Sunday, August 17th, 2008 - 1:05 am - Bathroom Gurgle
Once again, I'm sporting full Tier 6 on a character that was once upon a time going to be casual!
Full Tier 6 in my mind constitutes the helm, gloves, body and shoulders. It's an archaic sense of achievement that will no doubt be lifted once our ventures into Sunwell Plateau broaden. I still need a few of the peripheral pieces from Black Temple but I got my most desperately needed piece, Pendant of the Titans, last week in some really weird circumstances. The Druid above me forgot I wanted it and bid one more than our Protection Warrior MT who was there on his Paladin alt because we needed healers... truly bizarre, but I wasn't complaining. Lets hope he succumbs to another bout of EXPLOSIVE AMNESIA when Shadowmoon Insignia drops!
Aside from that, the only things left in there I need are Girdle of Mighty Resolve, Faceplate of the Impenetrable and Bulwark of Azzinoth.
The belt I'm not really counting on dropping. Most of the Protection Paladin, Moonkin and Elemental Shaman pieces have half the drop rate of the rest of the respective loot table's items (although Reliquary of Souls doesn't appear to have gotten that memo). Gurtogg's drops seem to be getting worse and worse each week and we're lucky to see something anyone can realistically use, let alone the Shadowmoon Insignia four of us need. I'm glad I was smart and decided to pick up Girdle of Stability for minimal DKP last month. Even if it's not itemized specifically for a Protadin, it'll see me through to Lightbringer Waistguard quite nicely.
Faceplate of the Impenetrable is a damn solid piece but I'm not especially fussed about it. Even if they're not terrible, I really don't want to have to wear tier 6 legs to retain my excellent four piece. Not too sure what I'll do if it drops before we really begin to breach the Sunwell.
As it stands right now, if Bulwark of Azzinoth dropped tomorrow, I'd be in pole position to take it. I have a feeling that I'll be "asked" to pass it to our main tank but I don't know if I will. I suggested a main tank clause in my interview and it was never implemented for events such as this. It's not like he's using a piece of crap either (like I was on my Warrior) and I'll be doing more tanking than ever in the Sunwell. Also, the 2% chance proc rate of Unbreakable will occur way more for me while AoE tanking and have a more profound effect. Honestly, the most assured way of me passing it is if some sort of scheme was put in place where I got to pick up the first shield off Felmyst but seeing as that would be constituted as "manipulating the DKP system" it's something I daren't suggest. I also feel I'll be bankrupted when I take it, something I never did when the situation was reversed, but eh, their prerogative.
I don't need anything from Hyjal now. I have all the tanking stuff (well, no Tempest of Chaos but it'd be super shitty to take that from Warlocks and Mages), all the Holy stuff and even stuff I might use when the planets align in a certain way. And thank God for that because I'm once again fucking sick of it. I'll seriously throw a party when it's off the schedule. A few people think it should be off it now, but I don't think so. Even if I am bored of it, the community as a whole isn't geared enough to go full force at the Sunwell and the way we're doing it now, where we use our free day to poke Kalecgos with a stick, is the way it should be. It's tricky; when you've got an instance people despise doing with one on the horizon they're diametrically as desperate to do, you have to keep looking at the bigger picture. If we go there now and wipe over and over because our gear isn't of an overall high enough standard, it'll only hurt morale in the long run.
Our only real attempt at Kalecgos before we got hit with a healer and vacation bat was interesting. I was on tanking duty and got to see how Sathrovarr was. At first I thought it was impossible. I was under the impression that it actually was and the only reason you were there was to take the damage off the human Kalecgos for the duration of your taunt. I quickly retracted that point once I'd got used to things down there. Instead of just running up and taunting, I waited until I had Holy Shield up, Consecrate down and Judgement of the Crusader on. Once all that was in place, he stuck to me like glue. I later found out that the key time to taunt is when Kalecgos is on the floor from a Corrupting Strike so that's only going to make what I'm doing easier. I posted on our boards that guilds have played around with having a Protection Paladin in partial Arcane Resistance taking the long parts of the fight and bubbling it off when it gets too high. I didn't go at it with much conviction though because our community doesn't have the greatest track record when it comes to breaking the status quo and, well, to be frank, I haven't done an awful lot of research on it to know if it's even worth it.
After some mammoth leveling sessions, I finally got Jenkem to level 70. The first thing I did was level Blacksmithing to 375. Here's some advice if you're thinking of doing the same;
DON'T FUCKING LEVEL BLACKSMITHING EVER
Seriously.
