.
Use two tanks. If one dies, I'd recommend a Battle Rezz. I've seen a single MainTank take over tanking for both worms, but the odds are stacked against surviving that fight. We won, but that was chaotic as both tanks wound up dying and I feigned to get in somre additional DPS before the worms came for me. We finished the worms on ToC 25 with just DPS and healers standing then battle rezzed the MT for Icehowl. For 10 man, you should be rather smooth with the kill, using vent and staying out of poison clouds. The second event is the big hurdle.
Burn your cooldowns on this fight. You don't want to worry about multiple poisonings, toxic gas clouds, worm bile, and random damage for too long. Get it over with. Aggro doesn't seem to be a real problem here, but use Omen to keep aggro on the tanks. If another player gets burning Bile instead of the MT / OT.... that shit hurts. You've messed up and may not get the steady stream of heals the MT was getting to stay alive. Alot of PuGs fall apart here. Coordination and Cooperation is key to winning against the Twin Terrors.
Count your dead. Bandage up. Clear the doorway for Icehowl.
There's a 5 second pause to announce the next foe, but no real break in this fight. This guy is a simple tank and spank with a couple tricks. Icehowl doesnt' cast. He is a brutal melee opponent. Every 30 seconds he will breathe frost and freeze opponents in place in front of him. Face him away. He will also thunderstomp the ground and send people to the walls. The raid is stunned and he will pick a random player to charge. You get a DBM warning. You hear bells. You even get an 8 second speed buff. As soon as you can move away, GTFO. He will 1 shot whomever he hits or any fool in his path. If you don't move, you will die and Icehowl gets an enrage buff to his damage. Icehowl is a dammed cookie at the end of the encounter. If you aren't horribly lagged, you can easily escape his charge and Icehowl will slam into a brick wall. He's stunned for 15 seconds and takes extra damage. Pound away at him and have the MT pick him up. Then Rinse and Repeat. Icehowl is easy peasy. Get your badges and epic loot. That challenge down, you can talk to the Arena master for the next Crusader's Challenge.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Mimiron Down
Ulduar, stronghold of the Northrend giants. Ancient tomb of Yogg-Saron, elder god of madness. This place has some great encounters and some challenging bosses. Also, there's fantastic loot to be had for those that dare challenge them. In the lineup, Mimiron is 8th on the kill order. For difficulty, he's 3rd from the worst. The elder god Yogg Saron and Alganon the Watcher are fighting for the top spot. Not many casual gamers get to see him killed.
Phase One:
Aoe Lightning strike around the tank. Pull back your pet early. 1) The lag involved with recalling your pet will gaurantee that it won't clear the Lightning field. 2) There's a ring of landmines around the tank. 3) Did I mention land-mines? The Forward firing plasma burst isnt' a problem because your pet always runs to the back of the tank for attacks. Sadly, that also gives him a longer distance to run back to You when Lightning strike occurs.
Plasma Charge. AoE Fire damage. OMG does this hurt and the wind-up is pretty sudden. The fire ball is huge when it hits and usually leaves a nasty dot on you and your pet as well as a couple other people nearby. This is enough to kill your pet. Even with a Mend asap. Seriously, if you get hit, hope for a heal over time or YOU'LL be the dead one. Did I mention that charge is an AOE? You don't even have to be the target. It could be a buddy standing nearby. Boom... and you're limping away using your Phoenix ability to bring back your DPS pet.
Phase Two:
Phase Three:
He's got a helicopter? Seriously? No, it's not the Epic Flying mount you get from 25 man Hard Mode Yogg-saron. It's the Other Flying head of pain and suffering. Bring some Ranged DPS.
Phase Four:
Just when you thought it couldn't get worse. The Tank comes back. The Assault Cannon comes back. The Helicopter comes back. All at 50% health and fused into a super-mega-machine of doom. Split your dps into 3 groups. High, Mids, Low. Then clear the remaining robot trash.
Mt will tank the power-shovel. Lightning bursts will still occur. The Assault Cannon will still "spin up" and shred half the room. Landmines plus Lightning bursts. Rockets and more adds. This fight just plain sucks.
Now it gets worse... You have to DPS all three parts down to 2% then kill them within 15 seconds of each other or the unit will self-repair to 50% health. If one part self-repairs... you're done. Retry this encounter.
Beat this guy with a single living pet from start to finish and I'll give you a cookie. You'll have work hard to keep him out of harm's way. Too much sudden death / AoE to keep mine alive for more than 50% of the fight. Hell, it's work to keep a Hunter alive thru the AoE and sudden death gimmicks. Word to the wise - Stay Mobile! Much harder to nuke a running Dwarf.
