Ow, my face

He exclaimed, after hitting the brick wall.

Actually, I’m being too harsh. Wednesday’s raid went extraordinarily well. We one shot Ignis again, despite some hecticness with the add management. Out of the three people that handle the adds (myself, another tank, and a boomkin for rooting/zapping them) only I was on vent. So it was really hard to coordinate the tanking and the rooting, and the zapping. Very messy but we got ‘im down.

And then we headed over to Freya with the memory fresh in our minds of last weeks roflstomping at the hands of her voluminous trash. Last time around it took us around an hour so to clear out all her little buddies, and then we had trash respawns come up during out 8 or so attempts. Total shit show.

This week however we did much, much better. Trash was cleared out in about 20 minutes with no accidental body pulls of Elder Stonebark or additional trash coming in to join the fun. CC was cleanly done and reapplied on the fly with little trouble. Altogether, it definitely was a good portent of how the night would go.

When we finally got to Freya we adopted the strategy of if the fight turned sour (like two waves of adds at the same time) we’d run out to reset it. We ended up doing this a few times initially because we had a couple of new folks who didn’t know the fight. After the first handful of false starts we got our house in order and pushed the fight all the way up to right before the last phase. She had about 30 or so stacks left and the last wave of adds were almost dead, but we lost a few folks, didn’t kill them in time and a wave of detonators was summoned.

Shouldn’t have been a big deal, we finished the wave that held us up, started to down the detonators, and then all of a sudden a green flash and most of the raid was dead. Turns out the stacks were reduced to 0 after that last pack of adds, so she dropped the exploded pods everywhere while we were occupied with the detonators. Woops.

After that attempt, with revenge searing in our hearts, we then went and took her out in one clean go. It was a thing of beauty, every add was reduced to the proper health percentage and targets switched like we called out. Detonators were killed quickly, but slowly enough that healers didn’t fall behind. And no one died to explodey pods. Always a plus.

With Freya freed from the whammy and having bid us adieu, we cracked open her cache and distributed the loot. Among the booty was the token for my tier 8.5 legs which I bid 100 dkp on, though truthfully wasn’t really interested in winning. For one I think we can all agree that the 4 piece bonus is unmitigated crap, so that had no bearing on my decision. Moreover, I’m pretty enamored with the EH of the Saronite Plated Legguards. Lastly, I’d rather not tank in a dress. As a blood elf, that’s a little… on the nose… dontcha think?

In any case, as luck would have it (and I mean that sarcastically) I won the legs. I immediately pawned them off to the #2 bidder who would get much, much more use out of them. Lesson learned: don’t bid on gear you’re wishy-washy on.

After Freya the next logical step was Thorim so we headed over to his (thankfully) trash lite hallway and forced our way into the arena.

Right now Thorim is totally and completely our brick wall. Like Hodir I am beyond confident that its not ability keeping us from his cache, but execution. We’re having serious issues with Evokers overrunning the arena and making it impossible to kill trash. Demo and I did a lot of research, and I think the next time we head in there we can do it. I’ll post more on the strategy if it works.

Even if we don’t down Thorim, this has definitely been our best week in Ulduar to date.

Best raid night in a while

Last night was hands down the best raid night we’ve had in a while. Consider this: last week on Tuesday we downed up to Kolo, save Ignis. Then Wednesday we did Auriaya and Hodir. Last night we did FL, Razorscale, XT, Iron Council, Auriaya, and Hodir. That’s right, we did in one night all the bosses we did in two last week.

Definitely a nice antidote to worries that like to fester in the dark recesses of your mind after a bad raid night (like Sunday was). Yeah, this is basically farm content, but we’re improving to the point where we’ve knocked out all the farm bosses in one night, rather than two. That’s definitely progress.

Sidenote: Patch 3.1 came out on April 14th. It’s been 2 months and 10 days since the patch dropped, and thus what, 10 FL kills? Not once have we seen Titanguard. I think at this rate I’ll see Sorthalis before I see that sword. (But I digress from my whining!)

This is most certainly a huge step up from a month ago when every raid seemed to be a limbo contest. Despair had set in, some of the more gloomy gusses (myself included) were typing the introductory sentences in the guild obituary. Basically, things looked like they were on a downward spiral.