Not only was it extremely tedious to do but the scarcity of old world mats was only made worse by the price people were charging for them. At one point, I got so stuck on Heavy Stone that I was farming it from Searing Infernals in Ashenvale as a T6 Paladin. The level 30's trying to quest sure appreciated that. And when I thought one brick wall was overcome, I hit a new one. I thought choosing to be a weaponsmith would be a simple case of talking to an NPC but nope! You have to do a quest that involves grabbing a ton of old world mats and making weapons no one in their right mind is ever going to use. What on earth were they thinking when they decided that two of the recipes needed to make the required weapons should be limited buys on two separate NPC's in Stranglethorn Vale?
Whether leveling Blacksmithing to 375 was worth it or not depending on one item - Swiftsteel Shoulders. Though I obviously got to have two insanely good weapons (two Dragonstrikes) straight away at 70, the pain of leveling it made me feel like grinding out badges for the two suboptimal fist weapons would've been more worth it had I not been able to make these. I managed to rationalize why I should be able to get two Hearts of Darkness and a pattern from my community and went about it. I wasn't sure whether I'd be told yes or told no. In the end, it was something in between that. It took thirty minutes of my best argumentative skills but in the end I got them for a real good deal and was very grateful. My community does love me!!
One other major thing I did on Jenkem was to grind out Exodar rep for an Elekk. A lot of people said I was stupid and should've just gotten the PvP one but to hell with that. Not only does that involve PvP but, in my mind, having a standard mount of a race that isn't native to your own is far more prestigious than having one any brain dead moron could get losing thirty games of Arathi Basin, Warsong Gultch and Alterac Valley. I had a fair bit of fun doing it actually. I'm a real big fan of the the Draenei starting area. I think it's quests are less intuitive and fluid than those found in Ghostlands but the whole area has such beauty. The general atmosphere, the music, the ambience, everything about it leads to a glorious experience. The only thing I was bitter about was being unable to turn up my sound due to not wanting a headache from the intolerable whirring mechanostriders like to make.
Aside from the obvious, my current goal on Jenkem is to grind out Netherwing reputation for a Nether Drake. When they were first implemented, I tried to do them on the original Protection spec Russta only to declare them an experience only likened to playing Final Fantasy XI. But you know, doing them in a deserted area as a DPS class with a T6 geared Enhancement Shaman for company is actually pretty fun. It's weird how the further your rep gets along the more efficient the dailies become to do together. At least when I get to exalted I'll be able to not pick one of those disgusting Viridian drakes.
A few of you may have noticed that we resurrected our old Final Fantasy XI linkshell name as a guild name in World of Warcraft. Our original guild, Barney and Friends, was only ever a temporary guild that we stayed in a bit too long. It got to a point where there were more of us friends in the guild than the small family it was designed for. Being unable to have the true freedom we wanted to invite people and no way of using the guild message or bank, we decided to make our own. Since then, BTB, Mimis, Sain and I have invited a fair few people to it, mostly from our raiding community. From a few things said, I get the feeling that they think we're gonna break off and raid together or something like that. I don't know, it's a lot of unnecessary paranoia. All we're trying to do with our guild is create an atmosphere similar to the only one we ever knew on American WoW. Our community's rules state that we're not allowed to swear or generally act like monkeys which is fine because it's a roleplaying server and, well, it's their rules. Some of us like to though, so we have a guild set up for just that purpose with a way to communicate with each other and a guild bank stuffed full of goodies we all need for raiding and crafting and what-have-you.
That about sums it's purpose up
(6 lost | Enter the storm)
Friday, July 18th, 2008 - 4:20 pm - Under a Glass Moon
We've come quite a distance in a month. Our progression speed is frightening sometimes and the occasional heroic feats we pull off are incredible. Though, for me, it didn't quite top achieving our second Gurtogg Bloodboil kill with only 6.5 healers, we managed to take down Illidan last night on only our third night of attempts which even included a fresh FR tank. We often joke that we take down things on our final attempt of the night but this probably doesn't count seeing as we ended over an hour after our scheduled stop time. I'm informed that our leader went against the other officer's wishes and pushed another final try which made me guffaw as that's exactly the sort of stupid thing I would've done. Even though I had to wake up at 5:00, to me, spending an hour last night to get the kill saved us from even longer on Sunday and freed up Monday for a potential Tempest Keep run. I so support the decision Makesha made that it's probably enough to push me into preparing the formality of a class leader application to get involved some minor decision making processes. What held me back before was the fact that I'm protection. We have this one and only Tankadin for eternity so what place do I have to dictate to what is primarily a healing class? As time has gone on though, I sort out the blessings and make decisions in our sad channel and heal more and more. In fact, look at this!