In the end, we got him. Priest Tier helmet + Stun Baton dropped ( caster mace ). We're on the fence on wether we should extend the raid lock to get a crack at the General or Yogg-Saron. The General is beastly. Yogg Saron reminds me of C'Thun. I'm hoping we re-start Ulduar so I can get the DPS Cloak drop from Kologarn, or the Melee DPS ring from Razorscale. More walk-thrus next week. Wherever we end up.
- Raath
This isn't the guild's first kill of Mimiron, but it's mine. The Tankspot video for Mimiron is awesome. See it, learn it, then prepare to die at least once applying that knowledge. This is a seriously hard fight. Mimiron is 4 phases. 1) Tank phase 2) Assault Cannon Phase 3) Helicopter Phase 4) Mega-multi OMFG that's alot of hurt phase. Survive all that and you'll win.
In my humble opinion, this fight is just ridiculously hard on Hunter pets. My poor raptor died alot more than I'm used to seeing. The whole fight has a ton of sudden-death one shot damage. Lots of kinds of sudden nuclear damage.
Phase One:
Aoe Lightning strike around the tank. Pull back your pet early. 1) The lag involved with recalling your pet will gaurantee that it won't clear the Lightning field. 2) There's a ring of landmines around the tank. 3) Did I mention land-mines? The Forward firing plasma burst isnt' a problem because your pet always runs to the back of the tank for attacks. Sadly, that also gives him a longer distance to run back to You when Lightning strike occurs.
Plasma Charge. AoE Fire damage. OMG does this hurt and the wind-up is pretty sudden. The fire ball is huge when it hits and usually leaves a nasty dot on you and your pet as well as a couple other people nearby. This is enough to kill your pet. Even with a Mend asap. Seriously, if you get hit, hope for a heal over time or YOU'LL be the dead one. Did I mention that charge is an AOE? You don't even have to be the target. It could be a buddy standing nearby. Boom... and you're limping away using your Phoenix ability to bring back your DPS pet.
Phase Two:
Super tank not enough? Oookay. Let's hit up the Super Assault Cannon. Random damage in a circular firing arc. Annoying amounts of direct damage ( 2k to 4k ). Fire based AoE at the base of the cannon hurting melee DPS for 2K every couple of seconds. That's enough to eat your pet with a constant Renew on. The big red rockets on his back. Those fly off randomly and create a red shadow on the ground. That's where doom will be. Mid cast, mid shot, mid spell... I don't care what it is. Run away and stop casting. It's sudden death damage for DPS. Nobody survives that's not a tank.
Then the Cannon "spins up" and does a Laser Barrage. Anyone and Anything in front of the cannon is dead. No question. Only the Paladin bubble / Ice Block will save you. The stream of death will arc around the room pretty fast. Get in close and strafe BEHIND the cannon on this phase. If you don't, the distance to run [ From our Geometry class, children ] becomes increasingly longer and the cannon will catch you. Then he resumes, his normal DPS abilities.
Alot of guilds burn cooldowns for phase 2. Nobody likes it. The little dude talks smack while operating the cannon killing your friends.
Alot of guilds burn cooldowns for phase 2. Nobody likes it. The little dude talks smack while operating the cannon killing your friends.
Phase Three:
He's got a helicopter? Seriously? No, it's not the Epic Flying mount you get from 25 man Hard Mode Yogg-saron. It's the Other Flying head of pain and suffering. Bring some Ranged DPS.
Helps take the edge off. Robots will spawn and rund around. Assault bots, Trash bots, and Bomb Bots. The bomb bots have 20k hitpoints and explode for 10k AOE. Those hit your pet and it's hurt bad. Just avoid the shit. While all this madness is occurring, Mimiron is flying around shooting people for 3K shadow damage. Eventually the scrap bots drop an Electromagnet. Loot it ( Free For All Loot here) and place it below him. This will bring the copter down for an extra 100% damage while grounded.
Whale away at him. Beat him like he owes you money. Really, but don't forget the bomb bots and Scrap bots. If you kill the Copter early, and leave 40 robots up... you'll regret it. Deal with the adds, and AOE when they become numerous. Just be sure to capitalize on the ground phase with max DPS. Do what you can to Survive the bomb bots with some mana / health remaining.
Whale away at him. Beat him like he owes you money. Really, but don't forget the bomb bots and Scrap bots. If you kill the Copter early, and leave 40 robots up... you'll regret it. Deal with the adds, and AOE when they become numerous. Just be sure to capitalize on the ground phase with max DPS. Do what you can to Survive the bomb bots with some mana / health remaining.