Thanks to the efforts of a few of us who took the reins–well, mostly Demo… he’s the brains in this operation, and I’m more the Natasha to his Boris–the guild is once again on the upswing. Last night just proved that.

Falowin likes to make fun of Demo’s optimism every so often by declaring in raids that “god himself cannot stop us” whenever we’re on a roll. In this case I think he may be right.

Lastly, a hilarious MT in guild chat last night. I’m sticking this under a read more tag because it’s kinda crude. Name’s hidden to protect the guilty.

[...]

Fights I love: Elder Stonebark

One of the best things about Ulduar is the fact that the trash requires a little more than the traditional tank and spank. Now, Elder Stonebark obviously isn’t trash (being equivalent to Sartharion’s drake minions) but the same principle applies. You don’t just sit there and occassionally hop in a portal.

No, this guy you kite.

Elder Stonebark has this lovely ability called Fists of Stone which he’ll cast on average twice in the fight. When he applies this to himself, his melee hits can apply the Broken Bones debuff. All and all, this equals a dead tank.

As Paladins though, we are uniquely equipped to deal with this eventuality. The trick is to sit far back from the fight, at max range for your taunt. When you see Stonebark casting Fists of Stone (using Quartz is very helpful for this), taunt and make a run for it.

Take him back along the lake behind you, and along the shore towards the door. Don’t go too far because Stonebark will despawn if he gets too close to the entrance to the Conservatory of Life.

Fists of Stone lasts for 10 seconds, so the original tank should be prepared to taunt back as soon as it’s safe.

Lastly, always remember to strafe away rather than keep your back to him. You’ll be able to use some avoidance assuming you don’t have Broken Bones. (And keep your Divine Protection handy, just in case).

There’s definitely something to be said about a fight you tank by running away.

Foolsss… save the one in the dress!

Alas, I forgot to upload a screenshot last night (so you’ll have to take my word for it) but we totally destroyed Hodir last night. Complete one shot, and all because of a new strategy.

I swear that’s always the way too–an encounter seems impossible and you spend so much time slamming your head up against it, but then you change one stupid thing and suddenly the fight is a cakewalk.

What we did differently this time is only free the mages. Doing so gives you so much more dps time on Hodir, thanks to the mages freeing the other frozen npcs for you. The only downside is that they won’t free anything out of range, so you’ll probably lose a few npcs before the end of the fight.

Another key strategy (actually part and parcel to the first) is to mark the two mages so dps can free them as soon as possible after each Flash Freeze. Use this macro (if Horde) to mark the npcs and not the ice block that encases them:

/tar Amira Blazeweaver
/script SetRaidTarget(“target”,8)
/tar Veesha Blazeweaver
/script SetRaidTarget(“target”,7)

Substitute Missy Flamecuffs and Sissy Flamecuffs for Alliance.

It might also be a good idea to mark any Boomkins you have in raid so they don’t get ignored thinking by raiders assuming they’re npcs.

But yeah, I was pleasantly surprised by how easy Hodir was with this new strategy. I think it’s safe to say he’s squarely on farm status after only one drop.

As for loot, the Conqueror’s chest token dropped and I burnt 166 dkp on winning it. The price was a bit much but honestly there’s not many drops left in Ulduar25 I really want outside of the currently inaccessible (T8.5 shoulders, Boreal Guard, Libram) so I can afford to splurge my dkp a little. Saves up some emblems for me as well to spend on the vendor gear.

Why I love Rogues (a raid recap)

This is Falowin (also known in our guild and among the ranks of the Dark Touched Warriors as “Failowin”). I promised him in my previous post I’d write a little bit on the topic of “why I love Rogues” if he made the raid that night. He did, and unfortunately I didn’t manage to capture a screenshot of his corpse at any point, so I’ll have to deliver on the topic in haiku form.

Fail to win, he says!
Like a Forsaken carpet
He keeps the floor warm

My kidding aside, he’s actually really good dps. And he doesn’t die as much as he used to. Always a plus!