Rage Winterchill - Heal raid.
Anetheron - Heal FR tanks.
Kaz'rogal - Heal raid.
Azgalor - Heal raid.
Archimonde - Heal raid.
Najen'tus - Heal raid.
Supremus - Heal tanks.
Shade of Akama - Tank east side.
Teron Gorefiend - Cleanse and Wisdom bot.
Gurtogg Bloodboil - Heal conventional tanks and Fel Rage "victim".
Reliquary of Souls - Tank the second set of fixates in P1 and all of P3.
Mother Shahraz - Heal tanks.
Illidari Council - Heal the Zerevor Mage.
Illidan - Heal the second FR tank during P2 and the main tank at all other times.
I'll be honest, I do really enjoy healing but it can get depressing feeling more like a glorified healer than a tank no matter how good either gear set gets. Even when I do get to tank, I feel branded with a stigma that Protection Paladin can't do it as well as others. To a degree, the lack of real snap aggro in a poor scaling set of tools makes that true but people are so blissfully ignorant to our workings. I mean, firstly, my threat output seems balanced around having, at minimum, Judgement of the Crusader up. As I'm the only offensive Paladin, doing that costs me around 2k upfront threat on whatever I'm tanking. It also costs me much needed mana as I can't put Judgement of Wisdom up. I also require the mob to hit me as the vast majority of my threat comes from Holy Shield. The fact that how I tank isn't understood was totally personified by the same tank that said he "can't tank unless he gets hit" (like I can, right?) running in and using his threat abilities and going "LULZ I ONLY SHIELD SLAMMED FOR OVER 9000 DAMAGE!!1". I don't get Sanctity Aura, I don't get a Shadow Priest and I'm lucky if I get Wrath of Air. If I'm the first tank put up, things are occasionally pulled before I get enough mana back and I'm shrouded in constant paranoia while glaring at Omen. If I'm beyond the second I might as well just go AFK as my DPS is shocking and I can't go into Holy gear in case the shit hits the fan and we get a huge link. Who saves a wipe when the entire Akama room is accidentally pulled? Yo. I guess it seems I'm bitter but I don't really feel as such. Maybe having already have main tanked all this stuff is both causing a non-existent problem and cleansing it? Ultimately, knowing how useful I'll be in Sunwell when we enter in a few months keeps me truckin'. That and I'm saving my Tanking Insistence card for Brutallus.
With regards to Holy, I still don't feel too sure on my healing. I think there's something I'm just not getting. I have really fast reflexes and use a Grid and Clique set up to yet I heal and forever see a stream of zeros descending down the right of my screen as if to inform me I suck in binary. As a knock on, I tend to stop spam healing because it frustrates me and I look for windows of opportunity to burst. Lets say I have to heal the main tank, am I literally supposed to just spam Flash of Light on him brainlessly? To me that just seems retarded. I also feel I have trouble sticking to healing assignments. If I see someone's health drop, I throw a FoL their way. For example, when I'm on tank healing at Shahraz, it just seems stupid to me to spam away at a relatively full tank and ignore the people being wrecked by Fatal Attraction damage. I know for sure I've saved a few people in that fight by deviating from my role.
My Holy gear is now at a very good standard. I think, unbuffed, I'm at about 2100 healing, 20% crit, 122 mana/5 and 6% haste which is better than some of our real healers. To me, just having the attitude that I'm a tank and shouldn't have the same responsibilities as the other healers is a crappy one I try to avoid. That in itself gets to me when I see so many people with potential badge gear upgrades if they just did heroics together. But then they beat me constantly in healing meters and we just killed Illidan so I guess it's redundant now, eh? I'd say my one saving grace is that I don't die to idiotic stuff like many others do. The amount of times I've come out superficially high on meters because people get such tunnel vision is scary. Infact, collectively, I've been seeing way too many deaths to raid damage that should've be avoided. Every week I can quite reliably pick out all the people I know will get Doomfire on Archimonde, that will stand in the Council's Flamestrike/Blizzard, that will stand in a Supremus Volcano, that will run in the wrong direction during Fatal Attraction. And I'm talking about the entire community collectively there, not just the healers. But, again, we killed Illidan...
