tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71012354027271969952024-03-14T00:42:31.261-07:00A Bear in the TreesRandomness quantified by a Druid.
A little bit about life, WoW, and everything in between.Kaethirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16328588369398109846noreply@blogger.comBlogger118125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7101235402727196995.post-37619232703253793222012-10-04T06:54:00.001-07:002012-10-04T06:54:25.341-07:00Signing offWith two children under age 3, and twin boys on the way...<div>
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Well, I haven't been playing for about the last month, and once my year subscription comes out I'll be cancelling my account for the foreseeable future.</div>
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It was fun, and I'm glad I was finally able to down the final boss of an expansion prior to the release of the next, but it's time.</div>
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Hopefully, I'll have time to play again in the future, but for now, this is Kaethir, signing off.</div>
Kaethirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16328588369398109846noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7101235402727196995.post-37039249981784257042012-05-03T19:41:00.001-07:002012-05-03T19:42:35.471-07:00Kaethir, Destroyer's EndI have actually defeated the final boss of the penultimate raid of an expansion prior to the release of the next expansion...<br />
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I'm so cool...Kaethirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16328588369398109846noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7101235402727196995.post-8898562014844032532012-03-30T07:19:00.002-07:002012-03-30T07:19:21.248-07:00BlipContrary to popular opinion, I haven't died.<br />
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But the crush of work + children + family + Oh Em Gee where did all my time go combined with a general lack of anything that pushed me to write about has been overwhelming.<br />
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In WoW-related news, EA downed Ragnaros last night. Yeah, I know. We also made it to Madness of Deathwing for the first time.<br />
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*gasp* *shock* *awe*. I know.<br />
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Hope to be writing more soon!<br />
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Cheers!Kaethirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16328588369398109846noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7101235402727196995.post-79898781593754507602011-05-02T09:50:00.000-07:002011-05-02T09:50:33.384-07:00Where did I go?I have a second baby!<br />
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My son was born about 2:45 pm on Easter Sunday.<br />
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Someday, I will have time to write again. Maybe...Kaethirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16328588369398109846noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7101235402727196995.post-90063102785321390492011-01-18T11:33:00.001-08:002011-01-18T11:33:34.057-08:00D to the I to the N to the Ghit 85 last night.<br />
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too busy for more. sorry.<br />
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exhausted bear is exhausted.Kaethirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16328588369398109846noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7101235402727196995.post-51269703287931929852011-01-14T08:15:00.000-08:002011-01-14T08:15:41.412-08:00HibernationI've kind of fallen off the map since October... I mean, it's winter, I'm a Bear, I'm supposed to hibernate, right?<br />
<br />
Real life reared its ugly head (lots and lots of family commitments, amongst other things), combine that with a bit of apathy at our failure to take down Arthas before the end of the expansion (well, our 25-man failure anyway... our primary 10-man group that ran at times I couldn't be available did succeed), and that apathy making me slow to worry about levelling in the new expansion, lots more family commitments, the taking up of StarCraft 2 (blasphemy, I know, to play a non-WoW game...), a few more family commitments, and getting ready to take a nice vacation to the southern Caribbean (which is, in part, another family commitment...) and I've been just a wee bit busy.<br />
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I hit 84 this week, and hope to have 85 down over the weekend, and start into heroics either next week or the week I'm back from vacation.<br />
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And at some point, I'll work on the posts I have started, or maybe come up with some new ones!<br />
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So... it might be a bit, but you should start to see me a little active again...<br />
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Hope everyone had a safe and fun holiday season!Kaethirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16328588369398109846noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7101235402727196995.post-13630538242634103672010-10-21T06:48:00.000-07:002010-10-21T06:48:55.056-07:00Sometimes I surprise even myself...... and if you don't get the reference then you fail, hardcore.<br />
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I just wanted to share a couple of thoughts while my ridiculously busy schedule of ridiculousness keeps me from writing anything meaningful.<br />
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After our bug-filled jaunt into ICC last week, we decided to start fresh this week even though we only got 5 bosses down last week... And due to illness/inability to form coherent sentences/real life causing low attendance/etc, we waited until Wednesday night to go in this week.<br />
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To make a much longer story very short: we smashed 7 bosses (Lower Spire + Fester, Rot, and Princes). A typical first night for us.<br />
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I was surprised by a couple of things during the run, though, that I wanted to share.<br />
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First, remember a few posts back? I said that the death of cat DPS was greatly exaggerated? Boy was I right.<br />
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Now, I realize they thought it was underpowered and made a couple of changes to bump it up. They may have done so even before I posted my previous thoughts. They may have done a little before then, and a little after. I'm here today to confirm that cat DPS is most definitely alive and well, even before the Cataclysm.<br />
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For the first time in my experience, I actually led the DPS chart on a couple of fights. One of them by a good margin.<br />
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At the end of the Saurfang fight I was sporting over 13k DPS. Once I get near my gaming machine again I can try to post up a screenshot - I got one that should show the Recount breakdown to show how much is attributed to melee, Rake, Rip, Shred, and Ferocious Bite. Much like pre-4.0, the breakdown was fairly even - roughly 25% each going to melee, Rip, and Shred, with the remaining 25% divided up among Ravage, Rake, and FB. <br />
