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We really get around
On Friday night I crafted myself a pair of Boots of Natural Grace (bought the pattern on the auction house). I also crafted the Primalstrike Vest and Primalstrike Bracers for my Kitty set. Immediately after crafting my Primalstrike stuff I went on a Heroic Black Morass run for the daily and guess what? I had enough badges for the Band of the Swift Paw. I had intended for them to replace my Umberhowl’s Collar for my tanking set, but they also replaced the Primalstrike Bracers from my DPS set. What an incredible waste of 3 Primal Mights.
With some of my new gear I’ve lost a considerable amount of defense rating and resilience. I’ve had to supplement it with enchants here and there to keep myself uncrittable. I’m currently rolling with Enchant Chest - Major Resiliance and Vindicator’s Armor Kit on my gloves and boots to keep myself over the limit.
Ok on to the raid details.
As much as the majority of folks in my guild would love to stop running a weekly Karazhan raid and focus more on 25-man content, it’s just not practical right now. There are too many people (myself included) who still need gear from there. Not to mention the 22 Badges of Justice you get for a full clear.
I’m 3/5 for T4 now, but only one of those is an item that I will continue to use for any length of time (the Mantle of Malorne), and I still need the helm from Prince. Megalis has seen that dude die about seven times now and still no helm.
And speaking of badges, I need to save up 100 of them for Embrace of Everlasting Prowess which makes the T4 chest obsolete. Not that I have the T4 chest. I’m still rocking the Heavy Clefthoof Vest. That chest piece, plus a ring, a cloak, an optional necklace and some other odds and ends add up to quite a few badges that I still need. And 3-5 badges here and there from heroics just isn’t going to cut it. I need those weekly Kara runs.
So anyway, the guild ran two Kara raids on Saturday. My raid finished a full clear in about 4.5 hours. Not quite as quickly as the raid a couple weeks ago (3.5 hours) but we had several people on the bench that had to get swapped in and out as well as two or three wipes. I sat out for Chess and Opera. The Curator finally coughed up his damn gloves for me. Still no staff from Illhoof, helm from Prince or tank ring from Shade. The gloves do make me happy though. I was using one of those crappy PvP pieces you can buy at honored rep with all the outlands factions.
Sunday was a quick clear of Gruul’s and then over to SSC. Gruul dropped the Aldori Legacy Defender for the main Warrior and he had it gemmed and enchanted before we even got to SSC.
SSC was really fun. Lurker went down first try. As usual the new people were dead almost right away. Remembering that Lurker whirls after each spout as well as on a regularly scheduled basis is key and I see a lot of people who either don’t care about it or forget about it standing right up next to Lurker pounding away on him as he whirls.
We headed straight for Leotheras after that. We had one wipe on the two bog giants. It was supposed to be one, then the other but while we were fighting the first one the second one was aggroed.
Then there were the two trash pulls just outside of Leo’s chamber. We planned on sapping one but something went wrong and the Rogue was spotted. That would have been fine but someone pulled the other trash right next to the group we were fighting and it went downhill quickly. I didn’t stick around to even try and salvage it. I ran back up the ramp and jumped down to the previous level. The mobs had to run a long ways around to try and catch me and they gave up before that happened. One of the priests got bubbled so it wasn’t a full wipe and we were back in action a couple minutes later.
Once inside Leo’s chamber there are five or six more trash pulls before him. Incredibly, we had the Boots of Unending Courage drop on two of these trash pulls. Still no greatstaff for this Druid :(
The rest of the trash before Leo was cleared and we were ready. The fight was laid out for those that hadn’t researched it or done it before. Our Warlock put on his fire resist set to tank Leo’s demon form. Myself and a Paladin were chosen to tank the human form.
We lost a huge portion of our DPS on the first whirlwind, but I think some of them got a better idea of how to avoid it next time. The human form tanking part is rather easy. I just have to grab aggro before anyone else does, then let the Paladin take the aggro from me. If I get a demon summoned on me I can kill it very easily and get back to swatting at Leo.