I really hope I get to pick up some offspec T6 gear in the near future. When the time comes I'm thinking about talking to our Priests and Paladins in hope that they'll pass it on "for the good of the raid". Look how much I heal! Ultimately, it doesn't matter though it would give me some direction on what to do with my badges. I'm sitting on 122 at the moment and holding off purchasing new boots, legs and gloves in the hope that I can snap up better gear as it drops. Hell, I'm still using my tanking shield to heal.
While on the subject of items, I really like our DKP system. While all systems are ultimately subject to the inner workings of Kurt Gödel's brain, there's a lot I look at and wonder why I didn't think of it for BG. The 1k cap stops people whoring and the bidding system and lack of zero sum means that older members aren't riding their legacy for months on end. Recent changes also meant that we are better rewarded for our time. The lack of a Main Tank clause kinda hurts though. We had Kaz'rogal's Hardened Heart drop last week in Hyjal and I was in the position to take it. For my role in the community, the shield I have is perfectly adequate and my beliefs and past parallel experience wouldn't allow me to take it from someone using Ondori Legacy Defender anyway. The one thing I could've done though is offer one DKP less than him and completely ruined him for it. But I have self-respect and didn't even though I just know it's going to bite me in the ass for Pendant of the Titans (and, to a lesser degree, Shadowmoon Insignia). Nice guys finish last and all that shit.
One of the things I decided on the day I started my Paladin was that I would level another Warrior when in the position to twink it out. Obviously I didn't know better but I always resented the fact that I leveled the original Russta so idiotically. Various points in different weapon specs, points in protection, no Mortal Strike, leveling with a sword 'n' board, just stupid. Refreshing myself on this, the only option was to level Fury. I got him to about the mid twenties and stopped due to the impending depression of running from one side of Wetlands and Duskwood to the other.
Historically, all yearly events suck and are, ultimately, a pointless waste of time. In spanning all of Phantasy Star Online, Final Fantasy XI and World of Warcraft, the only one that comes to mind that wasn't was the Easter quest given in PSO that allowed you to get an easy Chainsawd. WoW's recent summer event certainly bucked that trend for me. Leveling with dual Crusadered weapons that both have an extra attack proc with 9% hit, 9 expertise, sharpening stones, 3% crit, spike damage equal to my level and a fire proc times ten of my level on every other mob was just fabulous! It was truly one of the most fun times I've ever had in WoW but, sadly, I've hit another lull with Jenkem now that the event is over. This is also compounded by the fact that Sain's alt is now 60, BTB's is 64 and Mimis has now hit 70. I desperately want to get it up there so we can all do stuff together but the motivation just isn't there right now.
(5 lost | Enter the storm)
Saturday, June 21st, 2008 - 4:45 pm - Finally dandy with the me inside
So this is me now. A Human Paladin on a European, PvE roleplaying server. Excusing the fact that I'm still tanking, everything is as opposite to what I used to play as possible - exactly the way I wanted it. For me to be able to function within WoW as I used to, I felt it was necessary for me to take these steps. It probably wasn't but then I have no regrets. And no, I don't roleplay, nor do I have any intention of ever doing it. In fact, whenever anyone around me does I almost freeze up as if I feel I should respond to it accordingly but have no idea how. It's as if seeing a spider crawling on my desk! I actually ended up on Argent Dawn due to some lobbying on my Benefactor's Bar post by two natives named Tectonic and Verin. The latter would become an important figure for me in the coming months.
Leveling up for me was extremely swift. Following Jame's ridiculously efficient leveling guides, as I always do, combined with the changes in 20-60 leveling speed and my already vast knowledge of the game allowed me to hit 62 in just thirteen real life days of consistent play. I'm not sure what the /played was but seeing as the only help I got from all that leveling was from the odd instance "boosts" (as they call being powered through on EU servers) thanks to one of Verin's alts, I was quite happy with my progress. Though Bluetonberry and Linearhaze would join me later, the vast majority of my leveling was done with no guild and no private channel. My only real source of companionship was through sending tells to Verin. Even doing this made me self-conscious. I couldn't shake the mental image of Edna telling Fry about all the menial things she did throughout the course of her day in 'Why Must I Be a Crustacean in Love?' so I attempted to hold back. Still, I never really felt lonely and allowed the silence to create a level of stoic concentration when going through the worst parts of grinding.