But, I digress. As to the raid recap …

We started Tuesday, as most raid weeks are wont to do, but in a slight panic. 8pm server hit and we only had 20 raiders on, which made the chances of the raid that night look somewhat bleak. We decided the best course of action was 20man FL and hope that a few more people hop on by the time it dies so we can keep going.

Thankfully luck was on our side and we had 25 people before we even pulled FL. The last few trash clears before the Leviathan consisted of people logging on, saying in guild chat “any room in raid?” and being quickly /invited.

So we had our full raid group and quickly downed Flame Lev. But, for the umpteenth week in a row Titanguard refused to drop. Alas. Maybe next week (when I have more dkp than Demo…).

In any case, Tuesday was a banner opening raid night for us, because we overcame the initial rough start and proceeded to steam roll right through Razorscale, XT, Iron Council, Kolo, and Auriaya.

Then with a decent amount of time left we turned out sights on Hodir. I enforced my rule about not leaving trash pulls up because I know, deep down in that shriveled black nugget I call a heart, that some knucklehead is going to bound right into one of those puffing snow mounds after a Hodir wipe, and we’re all going to have to each another 10% dura loss because they weren’t paying attention.

You better believe I body pulled every snow mound from the first pull to Hodir’s cavern.

Once we were at Hodir we kind of reinforced our previous strategy (as much as we had one) and put in a few attempts. Our best shot got him to 20%, which obviously meant we were doing something right (not completely though, there are some changes we need to make to our approach). But, after about an hour or so of wiping, tempers were flaring among some of the guild’s more… impatient… raiders. One of them declared in guild chat “F[e]ck progression. F[e]ck.” And then DC’d. Hrm.

In any case, we put in a few more attempts, but it was getting late, so we called it.

Still not a bad night, and more importantly, I was then 3 badges away from my Conqueror’s Aegis Faceguard.

Then last night we had something of the same issue, 8pm server time hit, and only 20ish raiders were on. With WG in Alliance hands we decided just to form raid, go plug away at Freya’s tree buddies, and wait for the last few souls to come on before we moved to Hodir.

Before we even pulled the first tree miniboss, the raid filled up. We stayed the course and downed the three (giving me my last 3 emblems, woo hoo) and then with all the trash cleared a consensus formed of “hey let’s give Freya a try.”

Surprisingly, the fight is very easy if you can manage the three pack that she summons. The way we handled it was I held Storm Lasher and the Ancient Water Spirit, and a druid tank grabbed Snaplasher and pulled it away. We nuked my two adds to 20% or so, then swapped to Snap and took it out, then switched back to my two to finish the pack off.

We had some initial difficulty, but once people realized how to moderate their dps, and learned to pay attention to the random healing tree that would spawn, we started making progress. We probably had two bad learning wipes, then one really close attempt (Freya had 30 stacks of attunement left when we died), then on the fourth shot we had a flawless execution on all the add summons and took her down. Our first 25man Keeper kill (so to speak)!

Two pairs of the Warrior/Hunter/Shaman pants dropped, which is honestly for the best. I need to get the Saronite Plated Legguards so I can justify to myself passing over the T8.5 dress.

After the rejoicing following downing Freya we hopped over to Wintergrasp and downed Emalon for some extra emblems and to nab some more tier pieces. I know that between Freya and Emalon one hunter got two tier pieces that night.

And of course, the second people stopped paying attention to me, I slipped away back to Dal and grabbed my new helm.

Hawt.

After WG we headed back to Ulduar (disjointed, I know) and gave Ignis a few shots. We initially had some difficulty, but at my suggestion Demo and I swapped spots (him tanking Ignis, I helping with adds) and thanks to his extra cooldown and better survivability (in addition to the syngergy I can give the raid with Divine Sacrifice/Hand of Sacrifice), and my natural acumen dealing with adds, we downed him easily.

Obviously it’s pretty disappointing that the raid was at a disadvantage with me tanking Ignis, but I’m not going to gimp everyone for the sake of my own ego. This is just the state Pally tanking in Ulduar is right now, alas.

Ultimately, it was an awesome night all around. Lots of people got loot, a few people (including yours truly) got their T8 2-set bonuses, and most importantly it gave the guild fresh hope that with a little elbow grease we can meet any challenge in Ulduar in due time.