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After a top half performance on Rotface, we moved to Festergut. We had a mage leading the chart for most of the fight, but I was a close second until we hit 25%. It is so incredibly liberating to actually have something to do differently when the Raid Leader announces "Kill shot range." Anyway, mere seconds before Fester fell down I passed him, finishing with 12.5k DPS to his 12.3k. The breakdown of damage was shifted slightly. I don't have the screenshots to compare at hand (I will offer more details once I do), but while the same general breakdown showed, it was shifted. (i.e. Rip had the highest percentage on Saurfang, IIRC, and Shred had the highest on Fester, again, unless my memory is failing me.)<br />
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I'm loving Nom Nom Nom, even if it did get the much less cool name Blood in the Water. Once the boss is in range, your life becomes Shred/Rake to 5 CPs, FB, do this two or three times depending on the time left on Savage Roar, then Shred/Rake to 5 CPs and Savage Roar, wash, rinse, repeat and watch the boss die. Since you don't really have to worry about refreshing Rip, the only timer you really have to watch at that point is Savage Roar.<br />
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Speaking of timers, I was moderately more impressed with my output because I haven't been using a debuff tracker addon. Last time I tried to load BadKitty, it was broken, and I haven't checked in the past week or so to see if it was fixed. I suppose it's technically harder to play this way, but given the proclamations of doom and gloom for Kitty DPS I wasn't worried about it until Cata actually dropped. So I was doubly surprised to find myself on top of the chart.<br />
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Moving on... My DPS as a tank seemed relatively high as well. There were even a couple of fights that I beat out a couple of our lower-geared folks that just must have had a bad fight that boss. I dunno *shrug*.<br />
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Speaking of tanking, my single-target threat has been WAY up - to the point where I'm stealing threat from our other tanks if I don't watch it - while my AOE threat has been way down, so-so at best. That 6-second cooldown on Swipe is a pain in my arse. Tab-targeting helps, but having the Pulverize buff fully powered helps as well, and you need to consume 3 stacks of Lacerate to get there, which requires focusing on one target. I still don't have a good handle on how to get and hold AOE threat, but I also realize that I might not have that until Cata comes and we get Thrash.<br />
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In completely unrelated matters, I finally completed the holiday uber-meta. Picked a candy bucket in Telaar and got Achievement spammed... Got my Violet Proto-Drake and danced in the... wait, I already spent 5k gold to get 310% flying. blizz can I have my 5k back? See, what I was reading over the past few weeks (sorry, I'm a bad blogger and don't have sources to link, it's been too long and I don't remember where I read them to begin with, but <a href="http://www.wowwiki.com/Mount">Wowwiki confirms it</a>) said that if you already had a 310% speed mount, you got Master Flying for free, but this was not true if you gained the mount afterward. So, I spent my 5k, and then heard afterward that enough people complained about the holiday meta that they changed it so that it granted the Master flying skill. Thus I curse my impatience but please Blizzard give me my 5k back.<br />
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Anyway.... cheers!Kaethirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16328588369398109846noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7101235402727196995.post-16304317599894046672010-10-15T07:04:00.000-07:002010-10-15T07:04:58.561-07:00Pre-Cata 4.0 Bear ThoughtsSo my guild went in to ICC 25 this week a day late due to the patch, to try to relearn on the go how the game is played, so I got a good look at how to do things bear-wise until Dec. 7th. I was actually pleasantly surprised with a few things, but I thought I'd roll that in to how to Bear in patch 4.0!<br />
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I'll cover all of the abilities in more complete detail in a later set of posts...<br />
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But first off, here is the spec I went with for my first go around...<br />
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<a href="http://wowtal.com/#k=-wbD1zmx.a67.druid.lBHoN">Bear Build for 4.0!</a><br />
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Without the points to get to Perseverance (which I'll want at 85), I actually had one more point to use in the Feral tree than I will when I get that far. We'll have 5 more points then, 2 of which will be in Natural Shapeshifter to get to Tier 2 resto, 3 in Perseverance, and I will find 1 point from somewhere (current odds are to take one out of Stampede) at that point for Master Shapeshifter... but we'll see.<br />
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For now... that looks like a solid build. I have all the points in everything I want in the Feral tree, plus Heart of the Wild. I personally don't think it would be bad, while using 4p t10 armor, to put 3 points in King of the Jungle to enhance Enrage even further for in-combat use, but excepting the tier bonus there's no reason to put points there at all.<br />
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On a side note, the tooltip for the four piece bonus to t10 armor still reads that "Enrage no longer reduces your armor and instead..." I'm hoping they actually updated the mechanic so that it doesn't make you take extra damage, because Enrage no longer reduces armor anyway. Even if they didn't, the bonus makes you take less damage, and more than overcomes the extra damage you take from Enrage anyway, so... I guess it all works out. Anyway, back to the task at hand. <br />
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Tanking seemed... a little clunky to me. Times were, the only rotationally used abilities Bears had on cooldowns were FFF and Mangle. Now we've added Swipe and Maul to the mix, and given us an ability that wants us to build up Lacerate stacks, then remove them, AND an ability that wants us to have Lacerate ticking all the time.<br />
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So, in short, there's more buttons for us to press, and more limitations in how and when to press them. To make matters worse, Maul and Swipe both now cost 30 rage (although Swipe's rage cost is supposed to be coming down, and word is they're reducing the threat generation to match, but keeping the cooldown.) I can't say that I'm entirely pleased with that change - the 6 second cooldown on Swipe is a royal pain - but at least we'll be able to use Swipe at the beginning of a pull for initial aggro now.<br />
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I found myself doing things distinctively different for single-target and AOE pulls, which was... not entirely true previously. For single-target, Mangle and FFF followed by Maul. Maul and Mangle when off cooldown, fill in the space with Lacerates until 3 stacks, then Pulverize. If you have the Pulverize buff up, 3 stacks of Lacerate, and Maul and Mangle are on cooldown... FFF again. If that's also on cooldown... then Swipe, or consider Pulverizing to refresh the buff duration. Doing this, I've been putting out comparatively massive threat - typically outpacing our DK and Warrior tanks. Of course, maybe they just don't have their rotations down yet, or maybe I had rogue/hunter threat help, I don't know for sure.<br />