I always knew I was going to switch to Protection, I could just never make up my mind when. I felt that the early forty's was the most optimal time to do it but ended up staying as mind-numbing Retribution until 60 due to lack of funds for fancy shields and spikes. Switching over in outlands was quite scary. I wasn't exactly rife with the gear to do it though I did know what I was doing. Before I even starting playing as Paladin, I read an incredible amount of literature to clue myself up. After all, on my Warrior, I didn't even know why Tiberion thought The Unbreakable Will was a bad tanking weapon in Hyjal a month before I quit. I was like a kid slowly learning how to swim, pushing the envelope further and further until I learned my limits. To be fair, the biggest obstacle I faced in early outlands was the fact that my one handed weapon skills were so grossly underskilled rendering Reckoning, and, consequently, my ability to grind, useless. After a few hours doing some quests that frankly should've taken a fraction of the time, I felt confident in my grinding skill as Protection and that I had learned my limits.
At level 62, I took a two week break off the game for a reason I'm not going to go into in a public entry (those that I'm comfortable knowing, know). The only thing I selfishly did in this time was grind out the Sporeggar rep for Petrified Lichen Guard and painfully level Engineering up to 350 for Tankatronic Goggles. Patiently spreading this over a few minor time slots would allow me to focus back on leveling completely once my wonderful break was over.
When I came back, I decided it was time to put my instance grinding model into effect. The premise of this is simple; instead of making quests my main focus for leveling, I do instances. These give comparable EXP, better items, valuable early reputation and they allow your quests to backlog so far that at 70 you have a ton of resources to draw on to afford epic riding skill. If you're confident in dealing with people and looking for groups, which isn't exactly hard on a high population server, there are absolutely no negatives to leveling this way yet mind blowing positives. As I would discover though, the one thing I hadn't really considered coming out of this was kinship.
The one person that I believe I owe an untold amount of credit to on Argent Dawn is a Paladin called Cleppel. Or, to credit his main, a Mage called Griph. Our paths accidentally crossed during a Slave Pens run and I think I left an impression on him with a joke I made about not using greater blessings. There's also the fact that I'm a helluva great tank! Hey, I'm not going to be modest seeing as I tanked as a Warrior every day for over year and worked out the kinks and nuances to Paladin's tanking through hours of research and two full levels of experiencing it solo. Besides, enough people told me as much, which isn't really surprising when almost everyone carries the mentality that each and every member of a pick up group is going to be mentally retarded and the whole thing will fall apart on the first pull.
The next day when I was grinding in Nagrand, he sent me a tell and asked if I remembered him and if I wanted to do another instance and it just built from there. When you have a good tank and a good healer, which is essentially what Cleppel and I formed, the framework of a successful instance group is there to be built upon with smart use of the Armory. We pretty much ran multiple instances every single day until we were at the point where we needed nothing else and had to make the step up to heroics. Before that though, during one of our Steamvaults runs, he informed me he was doing Karazhan that night with his usual circle of friends. I pretty much begged him to let me join and he said he would see what he could do.
This is where I made one of my only mistakes on this character.
I wasn't confident of getting in to his group in the slightest and, as time was getting on, I decided to just see what was going on in Looking for Group. It took me precisely four minutes to join a group that was already at the Opera Event. Why that didn't already set alarm bells off for me, I don't know. The stupidest thing I did was zone into their partially cleared Karazhan (thus binding me to it) before the group had even been recompiled. Before a single mob had been pulled, Cleppel informed me that I could indeed go with his group. Let me tell you, standing inside Karazhan with a dysfunctional PuG while somebody who had become a good friend is granting you permission to go with his group of friends that'll clear it in three hours without trying was gut wrenching. I was so annoyed with myself over what such a stupid, impatient decision had cost me. Pretty much the only thing I remembered from the PuG I was in was that there was no priority on loot. If a shitty DPS Warrior with 61 points in Arms wanted to roll on a piece of tanking plate over the tanks, that was okay. In hindsight, it was a PuG, thinking it'd be any different was silly but at the time I was floored. Incredibly, when The Curator died, he dropped Wrynn Dynasty Greaves and I won the roll. Even that wasn't enough for me to get over what I'd given up with Cleppel though.