Phase Four:
Just when you thought it couldn't get worse. The Tank comes back. The Assault Cannon comes back. The Helicopter comes back. All at 50% health and fused into a super-mega-machine of doom. Split your dps into 3 groups. High, Mids, Low. Then clear the remaining robot trash.
Mt will tank the power-shovel. Lightning bursts will still occur. The Assault Cannon will still "spin up" and shred half the room. Landmines plus Lightning bursts. Rockets and more adds. This fight just plain sucks.
Now it gets worse... You have to DPS all three parts down to 2% then kill them within 15 seconds of each other or the unit will self-repair to 50% health. If one part self-repairs... you're done. Retry this encounter.
Beat this guy with a single living pet from start to finish and I'll give you a cookie. You'll have work hard to keep him out of harm's way. Too much sudden death / AoE to keep mine alive for more than 50% of the fight. Hell, it's work to keep a Hunter alive thru the AoE and sudden death gimmicks. Word to the wise - Stay Mobile! Much harder to nuke a running Dwarf.
In the end, we got him. Priest Tier helmet + Stun Baton dropped ( caster mace ). We're on the fence on wether we should extend the raid lock to get a crack at the General or Yogg-Saron. The General is beastly. Yogg Saron reminds me of C'Thun. I'm hoping we re-start Ulduar so I can get the DPS Cloak drop from Kologarn, or the Melee DPS ring from Razorscale. More walk-thrus next week. Wherever we end up.
- Raath
How long HAVE you been playing that Dwarf?
I'm an Old Dwarf Hunter. REALLY old. I've been around since Beta and played a Ranger in EQ for 4 years before that. Ranged DPS is what I do. It takes time to get good at the art of pulling / trapping / kiting / and just plain killing stuff. The best hunters are self reliant, quiet, dependable, and talented at understanding fights. Not perfect but at least we try to be professional in our approach.
Learn your class. What we're good at. What we're NOT good at. Know other people's roles. See how they all fit into a 5 man team, a 10 man, 25 man or a 40 man raid. Some fights require our special skills to Tranq / Pull / Misdirect and others can be done by Autoshot then 3 minutes AFK. Other fights have you running around like a madman with traps, rounding up strays, kiting groups, and struggling to stay alive. Depends on the night.
I play an 80 Warrior Tank, an 80 Holy/Shadow Priest, an 80 Fire Mage, a 72 Paladin, a 71 Warlock, and a host of other alts. Helps me understand limitations and anticipate their shortfalls. Healers get busy, Tanks die, DPS can get taken out by AoEs. Foresee where the shortfall will occur and pull the team thru. Do we need help sometimes? Of course we do. I depend on decent healers and talented Tanks to carry threat, take beatings, and keep folks breathing.
I just plan on not being a burden for aggro or a mana sponge for group heals. I kill stuff. I crowd control, I debuff mobs, and distract nasty things away from soft squishy casters. Hunters bring Utility Dynamics to a group.
Hopefully, I can share some useful insight and anecdotes. Even if we're just a surly Dwarf with a rusty old gun and a Teakettle for a Helmet. I've been here since Beta. You don't scare me. Need to find some more o that Kharnos pale ale before I run out. That's what has me worried...
Learn your class. What we're good at. What we're NOT good at. Know other people's roles. See how they all fit into a 5 man team, a 10 man, 25 man or a 40 man raid. Some fights require our special skills to Tranq / Pull / Misdirect and others can be done by Autoshot then 3 minutes AFK. Other fights have you running around like a madman with traps, rounding up strays, kiting groups, and struggling to stay alive. Depends on the night.
I play an 80 Warrior Tank, an 80 Holy/Shadow Priest, an 80 Fire Mage, a 72 Paladin, a 71 Warlock, and a host of other alts. Helps me understand limitations and anticipate their shortfalls. Healers get busy, Tanks die, DPS can get taken out by AoEs. Foresee where the shortfall will occur and pull the team thru. Do we need help sometimes? Of course we do. I depend on decent healers and talented Tanks to carry threat, take beatings, and keep folks breathing.
I just plan on not being a burden for aggro or a mana sponge for group heals. I kill stuff. I crowd control, I debuff mobs, and distract nasty things away from soft squishy casters. Hunters bring Utility Dynamics to a group.
Hopefully, I can share some useful insight and anecdotes. Even if we're just a surly Dwarf with a rusty old gun and a Teakettle for a Helmet. I've been here since Beta. You don't scare me. Need to find some more o that Kharnos pale ale before I run out. That's what has me worried...
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