Hard-mode FL 10man down

Last night Uld25 didn’t happen (which is baffling… it was Wednesday!) so after levelling a bit with the DK I was asked if I wanted to try hard-mode Flame Leviathan in 10 man. We attempted it once beforehand, half-heartedly, just to see what it was like. We left the Freya tower up, which turned out to be somewhat difficult.

This time we left the Hodir tower up which wasn’t as bad as some descriptions make it out to be. Basically the three changes are: all our vehicles move 20% slower, FL gets 50% more health (giving it around 34 million hp), and these two roaming columns of white light randomly chase down someone and attempt to freeze them in place. If you stay constantly moving they’re cake to avoid.

The biggest thing about this is shutting down FL as often as possible. That means the fight starts with people getting tossed up, you’ll have a shutdown less than a minute in,  have bikes retrieve catapultees and bring them back to be relaunched as soon as FL starts moving again.

Also one of the deciding factors on that last attempt was when Cen hopped off his bike and into my demolisher to nab me a pyrite barrel, that gave me 5 more pyrite rounds for the last shutdown, which definitely knocked a major chunk of health out.

The best part of it all? Hard mode drops 2 Emblems of Conquest! I am now 11 emblems away from my T8 helm.

When to use Divine Sacrifice in Ulduar

You do have Divine Sacrifice in your build, right?

If not, and you raid often, you should. Primarily, the reason why is that Divine Sacrifice (DS for the purpose of this post) has the potential to be a raid saver at several occasions (especially in Ulduar) and gives a better return on that one talent point investment than any of the other “bridge” talents that bring us deeper into the Prot tree. That is, it’s better than shaving 20 secs from an interrupt, or Reckoning, for obvious reasons.

Admittedly, the spell is much more flexible while offtanking (one of the ways that Blizzard has been subtlely reaffirming tankadins as trash tanks), but as I’ve mentioned before, in 25man I tend to offtank more often than not. As such, here are times when I typically pop DS in Ulduar:

XT-002: During the Tympanic Tantrum use Divine Sacrifice to reduce the damage everyone takes from 80% of their total health to only 56%. This was a much bigger deal when Tantrum did 120% of everyone’s health, and DSing reduced damage to 84%, but your healers will still thank you. This is also probably one of the few times you can get away with bubbling while maintanking, as XT stops meleeing during a tantrum and will only turn to face the highest aggro. You just need to be careful to remove bubble asap once the tantrum is over and make sure you have XT’s attention.

Assembly of Iron: If you kill Brundir last, whenever he goes up the air to follow people around, run nearby and pop DS if too many people get caught under the lightning storm.

Kologarn: This happens quickly, but if you’re fast enough you can probably use DS to eat 30% of one Shockwave, which can do up to 16k nature damage to each raid member in 25man.

Auriaya: Assuming your group is stacked up well you’re going to still take some heavy damage from Sonic Screech (on Heroic mode I would say between 5500-6500 damage is a good split). Give your healers some breathing room by shaving that down a little.

Hodir: Frozen Blows does raid wide frost damage. While this should be mitigated somewhat by Frost Aura/resist gear, it’s still helpful to shave off some raid damage.

Freya: The only major high-raid damage part of this fight is when the main little adds spawn and explode when killed. Sometimes the dps gets a tad overzealous and can wipe the raid by killing to many lashers at once. DS makes that zeal a little less threatening.

Mimiron: In this case you’ll want to use DS to help out whoever is tanking Mimiron during the plasma blasts. You can use Hand of Sacrifice and Divine Sacrifice on two different plasma blasts to help the maintank live through those very high damage instances. If you have the abilities off cooldown, you might also want to use them during Phase 2 when there’s no aggro and the potential for some nasty hits is a huge possibility.

Handy macro! Lastly, I have my Divine Shield macroed as:

/cancelaura Divine Sacrifice
/cancelaura Divine Shield
/cast Divine Shield

(I can probably combine lines 1 and 2 with a comma, I suspect.)