In the following weeks, Cleppel and I would run heroic and heroic, day after day and I would eventually slot into his weekly Karazhan run as their main tank, a role I performed as recently as last night. The other key people I've met in my time are Saitoh, Tannenberg, and Sain. Sadly, the first two have disappeared, though I can't say I'm surprised. Tannenberg, a Retribution Paladin, had re-rolled here with his girlfriend Saitoh, a Restoration Druid, from a horde guild that sounds like they were half way through tier 5 content. From all the conversations with him, he seemed to get more and more frustrated that he couldn't bust into raiding as soon as possible. Not that I have anything bad to say about him, he just didn't follow the same logic and do the same groundwork that I did to get to where I am. Do normal instances till there are no upgrades left, do heroics and try to get into Karazhan until there are no items left you need, then apply to a guild. Saitoh just seemed to be along for the ride. She was a good healer. Hopefully the pair of them will reappear when WotLK comes out.
Sain, is a totally different story. I don't remember how we met or why he left a good impression on me, but him, Saitoh, Tannenberg and I would run instances together quite regularly. When those two disappeared, I begun to implement him into my pact with Cleppel, which had already very happily impregnated Bluetonberry into it. As I always held high standards with everyone I invited and Sain fell a little below that, Cleppel, who could be occasionally outspoken, accidentally asked in party chat what my obsession with this blue Mage was instead of guild. Sain didn't care, he shrugged it off with a joke about being a green Mage. I don't know what it was about him but he exuded this attitude of wanting to better himself and learn all he could to improve. That's the sort of attitude I thrive on and I did what I could to put him in the right direction. I'm really happy with where he is right now and he's become as close of a friend as Cleppel has, the sort I will do anything for if they should ask. The real tragedy is his week on, week off work schedule condemns him from joining a raiding guild. A terrible shame for someone with so much potential.
The final friend who I'm very proud to give a mention here is Mimis. Yes, Mimis. When I thought I was going to go back to FFXI, I dug around trying to find any way of contacting him I could in the hope of a reconciliation after our less than amicable split. It was really a shot in the dark, I had no idea whether he still used such an old e-mail address but after a few days, he replied. We got speaking from there and it turned out that he now played WoW casually around the grueling new job he wishes he doesn't have. When he discovered we were Alliance, he said good bye to his guild mates and transferred his Druid over. From the minute us three were all speaking again, it was like old times. Like we both silently realized what a fucking waste of a good friendship our stupid argument was. It was odd, I felt like a girl overwhelmed with emotion that I had this friend I valued so highly back in my life. Excusing Artica, Mimis was the only person that was ever able to truly break into the bond of friendship holding BTB and I together.
As outlined earlier, my goal was to get every non-heroic item, move onto heroics and Karazhan until I had every drop and badge item from those, then apply to a raiding guild. That process took me about two or three months. Devilshark Cape took four runs, Figurine of the Colossus took fifteen. The step up from normal instances to heroics was really rough. It's ironic that it was easier doing Karazhan in between that and the gear from that made heroics much easier. To me, it doesn't seem that's how it should work, but alas.
I feel pretty confident when I say that Verin would've got me into the current best guild on Argent Dawn, Lonely Adventure Guild. He was an officer within it, and, by all accounts, a somewhat powerful figure on the server. He'd treated me very well and hinted as to what his intentions were. I would've been that twenty-fifth member you wince and carry through Hyjal and Black Temple that gears up fully inside two weeks and becomes a pretty decent member to be relied upon. But that didn't happen. Before I was even 70, the guild broke up due to the leader quitting. That was that, then! Consequently, this thread is a good indication of how things really are for a re-roller.
Once I'd got all my badge and heroic gear and the majority of tanking stuff from Karazhan, the final road block for me was heroic Magister's Terrace. My God, this place is hard without an optimal set up as I found out too many times. Whenever I would go for a group, I would grill them until I was sure it wouldn't be a waste of time. The first time I did it, we couldn't get past Vexallus because a Paladin healer isn't optimal for it. The second time, we couldn't get past the Delrissa arena event because our lack of CC wasn't optimal. Though I was the optimal tank for the place, trying to get together the right group of people wasn't easy. One night when I was about to log, I got a tell from some Druid asking me if I wanted to do it with his perfect group, which I jumped on. The entire run took 35 minutes and it was awe inspiring how this group of people carried themselves. Though the perfect group will obviously help more than anything, it became apparent to me that having good players who knew how to react to a variety of situations without panicking was pretty crucial too. In total, it took six runs before Commendation of Kael'thas and Cudgel of Consecration dropped, amazingly, in the same run.
At this point, I was confident of looking for a guild.
