The pain… the pain!

I must have a masochistic streak, because I’ve been actually enjoying the wiping, prodding, testing of each boss in Ulduar… within reason (but I’ll explain what I mean by that shortly).

There’s been some guild drama this week over what direction we want to take the guild in for Ulduar for a couple of reasons. One is right now all the guildy-come-latelies have been logging back on, clambering for raid spots, and willfully ignoring that they completely abandoned the guild this last month or two. Now new content is out and it’s just like WoW was paused in their absence, right?

As you can imagine, with all these people intent on raiding we’ve been trying 25man Ulduar fitfully. Three times this lockout period we’ve gone in and only managed to down Flame Leviathan, with an ungodly number of wipes of Razorscale. Let’s not even talk about Emalon.

I think people are finally coming around to my conclusion that the approximately 15 geared, regular raiders can’t carry the others through Uld25. Not at this juncture at least. We need to focus on 10man if we’re going to do any progression. Of course, the pendulum swung the other way, and to compensate we wasted way too much time on old content. Naxx25 was cleared (BoH went to a Ret Pally new to raiding, lawl roll system), OS25 cleared with no drakes of course, and Malygos25 downed as well.

Two weeks ago this would have been routine, but honestly, we shouldn’t even be touching Tier7 content. Outside of maybe Malygos25, which is 226 gear, there’s no reason to run those raids.

Honestly, we’ve been running Naxx for almost four months now. If you’re not almost completely 213 geared, something is wrong.

But I digress! On a positive note, Uld10 has been a great success compared to 25. FL, Razorscale, and XT-002 down, and down in such a way that we should be able to easily replicate the kill the following week. XT-002 itself was very fun to learn, despite the repair bills.

For those who haven’t tried him, a quick explanation: Our group make up was me tanking; two hunters, a mage, fury warrior, a rouge, and shadow priest dpsing; and two resto druids and one holy priest healing. We tanked XT on the stairs, his back facing the raid. The big thing with this fight is it’s a dps race, you want to kill him as soon as possible because the fight gets unwieldy as it goes on (nevermind the enrage timer).

Initially, we had two tanks, myself and a DK (who’s main is one of the hunters). He was MTing and I was grabbing the Pummelers during the add phase, and using Divine Sacrifice during the first tantrum to make it a bit easier. We were having DPS issues though, and ultimately we came to the conclusion that it just made sense to do only one tank, because the Pummelers hit very lightly and they tend to head right for the boss when they spawn anyway. No need for a separate OT just for them. In addition the extra dps would help with keeping the scrapbots away from XT.

Aside: XT’s voice? Hilarious.

We wiped like 8 times on the initial set up, getting closer each time, and then on the second attempt with only one tank, we killed him. The trick was just moar deeps. Basically whenever the heart appeared, everyone focused it while being careful not to destroy it (because that would trigger hard mode). With the extra dps we could push the boss to the first heart drop (75%) without a tantrum, dps the heart so he’d be at 51% when reformed, then quickly push him over 50% to avoid another tantrum.

Killing XT was exhilarating, and definitely what raiding in Ulduar should be like. No mindlessly optimistic wipefests, ignoring that obvious fact that the numbers are against, but instead being smart about it and raiding at the appropriate level. Once we know the fights and have better gear all around, then we’ll roll into 25man with a vengeance.

In case you’re wondering, loot was the Pulsing Spellshield and the Treacherous Shoulderpads.

So that was Saturday night, and last night we decided to ignore Ignis (have they fixed that yet?) and try the Assembly of Iron. We proceeded through the first few trash pulls, having fun with the craziness of figuring out for the first time what each mob does (Runed Flame Jets ftl) and wandered around a bit looking for the Assembly of Iron (rather than look it up).

Hilarity ensued when Demo, the warrior tank, dashed up the stairs and was one shot by the face boss (er, Kologarn) not even knowing he was there. That was a well-needed laugh.

Ambled down the corridor with the various projections of planets and killed the trash there, which dropped some tank gloves. Demo and I did our wonder out loud who this is best for, and eventually decided to both greed and let fate decide. He won them, and I’m glad he did, turns out they were a better upgrade for him than me. Plus it would have broken my four set bonus, and that’d be a pain.