When I intend to pop Divine Sacrifice, I hit my bubble macro first applying Divine Shield. GCD ticks and then I hit Divine Sacrifice. When I want to drop bubble/DS/both I hit the bubble macro again and both are cancelled. I never want Divine Sacrifice active without Divine Shield, so this makes sure both are off at the same time.

Now I turn it to you guys. Any times you pop DS in Ulduar that I didn’t list here?

The power of dkp, and a bonus story of delightful irony

So it’s official, my guild runs DKP. Were this a few months ago, I might be disappointed to report such a development, but today I’m actually quite happy. As you could tell from my raid recaps lately we’ve had major attendance issues, and after the last few nights I am feeling positive about DKP’s ability to fix these issues.

Sure, we’ve hit the same hiccups you’d expect from a guild adopting DKP for the first time. We had the dissenting quarters, populated mostly by those that raided very seldom and liked the thought that they could hop in once a week and maybe snag a purple. Which is all well and good, but ultimately this laissez faire attitude was hurting the guild and progression.

I look at DKP from the perspective of a hardened pragmatist. Human beings are rational creatures, and invariably will act in their perceived self-interest. Likewise, WoW players will act in a way that will maximize their loot intake. If a player knows that they’ll get the same amount of loot raiding one night a week then they will do that. However, shake up the system like we did and make it so raiding one night a week supresses how much loot you get on that one day (rather than having an even shot with everyone else in the raid) and they will be compelled to raid more often.

It’s simple economics.

There have already been several comments by guildmembers saying something along the line of “when’s the next raid?”, “does x raid I never attend give DKP?”, and so on. They feel compelled to accumulate the green points, to maximize their shot at loot, and will act accordingly.

We did Naxx25 as the inaugural raid for the new system and it went very, very well. Looting was smooth and very, very fast. No multiple rounds of calling for rolls, just one box pops up. Everyone puts in their maximum bid and the system resolves winners eBay-style. Whatever doesn’t get bid on comes up for a second round of offspec bidding. I’d go so far as to say it’s flawless thus far.

Only worry I can perceive of is (1) dealing with recruitment when people will come in and find themselves at the bottom of a DKP pile, and (2) dealing with raiders ceasing to attend raids once they are sitting on a fat pile of points. We’ll have to see how those two situations operate when and if they appear.

Now for a funny ironic story:

We have this one raiding healer who I’ve mentioned in the past. She was first mentioned on these pages for disappearing once she snagged most of the loot she wanted from Naxx25, and only recently reappeared in the week or two before Ulduar came out. I don’t think it’s unfair to characterize her attitude as selfish. We’ve had issues finishing Naxx25 in one night this last month, and when told we probably wouldn’t devote a second night to old content, she informed the guild she only runs Naxx for the chance to get a ring from Kel’Thuzad.

Gee, thanks. Screw gearing up folks to help the guild, right?

So on Wednesday we scheduled a Naxx25 so we could fine tune the DKP system and not let it hamper an Ulduar run. Seems reasonable, I thought. Well, like I said, despite it being an exceptionally smooth Naxx run, she bailed out after Maexxna (our first wing), probably assuming we’d stall after two wings like the last few weeks. And a boss later we noticed she was in Obsidian Sanctum.

Okay…

We continued through Naxx, steamrolling everything in our path, and once at the last wing I noticed she was still in OS. They must be working on 3D, I suspected. I /who’d her fiance who is not in our guild, and he was in Naxx as well. She dropped a guild raid to do a PuG achievement run in OS.

And not long after the achievement for 2D popped up in guild chat. No one grats her as far as I can recall.

So the point where irony kicks in is, and I’m sure you’ve seen this coming (and you especially see it coming now that I’ve foreshadowed the shocking twist), we downed KT and the Signet of Manifested Pain dropped.

Sweet revenge! Four different people linked it in guild chat to flaunt it.

More so, we did Ulduar last night and Ignis dropped the Pyrelight Circle (and the Heart of Iron, woooo). Because she skipped out on Naxx, she didn’t have near enough DKP to compete with the other people that rolled on it, and lost that ring as well.

The lesson here, kids? Be loyal to your guild, or irony’s gonna git you.

(Lastly, before I get ambushed by an English major, I know that story wasn’t technically irony… but I’m lazy and it’s so much easier to type that than “unfortunate coincidence” so many times.)