During one of the few runs without Cleppel by my side, I picked up a healer called Darra who's Vestments of the Avatar excited me on Armory. The daily heroic was Black Morass, which is what we did. After the run she sent me a whisper that was along the lines of "you're so good, I think you should apply to my raiding community". I was flattered but, at this point, I hadn't yet reached the point of completion outlined above. By the second heroic (Shattered Halls) I did with her though, where she continued to prod me into applying, I was. The next day, I checked out their site and, incredibly, they were looking for a Protection Paladin. After putting together a truly epic application and going through their intimidating and slightly contrived theory and practical examinations, I was accepted.
The key thing to note about Redemption is that it's a community and not a guild. I couldn't quite get my head around this at first but I see the reasoning for it. Where as you'd usually join a guild then use a private channel to keep up with friends, this is pretty much the opposite. There are pros and cons to it, but hey, it works and people seem to respect the fact that they can remain in their guilds.
To be honest, the first few raids I did with them, I felt no bond. Whether it was because of not being in an actual guild, still finding out who people are or whatever, I felt like I was going to be one of those people that just raids to collect items without ever really breaching the bonds of friendship on show. It also agitated me a little that I was seemingly the last tank to have to step up, as if they felt a Paladin was unable to hold their own in a one on one battle. Thankfully, that changed in my first Hyjal run. Feeling incredibly useful and valued really made me feel better. Being part of their first Archimonde kill and then in a successful Zul'aman group that almost made the fourth chest on out first run together really put me up there and I started to feel part of something.
Yeah, the community isn't perfect, but which one is? It's strange really. Sometimes I sit there slamming my head into the keyboard while hearing the strategy for the next boss meticulously explained to the group of people that were all seemingly there the week before wondering why we're not fully concentrating our time on getting as much as done as possible. Then, because all twenty-five people have utter respect for each others time and are all trying on trash (the true time burglar in raiding) it feels like we're actually going pretty fast. There's also two other people in the guild that have done all the content as I have that I've formed a strong bond with. Sometimes us three will make a "suggestion" for how something could be done better only for it to get ignored or butchered. For example, in saying that all the Shamans should drop their Earth Elemental totems for that awful Aqueous Spawn pack after Naj'entus to trivialize the pack, that idea somehow how got bastardized into a Shaman basing the entire pull around the Earth Elemental doing the pull. That was then dubbed a terrible idea to try and we're made to look foolish. I mean, I don't get it, how is dropping a few pets that are immune to the damage to peel them off the tanks after the pull a bad idea? How can it even possibly be a bad idea? Sometimes it feels like our efforts to better the raid are diluted down to an unnecessary "them vs me" situation out of some fear of control loss.
So, that's where I am now after a few months of not posting here. I'm happy with the friends I'm surrounded by, happy with the raiding community I'm in and happy with the progression my character has made.
Lets hope it continues.
(8 lost | Enter the storm)
Saturday, March 22nd, 2008 - 9:40 pm - dılɟ#
A little over two months ago, as a few of you may know or have guessed, I decided to quit WoW. Primarily, my reason for doing it was because after five years I was sick of the life I was living. Going to bed at around 10am and waking up at 6pm was just too much for me to take after so long. Similar to what Bert did with me, my hope was to be able to pass the guild onto somebody else and have them carry on without me but it wasn't to be. Any guild losing their main tank is a huge blow but while leader I took everything on board myself. There was no real hierarchy in place, no subordinates I burdened with anything so when I walked away there was just a small amount of power diluted among those left.
Still, even if I would've handled things differently I'm not sure the outcome would've been any different.
By the time I quit, we'd been farming Black Temple and Hyjal for absolutely months. Pretty much everyone had pretty much everything and people were tired of what the game had become to them. Those that didn't outright say as much showed it in their raid performance or attendance. I think a lot of people had gotten to a point where they just felt obligated to log on and raid despite not enjoying it and were happy when I quit as it was a way to quit themselves without guilt or drama. Off the top of my head, in the two months that have passed, eleven people (not including myself) have completely quit WoW, several have sold their character. I've never been someone who treated people I met online as just another screen name and I cared about every single person I ever raided with so knowing that I essentially destroyed everyone's home, no matter how stale or frail things were, is a burden I'll carry. I still hope that people can empathize with my reasons for quitting as I haven't had any snide comments or animosity passed my way in the interim.
So onto the next part of the story - Final Fantasy XI.