So eventually we made it down the right hallway to the Assembly of Iron. At this point it was probably 11:30 (we started raid late after doing OS and some aforementioned nonsense wiping on Emalon and Razorscale). The basic of the fight were explained and we gave it a first probing try. Steelbreaker went down but we had some issues with Overload and wiped. Not a problem, now we know what to fix. Next try, Steelbreaker goes down, I peel Molgeim off of Demo and drag him back to my corner. Mo casts a gigantic Rune of Death (like consecrate on ‘roids) and that eats me. Didn’t even know that existed!

Ok, so try again–Rune of Death isn’t a big problem now that we’re looking for it. But it wasn’t perfect so we wiped. Getting closer each time, we can totally do this. Last few attempts were getting late, but towards the end we got Mo down, but were running up against the enrage. Last attempt we had Bruundir at 70% when he enraged.

One thing I’ll do tonight to make this a little better is be smart about Rune of Power positionings. Every so often Mo casts this circle of blue light under one of his two buddies or himself that gives a 50% damage increase. I’ve been pulling Steelbreaker/Mo off them, but haven’t been positioning them as optimally for the dps. I think a big key to this fight is treating them like Malygos sparks and maximizing how much dps can be pumped out using those Runes of Power.

The other thing that might make the fight easier is having the third healer be dps specced and just off heal for the first phase, and then switch to full dps for phases 2/3 where healing doesn’t need to be as intense.

I’m fully confident we’ll down him tonight.

Postscript: After this weekend I’ve come to the conclusion that I really, really need to get my ret set together and in order. It just makes sense that, if a boss only requires one tank, rather than being dead weight in a 10man raid I could swap to Retribution and contribute more than just shield slam deeps.

First night in Ulduar brings the pain

I logged on last night to some good news: one, that the instance servers were much, much more stable than they’ve been in the last few days, and two, apparently no one was saved from the guild’s two previous Ulduar attempts because they never got a shot at the Flame Leviathan. This was promising because it meant putting together a 10man would be a little easier.

As the two group leaders were wrangling in officer chat over who would take whom, it was proposed that, hell, since so many people were on we should try 25man Ulduar.

In hindsight this was a terrible idea.

But, first, some initial impressions. Ulduar, from what I’ve seen so far, is an awesome place. The scope is amazing, the art is gorgeous, and the design is fun in a way few instances in WoW are. The vehicle part, which I thought would be an annoying clusterfark was actually a nice change of pace (although I can definitely see it getting old a few months from now when we have the place on farm).

FL was basically a loot piñata, we wiped once while learning the mechanics, and the second time were easily took it out while only causing one system shutdown. The loot was a dps mail piece, cloth dps gloves, and the Leviathan’s Coil. Alas, Fortune did not smile and that delicious morsel went to Taunty the DK tank. Grrr.

At least I got my first Emblem of Conquest. 57 more until I can buy a T8 piece…

After Flame Leviathan, I was absolutely shocked to see there was only one trash pull between us and Ignis, and then no trash before Razorscale. I could see XT in the distance, but I didn’t see trash. Is any back there?

In any case, we decided to do Razorscale, since concerns were raised if Ignis was still bugging out and meleeing whoever was in the slag pot. Personally, I was really curious and wanted to see if that trash was as hurty as it’s been said. Considered a quick ninja pull, but then decided that’d probably not end well. Oh well. Next time, I suppose.

Now overall, Razorscale was a massive pain the butt. We never managed to down him because we were having major dps issues (at least, in my opinion). The way the fight goes is that during the air phase Iron Dwarves emerge from drill pods randomly in the area, three at a time. Tanks need to pick up the adds when they pop near them before the adds kill the fleshy dwarves that are trying to fix the harpoon guns.

Occasionally an Iron Vrykul comes out of a pod (you can tell cause they are much taller than the dwarves) and proceeds to whirlwind all your melee and healers. Once we figured out the deal with those guys, they soon began evoking “SENTINEL” cries of horror in vent.

While in the air, Razorscale will launch fireballs at the raid, and some of those fireballs will leave a blue aoe flame. These things hurt a lot and are impossible to heal through. Of course, despite “Don’t stand in the bad shite” being a primary lesson of WoW since before TBC, we still had a lot of unnecessary deaths to the stupid flames.