We only had enough time for the one try, but we gained some insight into the fight that just can’t be gained from reading about it or watching videos of it. Next time we’ll give ourselves a better window and have time for several shots at Leo. Hopefully we won’t need them all though.
Three different raids this weekend. I had a great time and I think everyone else did too. Making that progress at the end was super nice too. We’ve killed Lurker several times now and we always just left after that. I’m glad we were finally able to press on.
Tags: Gruul's Lair, Karazhan, Leatherworking, Leotheras the Blind, Primalstrike, Serpentshrine Cavern
Upgrading, slowly but surely
Saturday we finished the Kara raids that we had started earlier in the week. My raid downed every boss and I didn’t see a single piece of loot worth bidding on. I’m still waiting on the two T4 drops in there.
It did leave me sitting at 58 badges though. And I got to progress a few quest lines including the one that gives the Violet Badge and the one that now requires me to run Heroic Shattered Halls. I’m also now revered with Violet Eye so I got to upgrade the ol’ Violet Signet.
So Sunday, with 58 badges eating a whole in my bank, I started a Heroic Botanica group and got my badges. I made haste back to Shattrath and purchased a Waistguard of the Great Beast, then picked up two Delicate Living Rubies to socket into it. It was nice to finally replace my last green item - Manimal’s Cinch - which is honestly pretty damn good for a green.
Oh yeah, while I was in Bot I also replaced both my Dreamer’s Dragonstaff (DPS) and my Braxxis’ Staff of Slumber (Tank) with a single click of the Need button. Aside from being a super-easy heroic dungeon, another reason I like to run Botanica is that Warp-Splinter drops a really sweet Feral Druid staff on Heroic mode. And this time I got it. It’s called the Feral Staff of Lashing and it’s hard to beat.
After Botanica a Priest in our guild was looking for a group for Heroic Ramparts. He needed the Thrallmar rep so he could get his healy head glyph. Vishyna and two others from the Bot group came along. One of those others was a really well geared Rogue. I have a hard time keeping threat off of him. And in Ramps - with very few CC options - it got even worse.
In Bot we had the same Rogue for sapping and a Mage with us for sheeping and the mobs don’t hit as hard so the tree friend that was healing us was able to keep up without pulling threat. In Ramps however, it was a different story.
The Mage was out, so we had Vish to MC and the Rogue for sap. Thing is, the mobs in HeroRamps hit MUCH harder than those in HeroBot. And there are lots of big pulls. That poor priest had to heal so big to keep me up that his global threat was surpassing my swipe threat on extra mobs. And I couldn’t afford to go through each mob and lacerate them because either the Rogue or Vish is going to pull threat off of the main target. And I don’t even want to talk about how often I got stunned or just how many parries/dodges/misses there were.
Vish and the Rogue were staying so close to my threat that if I missed a maul or a mangle too close to a missed white attack, there was going to be a loose mob. And when I go to chase down that loose mob I’m no longer swiping the other targets. And when I’m no longer swiping the other targets, they kill the healer.
In the end it wasn’t too bad for anyone besides the poor Priest. He ended up getting smashed about seven times I think. I went down twice - once on trash and again on Omor when the felhounds killed the Rogue who was trying to keep them occupied then ate the Priest. Luckily Omor was already at 2% when I went down and the remaining two people were able to finish him off.
Nazan and Vazruden went down easily and guess what’s in the chest. A Tree-Mender’s Belt. Remember that other belt I just bought for 60 badges? This one is only ever so slightly less good than that one. And those 60 badges could have been spent on Footwraps of Wild Encroachment or something else I need to upgrade.
I’ve always maintained that the best way to guarantee something for a particular slot will drop for you is to spend lots of time or money getting a different upgrade for that slot. This is just further proof.
Tags: Hellfire Ramparts, Karazhan, The Botanica, Violet Eye
Done with Gruul’s
We started our Wednesday raid night off with right at 20 people, so we formed two Kara raids and went to town.