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For AOE pulls, I tended to start out with Lacerate, Pulverize immediately to have some buff up, then Swipe. From there, I was tab-target Maul, Mangle, and Lacerate wherever I needed threat. Swipe when off cooldown, and Pulverize whenever I could a) eat more stacks of Lacerate than the current buff had, or b) the buff was about to fall off. I found myself sometimes having no issues with rage at all, and sometimes being rage-starved it seemed no matter what I did. Either way, I was getting compliments from several folks on our run with doing awesome threat. One player who has regularly had issues with generating just a little too much threat said he was going all-out and couldn't catch me. Again, maybe I had help, but that certainly gave me some confidence.<br />
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All in all I didn't have many problems with threat generation, and when I did they seemed to be tied to rage starvation.<br />
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On the downside, the first night we got to Saurfang and had to stop because the door was bugged and wouldn't open after he died. The second night, we killed Rotface before giving up because several of our players were having bug issues with the raid instances - getting dropped out of the instance, not being able to come back in, WoW crashing when they came in, WoW crashing when they were summoned - just generally annoying bugs. I hope they get it all fixed soon.<br />
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I haven't had a lot of chances to cat yet, but I have a few thoughts I'll share when I get the time to. As for my last post about it, I realized later I did my dummy testing after they buffed us a little bit. Anyway, happy hunting!Kaethirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16328588369398109846noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7101235402727196995.post-62711924158261892242010-10-14T09:28:00.000-07:002010-10-14T09:28:52.951-07:00The Death of the Cat... is, I think, over-exaggerated.<br />
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Ghostcrawler has posted that it's a little low, and they'll address it, but I was able (without an exceptional amount of optimization, I might add) to pull 7.9k on the dummy with only Mark of the Wild as buffs...<br />
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Then again, that's lower than what I used to be able to do.<br />
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Oh well, I'll post up with my full opinions when I get a chance. Bear and Cat spec, and I have an idea at a hybrid but it might be a little brutal.Kaethirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16328588369398109846noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7101235402727196995.post-72969121505835866852010-09-29T05:00:00.000-07:002010-09-29T05:00:11.252-07:00Do Blog Posts Have Expiration Dates?I was skimming over some of my old posts and realized how out of date the information in them is, even though it was written within the expansion that's about to end. Part of it is due to changes during the expansion, part of it is due to my growth and experience as a player, and part of it is due to changes in the itemization of gear. At the least, my spec has changed a bit because of changes to Mangle and I have a different opinion about a few spec choices than I did before, even if I haven't yet spent the gold to change them, but since the blog is not simultaneously both clairvoyant and auto-updating, well, this info hasn't made it into written word yet.<br />
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On a completely unrelated note, a clairvoyant, auto-updating blog would be simultaneously awesome and horrendous. It would certainly cut down on writing time, but some thoughts should never be let out of the cage.<br />
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But, with the imminent Cataclysm, I think I'm going to wait until then to completely rework any guides. It seems kind of pointless, so the only *current* info I'll still be putting up has to do with raiding until Cata comes and I get the chance to play with the new toys.<br />
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I hope my guides, even though out of date, will still serve some use to folks. As such they'll be kept up but marked to indicate that they've passed their expiration date.<br />
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While I think reworking them would be great, I'm not sure how quickly I'll be able to write out that type of guide, especially with five levels to gain before I have access to everything.<br />
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With all that said, there are a LOT of changes coming, and I felt it would be a good time to build everything from the base up. I think it will be good for both new players and old to reexamine what we know about how to play a Druid. In accordance with this goal, I'll be stepping through key abilities new and old to talk about what they do, how they work, how they're useful to us, and what do we need to consider about WHEN to use them. Since it's getting one of the biggest overhauls, I'll start with Maul and move on from there.<br />
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At the moment, I plan on focusing on Feral abilities. Resto doesn't seem to be getting quite as big an overhaul as Feral, and I don't expect to have any practical experience with it any time soon, so I think I'm going to hold off on that for now.<br />
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Of course I'll also discuss talent trees and all the choices therein, but those I don't feel like touching until the info is final. <br />
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Lastly, it is my sincere hope to find some time before Cataclysm drops to work on the style of the page. Blogger's template works, it gets the job done, but... it's so bland and basic. Thus I intend to find the time to work out some changes. That's kinda low on the totem pole right now though, so don't hold your breath.Kaethirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16328588369398109846noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7101235402727196995.post-55822126883553474602010-09-27T10:12:00.000-07:002010-09-27T10:12:14.979-07:00On Babies and CryingDays like today are what I expected when I first learned I would be a father. The upside is that they've happened FAR less often than I expected, and I'm so very glad for that.<br />
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The suckiest thing I've had to deal with so far about having a baby is that when there's something wrong they can't tell you what it is, because they only have about four or five responses to stimuli, and really only varying degrees of one response to negative stimuli.<br />
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When they're happy they'll smile and laugh and play with things. When they're content they'll be calm and look around and observe things. When they're tired they'll rub their eyes.<br />
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But when they cry, sometimes there's not much you can do to figure out what's wrong, because they cry whenever anything is wrong, and my baby is no different.<br />
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When she's too tired and fighting sleep, she cries. When she's hungry, she cries. When she's constipated or gassy, she cries. When she gets her foot caught in the rails of her crib, she cries. When she has a headache, she cries. When she has an ear infection, she cries. When she has a fever, she cries. When her gums or teeth hurt because she's teething, she cries.<br />
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Sure, some of those we can usually figure out - we can check her temperature, we know when she's being fed an how much, we can watch her on the monitor and see that she's in the middle of her crib. But at her age, since she's started teething, it's kind of a roll of the dice trying to figure out what is causing her to fuss if we've ruled out the obvious.<br />