I think our major issue was the gear in our guild right now isn’t up to par with what Ulduar25 requires. I mean, Uld25 is generally iLevel 226 encounters, at least, that’s the gear expectation. Most of the people in my guild are mostly decked out with iLevel 200 gear with a smattering of 213. Only a few of us are full 213 with some 226 stuff from Maly/KT.

We really need to focus on Ulduar 10 for now, where our gear is a better fit. Then, when we know the fights and we have a healthy amount of iLevel 119 gear, we’ll come back to 25man with a screaming and terrible vengeance.

We can do it, just need to build up a little and break ourselves free of the complacency that Naxx falsely insulated us with. Training wheels are off!

Lastly, after the Razorscale wipes some people had to go, so we went to Emalon and proceeded to wipe on that too because we didn’t have enough dps to kill the overcharged adds.

I’m starting to sense a pattern here, haha.

The inevitable malaise of tier 7 content

The last few months has been my first major raiding experience in the entire (off and on) multi-year period I’ve been playing WoW. In vanilla WoW I mostly quested and only at the end did I set foot in one Onyxia raid and a few UBRS runs (on my old hunter). In TBC I only did 10 man raids and only really got as far as the first four bosses of ZA down.

In WotLK however, I have done all the raid content except for Sarth 2d & 3d (either 10 or 25). Blizz opening up the raid content has definitely benefitted me, and while I doubt I really needed “ezmode” to progress (more like a decently sized and focused guild), I’m very happy with how I’ve done in this raid environment.

Now the guild I’m in, Enveloping Shadows, has been doing 25 man raids since around December and I’ve apparently downed heroic KT 13 times (according to the Armory). I hardly think these are the kinds of blistering hardcore raiding statistics that would foreshadow mass burnout, and yet that seems to be what’s plaguing ES.

As of late we’ve had major difficulties putting together 25man raids. Whereas in the past we had people clamoring to get in, now we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel and even pugging. Apparently some people have gotten to the point where they got what they wanted from Naxx or wherever and have dropped off the face of the earth until the next content patch–maybe.

One particular holy Paladin joined the guild after pugging with us on a Naxx25 run. She was there for several KT kills, and over time accumulated a Voice of Reason, a Turning Tide, and a t7.5 helm. Each time she won the item over a Pally who was already in the guild. Two weeks ago, after getting the helm, she stopped logging on. And now the original Pally is in the raids, still healing when needed, but with much worse gear.

It’s annoying selfishness to say the least.

In other cases we’ve had players that definitely still need loot in Naxx, but just stopped logging in. They’re clearly burned out at the moment. One player decided to quit WoW forever and put all his possessions in the guild bank and passed 10k gold to the guild leader.

I’m not burned out myself, I’m finding ways to keep busy–be they abortive raid achievement attempts or screwing around with a new mage alt–all while eagerly awaiting Ulduar. Other tasks I’ve decided to pursue to keep myself busy are accumulating the full T2 set, farming a Disgusting Oozling, and laying the material foundations for eventually constructing a Thunderfury.

Like I said, definitely not burned out. I’m probably one of the few dopes in the guild that finds Naxx fun and exciting still. But, nonetheless, wtb Ulduar pronto!

New Ulduar tank trinkets revealed

Holy hell, is Blizzard trying to escape the surly bonds of earth and touch the face of dodge diminishing returns or what?

Check these out (from mmo-champion.com):

This is a serious upgrade to Monarch Crab. Right now I have my crab gemmed with a Solid Sky Sapphire and a Solid Dragon’s Eye, so it’s giving me 138 stamina and has the on-use proc for 300. The Heart is definitely a bump up on both counts.

This is like the Essence of Gossamer without the stamina. It’s nice, but I’d rather have the Heart of Iron. This is definitely a better fit in a trash set, since 205 damage being shaved off won’t be that much help when you’re taking multi-thousand HP hits.

But let’s talk about dodge. Right now I have 305 dodge rating, or 21% dodge. It’s not that much, but I’m already feeling my returns a-diminishing.

With these two trinkets equipped and procced, I’m looking at some serious lost dodge. I’m terrible at math but it looks like around 4% avoidance will just outright disappear.

How much avoidance are we going to see on gear in T9?