My gear has improved a good bit over the past two weeks so I was given the MT spot this run.
Unfortunately for me and the rest of my raid, I am having a hard time keeping up with the threat that our DPSers can put out there. They are (most of them) horribly ahead of me in gear progression at this point. Not to mention that our Pally gave them all kings/might since they are used to not having to hold back at all.
The Attumen trash went down mostly fine. Had a few deaths from Attumen himself. Cleared our way into the dining hall without a problem. Then it got bad. A death on the AoE pulls. 4 or 5 deaths on one of the 2-pulls from against the wall. A couple more deaths from the 2-pull on the other side.
I need to take a good look at my gear. I think I’m far too heavy on the mitigation side of things right now. I don’t hit hard enough and I miss WAY too much. Even having the DPS give me 3 or 4 seconds to get threat on a pull isn’t a guarantee that they won’t pull threat immediately because my initial swings miss so much. And when I do miss, the healers pull aggro in a split second.
Right after we took down Moroes and his crew Vish and I took a quick AFK and when we got back, everyone was gone! It seems that a few more people had logged in and we had enough for a 25-man, so we were off to Gruul’s.
We wiped right away on Maulgar due to bad positioning of Firehand. We regrouped and took them all down no problems the second time.
Gruul also wiped us on our first shot there. Too many people got hit with cave in I assume. The healers went down, so the tanks went down, then the rest of us one by one. Then during rezzing, one healer got too close to Gruul and aggroed him. One person who had been rezzed started heading for the door. Gruul took out everyone who had been rezzed and went to chase down the runner. I was laying dead in Gruul’s chamber, but Gruul had been marked, so I could see him running through the caves.
After the runner was dead Gruul’s door opened and someone proclaimed that he had reset. But I could still see his mark running back through the caves. The same healer that had aggroed Gruul self-rezzed and started rezzing someone else. Then Gruul - on his way back to his chamber - showed up and stomped him again!
Does that count as three wipes or still just one? Either way, we killed Gruul without a problem on our next *official* attempt.
I got the Greaves of Malorne, making me 2/5 for T4. Oddly enough, those two are both from Gruul’s lair. I thought for sure I would have the two from Kara first. Oh well. I’m personally done with gear from Gruul’s now. It’s nice to know that I don’t have to compete with anyone for the drops there anymore.
The two T4 pieces I’m wearing now make it a bit hard to stay uncrittable (415 Defense for a Druid). Luckily I have recently made revered status with SSO and they have the Glyph of the Gladiator for sale. It’s pretty expensive at 85g (at revered anyway), but that 20 resilience put me over the mark for uncrittableness so I gladly payed it.
I’d rather have the defense and dodge from the Glyph of the Defender, but I’m not yet revered with the Keepers of Time. Five more Black Morass runs though and that bad boy is mine.
Tags: Gruul's Lair, Karazhan, Uncrittable
T4 loots for me and a T5 boss down
On Saturday my raid group got back together and finished the remaining three bosses in Karazhan; Nightbane, Illhoof and Netherspite.
I got a Gilded Thorium Cloak from Illhoof, my first piece of real raid loot with my guild, The Asylum. My new cloak is only surpassed in bear-tank goodness by two other cloaks in the game according to Emmerald’s feral tanking gear list.
On Sunday we strolled on into Gruul’s lair and knocked some faces in the dirt and I picked up the Mantle of Malorne from High King Maulgar. These are also pretty high on Emmerald’s list, only surpassed by the T5 and T6 shoulders, two PvP shoulders and an upgraded Sunwell drop (Shoulderpads of Vehemence + Sunmote = Demontooth Shoulderpads).
After Gruul was down we regrouped at Coilfang Reservoir and had another stab at The Lurker Below. We had given him a shot last weekend but couldn’t make it happen.
This time we gave it three tries before we had to call it. On our second try we got Lurker down to 2% but we had too many dead folks to make it through the Naga phase.