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Getting back to today... I had about 3-4 hours of sleep last night. The largest uninterrupted period was around two to two and a half hours. She woke up and fussed and fussed for about an hour until we got her settled enough to go back to sleep, then she slept for that two-ish hours and woke up again and refused to go back to sleep without laying on Mom or Dad's chest to prop her up a little bit.<br />
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All because of a little ear infection.<br />
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So I'm at work for the afternoon, but I'm only tackling easy stuff because I can barely concentrate enough to do anything worthwhile. This post is about the most coherent thing I can muster.<br />
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Thankfully, she usually sleeps through the night and this is only the second time she's been sick. I can count on one hand the number of times since she turned 6 weeks old she's not slept through the night. But that doesn't help me feel any better today.<br />
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To all the parents out there who love and care for their children, I salute you for your effort and hope that the days like today has been for me are few and far between for you...Kaethirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16328588369398109846noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7101235402727196995.post-84245923965059322010-09-24T06:45:00.000-07:002010-09-24T06:45:41.822-07:00The Lich King... Also known as Prince Arthas Menethil.<br />
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Our first attempts came this week, and our progress was up and down, to say the least. The good news is that we got through the first phase and transition, and got to see the defiles and val'kyr a few times. The bad news is that we did not continually progress, and of our ~10 attempts the 4th or 5th was our best attempt.<br />
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The only oddity in our strategy was that I stayed in my bear spec and gear, to be able to have a 3rd tank available for certain parts of the fight. Most notably, it allows us to have 2 tanks available to handle raging spirits during the transition back to fighting the Lich King, allowing our MT to focus solely on getting back to the right spot with Arthas rather than having to worry about a Raging Spirit at the same time.<br />
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Although I'm not 100% certain it's necessary and I suspect we will not use that angle when we make our successful run, I do think it is extremely helpful while we are learning the fight, because it slightly increases our success rate in that transition. The downside is that it cripples my DPS during the portions that I'm trying to cat form, with me beating out only the tanks at that point.<br />
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We had a LOT of trouble, the times we got to see defiles and Val'kyr, with both proper handling of defiles AND DPS getting the Val'kyr down. Unfortunately we only got to see that a time or two. We had some odd wipes in the first phase and during transition and although we were getting better again at the end we had lost our momentum and then ran out of time.<br />
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We are resetting next week, to allow, especially for our less-well-geared members, a chance at some more gear and a heaping load of badges, as well as getting us 8 more Sanctification tokens.<br />
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I should probably write something other than our raid updates eh?<br />
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What can I say it's a convenient topic.Kaethirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16328588369398109846noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7101235402727196995.post-89390376436082720062010-09-22T06:40:00.000-07:002010-09-22T06:40:19.405-07:00Internet DragonsEA is killing those internet dragons!<br />
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It took us most of the night and 4 wipes (a couple to frustrating lack-of-movement mistakes), but we had good DPS all around and killed Sindragosa dead with time to spare on the last run.<br />
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We tanked her turned to the right as you face from the door out to her ledge. Run to the stairs when she pulls you in, run to the stairs when she starts her air phase. The five marked players spread out along the bottom step just far enough not to take too much damage from the ice tombs coming down. DPS the tombs at the proper speed so that they come down just after the last ice bomb from her. Stop DPS after 4 or 5 stacks of Chilled to the Bone and let it fall off. Wash, rinse, repeat. Move to Phase 2.<br />
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That part we had pretty well down, except for one frustrating oops during the ice tombs that entombed nearly half the raid.<br />
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We struggled mostly, on 3 of our 4 wipes, with not losing players during the transition from Phase 1 to Phase 2. But once we figured it out we were fine. Start by the back leg. Person with mark move to the front and get ice blocked, THEN everybody follow. Get behind, drop Mystic Buffet and DPS the tomb, then back on Sindy near the front leg. Marked player run to the back leg and get tombed. Everybody except half the melee DPS (we only had 5, so it was easy) run to the tomb, drop stacks, and kill the tomb. Player with mark run to the front, get tombed, and everybody except the OTHER half the melee DPS do the tomb thing again. Wash, rinse, repeat. <br />
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Even on the winning run we had a couple of mistakes - one of our ice tombs ended up behind her tail and left for dead, and we'd lost enough folks by the end that our marked players were just instructed to get the heck away from everybody else before getting tombed, and left in the tombs to die. But in the end it was another victory for EA, another step to finishing ICC before the Cataclysm reshapes WoW.<br />
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On to other news...<br />
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Although I don't heal at the moment I've kept up with tree-like Druid news. I hate the current implementation in beta of Tree of Life, but I don't think I'm alone in that. What I actually wanted to mention was about the Restoration Mastery.<br />
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In it's original incarnation, the Restoration Mastery provided extra healing to your HoT spells if they had lower HP *when the HoT was cast*. This caused quite a stir in the resto community, as well it should have - it's exquisitely terribad. When the proverbial fecal matter hits the proverbial air movement device, the last thing we want to be casting on a player is a HoT. It may be more mana efficient over the length of its application, but it doesn't get the player healed NOW, which is what is needed at that time. Combine that with Blizzard's push to get us to stop blanketing with HoTs and you have a recipe for disaster.<br />
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On a side note, it actually wouldn't have been an awful Mastery if they had allowed it to recalculate for each tick. I think that would have encouraged thoughtful proactive pre-hotting without giving too much benefit to raid blanketing... but I digress.<br />