EZ Mode XT-002

So, am I the only one who just found out this week that you can totally trivialize the Deconstructor fight by tanking him between two piles on either the east or west wall?

I read this somewhere (maybe Wowhead?) and proposed it Tuesday, and boy did it work wonders. The two piles its between will never spawn adds, so Scrapbots had so far to go they never made it to the boss. I had plenty of time to grab the large bots before they went after the healers, and the ranged dps had plenty of time to nuke the bomb bots from afar.

Is this intentional on Blizzard’s part? Seems way too easy to not be a bug.

Ulduar tankadin best-in-slot+2 gear list

In this guide I am going to lay out the best in slot gear for prot pallies, as well as the next best two pieces. When choosing what gear I thought was best I gave primary weight to avoidance stats over mitigation stats, so you’re more likely to see dodge/parry gear favored over block rating/value gear. Gem slots gave pieces extra weight as well. Please let me know in the comments what you think!

Head

1. Conqueror’s Aegis Faceguard (H Thorim or 58 Emblems of Conquest)
2. Helm of the Faceless (H General Vezax)
3. Valorous Aegis Faceguard (N Mimiron)

Neck

1. Bronze Pendant of the Vanir (H Freya, Hard Mode)
2. Nexus Champion’s War Beads (Reward: Heroic Judgement at the EoE)
3. Shard of the Crystal Forest (19 Emblems of Conquest)

Shoulders

1. Conqueror’s Aegis Shoulderguards (H Yogg Saron)
2. Shoulderplates of the Deconstructor (H XT-002)
3. Valorous Aegis Shoulderguards (N Thorium)

Cloak

1. Titanskin Cloak (H Mimiron, Hard Mode)
2. Cloak of the Makers (H Auriaya)
3. Platinum Mesh Cloak (25 Emblems of Valor)

Chest

1. Conqueror’s Aegis Breastplate (H Hodir or 58 Emblems of Conquest)
2. Unbreakable Chestguard (H Auriaya)
3. Valorous Aegis Breastplate (N Yogg Saron)

Wrist

1. Mimiron’s Inferno Couplings (H Flame Leviathan)
2. Bracers of the Unholy Knight (H Instructor Razuvious)
3. Flamewatch Armguards (N Flame Leviathan)

Gloves

1. Handguards of Revitalization (H Freya, Hard Mode)
2. Conqueror’s Aegis Handguards (H Mimiron)
3. Gauntlets of the Royal Watch (28 Emblems of Conquest)

Waist

1. Indestructible Plate Girdle (Crafted)
2. Shieldwarder Girdle (28 Emblems of Conquest)
3. Stormtempered Girdle (N Razorscale)

Legs

1. Legplates of the Endless Void (H Algalon, random Hard Mode bosses)
2. Conqueror’s Aegis Legguards (H Freya)
3. Saronite Plated Legguards (H Kologarn)

Feet

1. Spiked Deathdealers (Crafted)
2. Charred Saronite Greaves (H Ignis)
3. Greaves of the Stonewarder (H Trash Drop)

Weapon

1. Sorthalis, Hammer of the Watchers (H XT-002, Hard Mode)
2. Titanguard (H Flame Leviathan)
3. Shiver (N Hodir, Hard Mode)

Shield

1. The Boreal Guard (N Hodir, Hard Mode)
2. Wall of Terror (H Kel-Thuzad)
3. Hero’s Surrender (H Patchwerk)

Relic

1. Libram of the Sacred Shield (H General Vezax)
2. Libram of Obstruction (25 Emblems of Heroism)

Rings

1. Fate’s Clutch (H Thorim, Hard Mode)
2. The Leviathan’s Coil (H Flame Leviathan)
3. Platinum Band of the Aesir (H Auriaya)
4. Signet of the Earthshaker (H XT-002)
5. Signet of Winter (N Hodir)

Trinkets (not including profession trinkets)

1. Heart of Iron (H Ignis)
2. Royal Seal of King Llane (N Yogg Saron)
3. Furnace Stone (N Ignis)
4. The General’s Heart (H General Vezax)