After our third attempt we did a ready check to see if we’d have enough people to make Monday an official raid night for this week and give it another shot. We had enough, so it was settled: be here and ready to go on Monday night for another go at Lurker.
After two full nights of failures on Lurker, Vishyna and I started looking up as much information as we could about the encounter to help mitigate any errors that had occurred or might occur.
Here are some important facts we found:
- If you use any consumable whatsoever while the Naga are swimming into position, they will immediately aggro you, teleport to your position, and kill you.
- The three Guardians that spawn have a really nasty frontal cleave attack which hits cloth for 8-9k.
- If Lurker doesn’t have anyone in melee range he will start hitting random players with Water Bolt, a 10k attack.
- If you repeatedly jump up and down in the scalding water, each jump refreshes the damage tick making it 500 damage every 1 second rather than every 3 seconds. If you’re in the water, just sit there. An average HoT will be enough to keep you at full health.
On Monday, we made sure that the entire raid understood these things along with what we had already learned, and then we had at him. We had a couple people who hadn’t been in on the previous attempts and we lost them early during our first two tries. After those two tries though, everyone seemed to finally get it.
On our third try we only ended up with four or five dead players and Lurker went down quite easily in just over 10 minutes. Grats to the Asylum for now being 1/6 in SSC.
After three full nights of trying to kill The Lurker Below it has become apparent to me that he is not actually a difficult boss. He is a test of attention span. Each individual in the raid must stay focused the entire time. There is a lot going on in this encounter and you can’t just sit back and repeatedly fire off your favorite spell or ranged attack while occasionally moving out of the way of a cave-in or black hole.
If everyone pays attention and survives, which is very easy to do, then The Lurker Below will be happy to cough up his T5 loots for you.
Tags: Gruul's Lair, Illhoof, Karazhan, Serpentshrine Cavern, The Lurker Below
Karazhan Speed Run
We didn’t have enough for a visit to Gruul’s lair for Tuesday night’s raid, but we did have enough for two simultaneous Karazhan raids. The raid I was in had a Warrior main-tank and me as the off-tank. Warlock, Hunter, Shadow Priest, Rogue, Shaman, Paladin and Mage DPS and Priest/Shaman heals. A very balanced group.
We cleared Karazhan in less than 3 1/2 hours!
Of course we still have Illhoof, Netherspite and Nightbane to contend with, but they should pose no problem at all.
I hit full guild-member status (1000+ EP) after we downed Prince, which means I am now eligible to bid on loot. I got to use my battle rez three times. The Shadow Priest first during Shade, the Rogue during Opera (Big Bad Wolf), and the Shadow Priest again during Prince.
We were doing so well that Curator only got to do one Evocation and Shade didn’t get to polymorph/pyro blast us. We did get asploded and lost three people when somebody moved during Flame Wreath (that’s when I rezzed the Shadow Priest), but we still killed him before the polymorph/pyro blast combo even with two members down.
No good Druid loot dropped, but I can still hope for the Stranglestaff from Illhoof. The odds aren’t good considering it dropped the last time I was there for that fight. The same item dropping from the same boss fight twice in a row are very slim so I’m not getting my hopes up for it.
Vishyna’s raid didn’t fare nearly as well as mine. They only had one healer (and Vishyna doing backup heals when needed/possible). They lost a member right at the beginning to connection issues and decided to move on as a 9-man. They filled the 10th slot again when another guild member logged on, but they lost him too due to some sort of real life emergency and had to carry on as a 9-man again. They did pretty well considering the circumstances, but it was just too difficult on everybody in the raid and they called it at Maiden.
Vishyna also made it to 1000+ EP, so we are both now official members of the guild. I also hit Honored with The Violet Eye during that Kara run so I need to head down to Deadwind Pass and upgrade to the next Violet Signet.
I’ve got 26 Badges in the bank now and I’m trying to decide between spending 20 of them on the Idol of Terror (which I’ll eventually need to get either way) or saving up 34 more badges for the Ring of the Stalwart Protector. I’ll probably just grab the Idol and call it good. It will feel nice to finally be wearing some purple gear.