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The Mastery now provides additional healing to our spells cast on players who already have a HoT ticking on them. This is most beneficial, IMO, to give us some more oomph as tank healers, as the tanks will *always* have HoTs ticking on them. It also happens to discourage clipping, which I'll explain in a minute. What it really allows is for the better healers to cast a Rejuv or other HoT on a target we expect to take damage, then when the damage hits and we need that extra oomph the HoT is already there to boost our heals. I like it.<br />
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About the clipping thing? Yeah, so if you are healing the tank, and you cast a Rejuv to boost the rest of your heals, and then you start a Lifebloom stack, it becomes important not to clip the Rejuv, since you'll only refresh the original, not recognize that there are already HoTs ticking. This is true on the rest of the raid, but not quite as important as on the tank. Once it falls off, you can reapply and get the boost because the Lifebloom is ticking... Which, when you refresh, will still be getting its bonuses.<br />
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I haven't seen nearly as detailed information about Feral Masteries, but I really like the fact that (at least at the moment) shifting forms allows us to shift our masteries. We still can't shift gear, but it should help with those fights were we want/need to be able to do both roles...<br />
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As for Arthas... you better bring it, buddy. Go big or go home. EA's coming for you.Kaethirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16328588369398109846noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7101235402727196995.post-77726003792609427612010-09-17T07:04:00.000-07:002010-09-17T07:04:02.470-07:00Invading the Dragon's LairFor the first time on 25-man, Epic Adventurers assaulted Sindragosa in her lair this week.<br />
<br />
Although we were ultimately unsuccessful, it was a valiant attempt, and from what I understand we did *very* well for being our first ever 25-man attempt.<br />
<br />
In our initial two attempts, we had ice blocked folks spread out across the bottom of the stairs. We learned fairly quickly that they were too spread out in the positions we had them - it was too difficult for the DPS to get all the ice blocks down quickly enough. We moved them in a little closer - just barely far enough apart to prevent them from killing each other when the blocks come down - and we were mostly successful at that portion of the fight. It helped that we had 4-5 druids along (one traded in for a sick hunter in the middle) and 3 shamans, so lots of brezzing.<br />
<br />
Other than that, it all essentially came down to execution - don't get too many stacks of damage, kill the ice tombs quickly, and DON'T STAND IN THE RAID when you are targeted for an ice block. We only wiped once to that - we all had a good laugh, because it was an epic wipe-causing mistake. Oddly enough, we determined at this point that if everybody outside the ice tombs dies, the boss and tombs despawn and those in the tombs don't die.<br />
<br />
We showed good progress the entire night, with the exception of the ice block incident. By the time we had had enough, we had reached and gotten mostly through the final phase - she had around a million HP left on the last wipe of the night, and the raid leader had called for us to ignore the ice-blocked folks and just burn Sindy as hard as we could. Unfortunately we'd lost too many to gradual attrition at that point, and couldn't keep enough people alive any longer.<br />
<br />
Based on our progress, we've been told we may extend the lockout - little more time for a few more shots and I think she would have gone down, and then we can spend time learning the LK fight. I'm impressed with our first night in, although I think 3 nights of raiding in a row might just kill me if we have to keep it up more than a few weeks.Kaethirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16328588369398109846noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7101235402727196995.post-8238080139284478612010-09-15T06:30:00.000-07:002010-09-15T06:30:04.865-07:00The Final Push.... or the beginning of the end! Or something like that.<br />
<br />
Our guild leader has declared that we are making the final push to kill Arthas on our 25-man raids. We are ceasing all alt activity on progression raids (we had been allowing alts through the gunship, then through deathwhisper when we began doing heroic lootship), and are scheduling a 3rd night every week in addition to more serious usage of lockouts to extend raids week to week.<br />
<br />
With everything we've been hearing about anticipated dates for Cataclysm, it was decided that this is the time to make a serious push to complete the end game raid of Wrath.<br />
<br />
On our first night this week we smashed everything we took a shot at, with the exception of one wipe on Blood Council due to failure to avoid AOE around black balls. Our second night, we have PP, BQL, and Dreamwalker still to go among bosses we have successfully defeated. We hope to get those three and have a go at Sindragosa on the second night.<br />
<br />
I didn't post about it last week, but IMO we took a step back - we had a couple of failures on Dreamwalker and took 7 tries to down BQL. I'm hoping that the renewed focus on actually progressing will give folks the oomph to have clean attempts on the second night, and get down, for the first time, everything we have already downed, all in one week.<br />
<br />
It's time for us to quit goofing around and get it done!Kaethirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16328588369398109846noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7101235402727196995.post-29067643992864750242010-09-09T05:00:00.000-07:002010-09-09T05:00:02.631-07:00Reclaiming GnomereganThe quest chain to reclaim Gnomeregan opened up this week...<br />
<br />
Does this mean Cataclysm is imminent?<br />
<br />
Inquiring minds want to know!<br />
<br />
From what I've heard is going on in the beta I would suspect it's still a fair distance out, but the release of this quest chain would indicate it's closer than I had expected.<br />
<br />
Need more time to down the Lich King!Kaethirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16328588369398109846noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7101235402727196995.post-76955686739806282212010-09-07T09:48:00.000-07:002010-09-07T09:48:28.627-07:00The Alt ClubRambly post is rambly, about alts and paladins and tanking and dps and gearscore and another baby and I don't know where I'm going with this but hey it'll be fun. <br />
<br />
It seems like everybody in my guild has at least 5 or 6 level 80 alts. I have 10 characters on Baelgun, but my reduced play time due to marriage and baby has meant that my alt-o-holic ways have been curtailed almost entirely.<br />
<br />
Lately, though, since Kaethir has basically reached the point that even frost badges are useful for nothing except primordial saronites for LW patterns, or down-ranking for gems or heirloom gear, I have taken the time to work on my highest alt, Alrom, instead of repeating the same random dungeons with a supremely over-geared tank every morning. A week or so ago, he finally reached the level 80 plateau, and started the rep/gear/badge/daily grind. *Dance time* I have finally joined the Alt Club!<br />
<br />
I have made no secret of the fact that one of the things I love most about playing a Druid is the versatility of being able to play whatever role I choose (provided of course that I have the gear, spec, etc. available at the time. It should be no surprise, then, that my first alt is from the only other class in the game that is capable of all 3 major raid roles, a paladin. A dwarf, which I suppose is a little odd for most players, but, well, there it is. <br />
<br />
Being a fresh level 80 with essentially a few quest blues and greens and 3 pieces of heirloom gear to his name, I have been queuing as ret with him, dealing with the longer queue times in order to be a contributing member of the group rather than a severe liability. I suffered, the first few days as an 80, from being limited to normal dungeons due to Blizzard's insistence that you have a GS in the 2500-ish range before you get to go into a heroic dungeon. Once I picked up a couple of decent low-level pieces and bought my first T9 piece, however, the heroic queue opened up for me and off I went!<br />
<br />
Melee DPS as a paladin instead of a kitty is a world of difference. No button-mashing, no energy management, no worrying about clipping a DoT, no worrying about losing a buff or a debuff or any of the other 100 things a kitty has to worry about. Just hit whichever ability is left-most on my bar and not on cooldown. If I've managed to flub that up and nothing is off cooldown at the moment, hit Divine Plea. Wash, rinse, repeat. Watch things die. It's so easy and smooth it's sickening. Of course, maybe that's because I'm in a heroic with overgeared players and it doesn't matter that I can't get above 2k DPS yet. Heck, 1.5k most of the time.<br />
<br />
By the way, that notoriously long queue as a DPS? Meh. 8-10 minutes is the worst I've seen. That's still forever, compared to sub-30 seconds as a tank, but come on. Half the time I queue up, take a flight path, do one Tournament Daily, take another flight path and the queue hits before I land. I suppose in today's 'gogogo' world where 20 seconds is too much time to wait, most people would be upset. Me? I'm more than happy, even though I can't tank yet and that's really what I want to do. <br />
<br />
I have been working up a prot set and spec in the meantime, and although I'm not there yet being a lot of times the only player in a group that is still actually pulling upgrades from heroics, it is moving quickly. I need to get Kaethir off his furry rear end long enough to buy and cut a couple of gems for Al, for the pieces that I don't expect to be replaced within a week or so (like that prot t9 piece I bought), and take the energy to find an enchanter to put something, anything, on those pieces I'm bothering with gems for. I'm not even really close to the 535 defense I'm told I need for heroics, but once I get there, look out, there'll be a fail-pally tank on the loose.<br />
<br />
Since I don't want to be a total fail-tank when I do get to delve into heroic tanking, I have been taking some of my questing time to put on all my prot stuff and see how it works. It's quite painful, in some respects. Part of a prot pally's mana regen is based on incoming heals - which you don't get running around solo. I am satisfied with the survivability, but the loss of DPS just makes soloing too slow to be much fun, so I am only going to be soloing as prot to make sure I keep my weapon skills at a reasonable level with whichever weapon is currently my best prot weapon.<br />
<br />
Tanking also seems a little more smooth with a paladin to me, but then, I haven't been put in a situation where I really have to use all the paladin's tools yet. It is a little overwhelming how much is available when things go wrong - hands, seals, hammers, etc. - compared to the bear's available responses, which are: bash, growl, and make myself harder to kill. I suppose on one level it's easier to bear tank, because when stuff goes wrong you just do more of what you were already doing anyway. Of course, I'm probably just blowing hot electrons because this will all be moot come Cataclysm anyway, but still. <br />
<br />
Awhile back, I wrote a post wondering about what I would do with Alrom once I got him to level 80. Turns out he's going to be doing the same things Kaethir does, except while wearing plate, casting spells, and wielding weapons, instead of fur, roars, and claws. I suppose there's some psychological or metaphorical connection I should be making here, but at the moment the only thing that comes to mind is that I like tanking, I like damage meters, and I like hitting things. Or maybe it's more that I'd rather do that than play whack-a-mole. Or whack-a-not-green-bar. Whatever.<br />
<br />
I do still enjoy healing, and I may in the future trade in one of my pally specs for a holy one to find out what it's like. Frankly, not being able to be a proactive healer frightens me, but in a heroic I don't expect slow reaction times to lead to wipes, and I don't intend to use this character in raids except, maybe, for the occasional weekly raid quest or alt-able portion of our guild raids. Time will tell.<br />
<br />
On a completely non-WoW-related post, my wife is pregnant again, or so the little peed-on stick tells us. Some people seem to think that we are crazy, but I like the idea of having our first two kids so close together. My wife insists that we'll be waiting for awhile after this one before trying again, even though she's the one that wanted a big family when we started this whole shindig. I can't help but think that she said that last time and, well, look where we are now. Not that I'm complaining, I like fatherhood. Here's to hoping my second child is as happy and easy to take care of as my first.<br />
<br />
I don't know if it was fun for you, but it was fun for me! Wwwhheeeeeeeeee!Kaethirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16328588369398109846noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7101235402727196995.post-84696381407489089802010-09-03T13:00:00.000-07:002010-09-03T13:00:01.384-07:00MilestonesI realized only a short while ago that my blog was approaching it's 100th post.<br />
<br />
Then I forgot about it and went on with life for awhile.<br />
<br />
Lo and behold, when I went to post this morning's content, I realized that it WAS the 100th post... YAY!<br />
<br />
It's taken me over 10 months to get here, and I would not have been able to find the desire to go on if it wasn't for the folks that come by and read and occasionally drop a comment on some of my inane ramblings.<br />
<br />
Thanks for everything, I apologize if I have damaged your sanity, I hope you've found something enjoyable, funny, informative, or entertaining, and I look forward to the next 100!<br />
<br />
*party*Kaethirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16328588369398109846noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7101235402727196995.post-12642201686186186412010-09-03T07:35:00.000-07:002010-09-03T07:35:49.433-07:00Cataclysm Glyph ChangesThanks to <a href="http://treebarkjacket.com/">Keeva</a> for making the <a href="http://treebarkjacket.com/2010/09/02/super-quickie-cata-glyphs-observations/">first post</a> I saw about this.<br />
<br />
I've <a href="http://abearinthetrees.blogspot.com/2010/02/ramblings.html">lamented before</a> about the role of hybrids in WoW, and the fact that despite playing the single most versatile class in the game, I am not any more versatile than any other player during a raid - I am locked into my spec, gear, and glpyhs, and even with the most closely related pair - dual feral - I cannot effectively switch between the two during a fight, because even if I make the spec changes to have the minimum required talents for each, I can't change the glyphs or gear that push each into the realm of competitive with other classes.<br />
<br />
The blue post announced that glpyhs will no longer be consumable - once learned, they will be interchangeable and available in the glyphs interface. While it doesn't address some of my issues with hybrid-ness, I do see great possibilities from it.<br />
<br />