Tags: Karazhan
As predicted in my last post, Vishyna and I were level 69 when we logged out Friday night. Saturday we logged in and got right to questing in Netherstorm. We hit 70 that afternoon. As soon as we hit 70 we ported down to Azeroth, trained our new abilities, crafted some new 70 gear and strapped on some other gear we had waiting for us.
I had several Solid Star of Elune cut and a Delicate Eternium Ring made for me (thanks Dereyn). I made my Heavy Clefthoof Leggings and Heavy Clefthoof Vest (I had already bought the boots from the auction house). I ran around to various quartermasters and bought some of the new PvP gear that is now available when you are honored with the respective factions.
As Vishyna and I were finishing up getting our new 70 gear all sorted and checking out our new stats, the call went out to drop groups - raid invites were going out.
Somehow her and I ended up in a Kara raid that was already cleared up to Shade. Yeah I know, the T4 gloves token drops from Curator, but our guild uses EPGP for it’s loot protocol and this being my first raid with them I wasn’t eligible for loot unless it went unclaimed (and there was another feral as well as a tree Druid in this particular raid). So I’m kinda glad Curator was already down. I would have been very unhappy if that T4 token dropped and I couldn’t have it.
Which brings me to Illhoof. We handily downed him and what should drop? Yep, the Stranglestaff. And the other feral - who a) asked me “how did you get +10 stam on all your gear” and b) already has the Greatstaff from SSC - snatches it up. Sigh.
Anyway, we finished a full clear of Kara with only two wipes on Netherspite (first because nobody got the green beam in time and Netherspite was healed back to full and second because someone stepped into the red beam before I could and got aggro). We had a Paladin main-tank and I was swapping between off-tank and DPS and occasionally main-tanking bosses. I didn’t get any loot and I had to sit out for Prince, but I walked away with 10 badges and I was 300 or so EP closer to being able to take loot.
Sunday me and Vish got down to starting some dailies with Recstrech. We did all sorts of Sha’tari Skyguard stuff including half of the new and improved Adversarial Blood (old version) and achieved friendly status with those folks. I was 5999/6000 with Sha’tar from turning in all of my signets and tomes so we went and finally killed Levixus for Levixus the Soul Caller which put me over into honored with them.
We farmed some netherweb spider silk for Vish. Did a few quests. Did the cooking daily which took us to Blade’s Edge to cook something over the corpse of an Abyssal Flamebringer.
Raid time rolled around and SSC was on the schedule. Vish and I assumed we wouldn’t be attending since we are in basic blues and greens (having not done any instances aside from Shadow Labs to get the first key fragment for the Kara attunement quest chain).
It was looking like they wouldn’t have enough people for a 25-man so we started looking for folks to help us with the Ogri’la prereq 5-mans. We tried to 3-man Grulloc with Rec and although we did quite well it wasn’t enough. Right then we were told to drop our group for a raid invite. WTF? We are nowhere near geared enough to do SSC. Nonetheless we are invited and end up getting drug along into SSC since we will be number 24 and 25 for the raid.
The Greatstaff drops on the first trash pull and our main bear tank takes it. After a few more trash pulls I’m told to get into my tank gear so I can take some of the pressure off of the other tanks. I tank my assigned mob just fine for a few trash pulls. We sneak past Hydross for a few more trash pulls. Pattern: Boots of Utter Darkness drops and nobody else can use it so I take it. Then I fall into the water. Along with about 7 other people. There’s a little gap up there you have to watch out for. I shifted into Aquatic Form and made it for dry land as quick as I could but those damn fish are nasty. I actually made it to where the Lurker fight takes place and got up onto the ring but I died as soon as I got out of the water. Those who died in the water have to run back but I am able to be resurrected.