With this announcement... well, we still can't change things mid-fight, *but* we will, I think, be able to share one spec and carry only gear (not stacks and stacks of glyphs) to switch back and forth, and have a sliding bar of how far we can go from one spec to the other that is easy (relatively) to manage, rather than requiring multiple addons and piles of glyphs to keep up with.<br />
<br />
In my personal case, it *might* allow me to revert to a feral/resto spec setup. If it's not too hard to get required talents for both from the talent tree, I can change glyphs when needed, and I'm already carrying 3 gear sets around at all times.<br />
<br />
Maybe I'm being a little optimistic, and maybe I'm reading a little too much into this announcement, but this has me even more excited than I already was for Cataclysm. I just hope EA has had the time to work out killing the Lich King by then.Kaethirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16328588369398109846noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7101235402727196995.post-23994410116183412152010-09-02T07:05:00.000-07:002010-09-02T07:05:20.328-07:00Teaching the ProfessorThe only term I could use to properly define the Professor Putricide fight is controlled chaos.<br />
<br />
On second thought, I'm not so sure about the controlled part.<br />
<br />
We had faced him a few times before, but without much success, never making it to phase 3 and making it through the transition from phase 1 to phase 2 cleanly only a couple of times.<br />
<br />
This week was destined to be different...<br />
<br />
We smashed through the Lower Spire and Putricide's two... "sons" on the first night without much difficulty. This has been a regular ritual for us for a couple of months now, and the second night started out with a roll through the princes and their queen, and we moved on to the Professor. We've been skipping Dreamwalker the past few weeks even though we've healed her successfully a few times. Our successful strategy has involved 4 tanks, and we've been down two of our regular progression tanks and one of our backups has been spotty on attendance. Since adding me into the mix we have 4 regular progression tanks, with an extremely solid backup Paladin tank and a serviceable backup Druid for a total of 6 tanks geared enough to fill at least an OT slot. Take out 3... and we don't have the tankage necessary. I suppose at this point we might be able to do it with 2 or 3 tanks (putting our best one by himself on one side for the 3 tank setup...) but that's the raid leader's job to decide, not mine.<br />
<br />
Where was I? Oh yes, Putricide.<br />
<br />
Our typical MT and raid leader took the Abom - I don't have any experience with it and I think it gives him less to pay attention to so he can better direct the raid. I controlled the Professor himself, and our backup Druid - who is usually specced Balance for most of our raids, and is an excellent Boomkin at that - stayed feral but went cat form until the 3rd phase. This was the role I had on our previous attempts, when we had one of our other main progression tanks with us.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately I'm turning into an old man, and our report isn't up yet so I can't check it to remember exactly how many times we wiped... but we made it to the 3rd phase if not every time then almost. I know we wiped once to debuff stack buildup (and my craptastic hardware crashing...) and we wiped once more due, in essence, to poor handling of Putricide by us tanks not moving him properly.<br />
<br />
We did have an issue on 2-3 of our attempts with having an ooze or gas cloud up during the shift to 3rd phase, which draws DPS away from the boss, giving his slime puddles time to grow. Probably not coincidentally, our successful run had no slime up (and no slime puddles up!) at the time of the shift.<br />
<br />
Malleable goos on me were occasionally a problem, but we got that worked out.<br />
<br />
In the end, of course, we taught the professor a lesson. What it is, beyond "don't mess with us or we'll let you kill us a few times before we kill you," well, that I don't know.<br />
<br />
We had been planning on locking out next week to have more time for attempts on Putricide and maybe Sindragosa, but after a vote revealed a decent chunk of folks that still want/need the gear and marks from the bosses we've downed we decided that we'll do a fresh run next week.<br />
<br />
On the upside there is actually some gear to be had for me. One of our raiders took a sojourn through another guild to get a LK kill and then came back, opening up our ability to do heroic lootship, which we did succesfully this week (even though we were all dead at the end). Unfortunately, I lost the roll by 1 to a rogue on the heroic version of <a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=50656">Ikfirus's Sack of Wonder</a>. Add in all the additional Marks we'll be pulling, and soon I have no doubt we'll be knocking on the Lich King's door.<br />
<br />
Onward, Epic Adventurers!Kaethirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16328588369398109846noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7101235402727196995.post-27657922184423882052010-08-30T06:36:00.000-07:002010-08-30T06:36:39.936-07:00The 75000% bank fee...Totally off topic...<br />
<br />
So I had a $0.02 check that I had held on to for awhile (since May...) because I didn't really want to spend the time to go to the bank for $0.02. But I got another check I was taking, so I took it to the bank along with me last week, cashed my two checks, and went on my way.<br />
<br />
Then last Friday I saw two charges on my account, for $0.02 and $15.00. Fifteen dollars for processing a check that didn't go through, and the two cents for the check itself.<br />
<br />
I realize the $15 is a flat fee - but that's 75000% of the check itself.<br />
<br />
Fun times.Kaethirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16328588369398109846noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7101235402727196995.post-35165431085454632022010-08-27T06:51:00.000-07:002010-08-27T06:51:38.963-07:00Once Bitten, Twice Cheesy... and also, MOAR DOTS!Ok, so I can't help myself with the cheesy achievement title ripoffs for post titles.<br />
<br />
One week after our first ever BQL kill, we downed her again - this time I was DPSing, and picked up the Achievement for being both bitten and not. Despite this, I was mildly disappointed in the run. Even after we down a boss the first time, I expect the next few times we kill it to continue to be difficult, especially if we rotate in new/less geared/less skilled/whatever players. We did wipe once, due to bite issues and an early DPS death, but the second attempt saw her down with 5s left on the enrage timer - an eternity compared to our first kill - without any real drama. Am I being silly, thinking that it should still be a challenge for another few kills after the first? Or perhaps for thinking that it WASN'T a challenge the second time around? Or maybe even just for being disappointed? I don't know.<br />
<br />
Even so, I'm still very pleased. We had issues with disconnects (not during the fight) and such all night, and still managed to deal with things and get the run as far as we were going to get it.<br />
<br />
On the upside, since we hadn't got Fester and Rot the first night, we went to do them and I stayed all feline-ish and managed on Fester to place 2nd on our DPS chart. I'm certainly pleased with myself for it - even if a couple of our heavy hitters weren't quite doing what they could, the fact that I was even in the ballpark is impressive to me. Someone who doesn't normally DPS outside of raids, hasn't really DPSed at all in several weeks, and even then was not quite in the top rank having just started doing this a couple of months ago... yeah, I was happy.<br />