So we finally make it to Lurker and give it about 5 tries before it’s too late and people have to start logging. Lurker is a really tough fight for anyone, let alone someone in blues and greens. For the first few tries I was in DPS gear and assigned a platform along with a Rogue to take out the Naga that swim up. We were having trouble with the guardians that spawn wiping out the healers and ranged DPS though. So I went bear tank for the last two tries to help soak up those guardians. On the first try I got spouted off into the distance as I wasn’t quite far enough under the water. On the second try the guardian owned me. Then the trash started respawning and people started logging off so it was time to call it.
Another 300+ EP closer to taking loot. I’m just short of 700 EP and the guild requires you to have 1,000 EP to become a full member and take loot. By the time the next raid is over I should be over that or very close to it.
Tags: Karazhan, Netherspite, Serpentshrine Cavern, Sha'tar, Sha'tari Skyguard, The Lurker Below
Hello World …of Warcraft
Hello. My name is Megalis. And I’m a Druid.
I started playing World of Warcraft on December 15th, 2007 on a 10-day trial account. Some new friends had invited Vishyna and I to a LAN party. They were all playing WoW, and we were playing Tabula Rasa, a game we had picked up about a month earlier.
Now don’t get me wrong here. I already new what WoW was. I had spent the last three years continuously making fun of the people I knew who played WoW. I also used to make fun of people who played Everquest. Until I started playing it myself that is.
Vishyna and I had played EQ2 together for about a year before we decided it would be best for us and our relationship if we quit. Two years later, I came home from work one day and find that Vishyna had bought herself a copy of WoW. She broke the news to me by offering me the 10-day trial card that comes with the game. I respectfully declined and she started playing it by herself. She didn’t play for very long though. I think she got to level 20. Then she heard about Tabula Rasa at work and started playing that instead. A week later I started playing Tabula as well. Until the LAN party.
So at this LAN party, seeing all these people playing WoW was nothing new. It wasn’t the excitement of seeing a game completely new to me that made me decide to start playing. That was what did it for me with Tabula Rasa. With WoW, it was just out of pure curiosity that I finally decided to give it a shot.
Without saying a word to anyone, I went to the official site and signed up for a 10-day trial. I downloaded the game launcher and started playing the streaming version. I rolled a Dwarf Paladin (yeah, the “easy class to play“). Vishyna rolled a Warlock and another friend (who caught me downloading the game) rolled a Gnome Rogue to come level with us. We got to level 12 that weekend and I had a really good time. On Monday I went to GameStop on my lunch break and bought the Battle Chest.
Now one of the reasons I didn’t want to play WoW was because I knew I would enjoy it and I knew I would become addicted to it. Alas, that is exactly what happened. I never played that Paladin again though. I rolled a Draenei Warrior instead. I leveled him into the 40’s as Fury, then swapped over to Arms. Vishyna and I had joined the guild that the people from the LAN party were in and they needed tanks. It had been my intention to try and fill that roll. So in the low 60’s I changed to Protection.
I had barely dinged 70 when I was whisked away to off-tank Karazhan. There was a Feral Druid in the guild who would be main-tanking the trash pulls, then I would main-tank the bosses. It worked out very well. We had a really solid group of players in that guild and we were doing things that everyone says you can’t do, in gear that isn’t supposed to be good enough for what we were doing, with classes that aren’t supposed to be there and without some that are.
A few weeks after I hit 70, Vishyna and I had to leave that server. We started playing on another server with some people that she works with. They needed another bear tank. So I rolled a Druid. Vishyna rolled a Priest. We started out doing our own thing. Just grinding out the levels however we could. That went on until about level 25 when I found Jame’s Horde Leveling Guide. Vishyna and I picked it up from the beginning (even though we were already halfway through our 20’s) and we haven’t looked back.
As of today we are level 62 and gaining fast.
As for this website. Vishyna had mentioned this “big bear butt blogger” to me a couple weeks back and suggested maybe we start our own WoW blog. I read that blog and found many others as a result. I really liked the idea and started looking for some good domain names right away. We came up with a solid list of interesting domain names related to WoW in some way, but we still haven’t officially settled on one. We’ll let you know when we do.