<br />
I can't remember if I've said it before, and I'm too lazy to go looking through my archives to find out, but pretty much the most difficult thing for me to learn, to get my DPS to the next level, has been that there are times as a Feral Cat that the best thing to do is NOTHING AT ALL.<br />
<br />
When I first started, I was unknowingly locked into the idea that the way to increase DPS was to constantly be hitting buttons - obviously, if you're doing something with your energy you're doing more DPS than if you're not, right? And that's true... for every individual second in time. But when you look at the whole...<br />
<br />
It becomes a delicate balancing act between available energy, combo points, buffs, and debuffs. It becomes very easy to mash buttons to get MOAR DPS NOW!! but then, in 10 seconds when you need to rebuild your combo points very quickly after your Savage Roar so you don't lose uptime on your Rip, you don't have the energy to Shred in quick succession to do so, and it becomes better to just sit and watch white damage - which should be, by around a 10% margin, the biggest percentage of your DPS anyway - so that when you need that burst, you have the energy to do so.<br />
<br />
Something else that it's taken me awhile to really understand is that when the priority system says "keep up Savage Roar" at the top, it really means that we need that buff up no matter what. Don't wait for 5 CP, don't force another ability off first, just make sure that buff stays up, because it buffs every single thing you do. If that means hitting it with 1 CP, so be it - but understand that you're going to need to do it again fairly quickly in that situation, and be prepared for it.<br />
<br />
To critique what I did wrong on that fight, that I could do better:<br />
<br />
92% uptime on Savage Roar. I spent 21 seconds of the fight without my most important self-buff. Need to be more precise.<br />
<br />
91.6% uptime on Rake. 22.5 seconds downtime is too much. I also clipped this several times - poor energy efficiency.<br />
<br />
80.1% uptime on Rip. 48 seconds downtime. While it's expected that there will be a *little* more downtime here - you need to build up CP at the beginning of the fight for this - it's still too much downtime. 20% of the fight I didn't have it going. Have to be careful with clipping here as well, although I've noticed that for some reason it occasionally won't let me clip it.<br />
<br />
It's hard to tell, in retrospect, if I had proper use of Berserk and Mangle - I only used Mangle twice and we had a couple of warriors who were keeping Trauma up, and I used Berserk the maximum twice allowed by the enrage timer. Given the warriors I probably should have skipped Mangle altogether, although it's entirely possible I just fat-fingered it a couple of times, as it's right next to Shred.<br />
<br />
Hope that was a helpful look at things for somebody. <br />
<br />
Anyway, I also managed to pick up a couple of pieces to keep my healing set from falling waaaay too far behind, just in case I'm ever called on to really respec for it or I decide its time to go back. Not spending frosties on it, at least not until I have all my crafted patterns bought, but I'm still trying to keep a reasonable set together.<br />
<br />
We didn't get a chance to go after PP - we didn't push hard for progression this week. Next week after we down our usual crew we're looking at locking out for a second week, to get good shots at PP and Sindy in.Kaethirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16328588369398109846noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7101235402727196995.post-90777568082413756932010-08-25T07:49:00.000-07:002010-08-25T07:49:59.126-07:00How to 22-man Lower SpireStep 1: Have a regularly-scheduled 25-man raid.<br />
<br />
Step 2: Have a couple of your regular players be in the military and get deployed.<br />
<br />
Step 3: Have a couple of your regular players get married. To each other! (GRATS to Trukaos and Daphne)<br />
<br />
Step 4: Have a couple of your regular players out for a few weeks while they deal with having to move from Kentucky to New Jersey.<br />
<br />
Step 5: Have a couple of your regular players take a pre-Cata/RL overload/etc. break.<br />
<br />
Step 6: Have one of your regular players have random company at their house.<br />
<br />
Step 7: Show up to said regularly-scheduled 25 man raid, with only 22 players available.<br />
<br />
Step 8: Love the 30% buff. Faceroll through Saurfang.<br />
<br />
Step 9: ???<br />
<br />
Step 10: ProfitKaethirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16328588369398109846noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7101235402727196995.post-18754553664673055132010-08-18T20:00:00.000-07:002010-08-19T05:24:41.674-07:00And then there were two...Two bosses between EA and the Lich King.<br />
<br />
After a few false starts, tonight the Blood Queen fell to the might of the Epic Adventurers!!<br />
<br />
We had wipes at 6m HP left, 4m HP left, and 2m HP left (as well as a couple of "oops the first bite died"), but in the end we were successful.<br />
<br />
Nice job everyone, now lets get Putricide and Sindy.<br />
<br />
Edit: Now that it's morning, and my brain is caffeinated again...<br />
<br />
In the end, of course, it all came down to execution. No DPS deaths due to:<br />
<br />
1. Not biting in time.<br />
2. Biting too early (and thus messing up and running away in fear during the NEXT bite phase).<br />
3. Not being able to bite due to location/bug/etc. <br />
4. Standing too close when she makes it rain.<br />
5. Standing in fire.<br />
6. Not getting close fast enough when connected by red lines.<br />
<br />
...and only one healer death, who was promptly rebirthed. Our regular crew includes 4 druids; if a battle-rez will fix it, we're usually good.<br />
<br />
The only sad part, IMO, is that even with the 30% Strength of Wrynn buff we only had 3 seconds left before her Berserk. Sheesh.<br />
<br />
Our 10-man progression crew has killed the Lich King, and from what they've said and what I've read, the Sindragosa and Lich King fights are even more unforgiving of mistakes than this one. It'll be a long hard road, but I'm sure we'll get it done.Kaethirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16328588369398109846noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7101235402727196995.post-9766108782774444342010-08-18T08:12:00.000-07:002010-08-18T08:12:10.196-07:00I'm on a BOAT!*smiles* I stood in the middle of *OUR* boat and swiped/mauled for 5 minutes straight. I guess that's worthy of an achievement? I dunno, but I lol'd anyway.<br />
<br />
The Blood Queen escaped last week - some of our team really hasn't figured out how to bite the proper DPS, or stay far enough apart not to die when she rains fire down upon us. Or something like that. In any case, we didn't get as close as we did the week before. But another venture tonight, I hope, will provide the cure!<br />
<br />
The good news is that instead of having Dreamwalker and Blood Princes still up, only Dreamwalker remains this week among bosses we have downed. We 24-manned her last week, so even if we are down a player or two I don't expect a problem there this week, and we can spend most of the night working on Blood Queen and/or Putricide.<br />
<br />
On a completely unrelated note, my daughter starting teething while we were at GenCon 2 weeks ago. She's got 2 on the bottom, and (we think) one through on the top... and she's been amazingly not hard to deal with the entire time.<br />
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Before you know it she'll be driving the boys wild! ;)Kaethirhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16328588369398109846noreply@blogger.com0