I don't know why but since being gone from WoW, the urge to play FFXI just built and built inside of me. Last week I finally asked Bluetonberry what his thoughts on going back were. Surprisingly, he was quite enthusiastic. I checked to see if my account was still there and it actually was. I was half-expecting it to be banned for third party tools or something similarly retarded. The reason I say that is I logged on POL at some point around Christmas '06 and saw I'd gotten a 72 hour suspension despite having not played for two months. Anyway, yeah, it was there, and so was BTB's so I fucked around in JP POL and reactivated my content ID's.
Upon logging in for the first time, a few things hit me.
- How much it fucking hurts my hand to play with the movement keys on the numerical keypad.
- There's no keyboard shortcut to bring up the map.
- I can't look at a map for somewhere outside of where I am.
- It's not possible to invite someone unless they're in your region (I actually facepalmed at this one).
- It took me over twenty minutes to get from Mhaura to Whitegate.
Obviously I knew about all this stuff before I decided to play again but it wasn't until actually experiencing them again after two years of WoW that I was amazed at how primitive FFXI is. I just felt so constricted and limited in what I could do...
Anyway, I dealt with it and decided to carry on. BTB had 21 million on him (a phenomenal amount in todays market) and gave me 3 mil to help gear myself up. I did that to a decent standard and got to thinking on what we could do. Naturally, Goblin Wolfman for a Parade Gorget was the first thing on the agenda for how involved I thought I was in trying to unravel the enigma back in the day. Three attempts to get mine at a total of about an hour then another four wasted trying to get one for BTB. It really was as if the game was giving me a "welcome back" in making us use three hours of our time to get me one trivial piece of gear and him one wave of disappointment.
In thinking what else we could do, we decided to try and catch up on the ToAU missions that had come in the time we were gone. That amounted to a ton of running around Whitegate, Caedarva and Aydeewa for some lengthy cutscenes then a trip to Navukgo Execution Chamber where we duo'd the Khimaira 13 BC. I'll give FFXI one thing, it does do missions and storytelling extremely well and I quite enjoyed myself here.
The only other thing I could think for us to do was to grab Awoir and attempt Assault. For whatever reasons, we didn't get that done but in the waiting for someone I decided to go through the lists of rewards for the five sets of Assault's we're done in the past and saw they'd added nothing extra in nearly two years. Nyzul Isle seemed pretty interesting and had some surprisingly good rewards but then I found out you need a full, well-balanced party of six to stand any chance of succeeding at it. As someone who wants to play casually and fit the game around other aspects of their life for once, it doesn't seem like something I'd be able to adhere to on a regular basis.
Even if my time did somehow allow it, the one thing I ruled out before I'd loaded up the game for the first time was rejoining a HNM LS. At some point during my WoW career, it dawned on me what an elitist douchebag I had been through the majority of my FFXI time. The way I treated Chikami in particular disgusted me and I couldn't even bring myself to open a window and make an apology to him. The nature of FFXI as a game when mixed with my unrelenting desire to excel didn't mix well. In WoW, time and effort are guaranteed to pay off and I think that standard of reward helped level me out in all sorts of ways.
While watching iMPACT on Friday, I did some reflecting and wondered why I was playing FFXI again. I initially went back because all the offline games I was enjoying ultimately lead to an end whereas an MMO doesn't. Ironically, I couldn't see what my main aim was in FFXI. Why merit when I have no desire to put them to any real use in endgame? I was sick of Dynamis two years ago, Assault is a way to kill time with no true goal and making money still sucks even if the ratios are better.
I simply don't feel like FFXI can reward the level of time I'm willing to give an MMO at this stage in my life.
I haven't completely closed the door on FFXI but I'm not far off. I feel really, really guilty that BTB came back with me and bought the expansion pack only for me to realize it was a mistake a few days later. We'd even discussed transferring to Bahamut to play with Kytele but alas...
I've ordered the EU version of WoW. I really want to still be able play an MMO but I need to be able to manage my time in doing so. WoW is an excellent game and I love pretty much everything about it. In WoW I can log on, play for two hours and log off having achieved something, no matter how minor. It pretty much is everything I need from an MMO at this stage in my life and it'll be in my timezone. I don't think I'll be able to convince Ky or BTB to play EU WoW with me so I'll be on my own for the first time in a while. I don't actually know anyone who plays WoW on EU servers but I think being independent might just be okay. I love tanking and I became pretty obsessed with what a a Protection Paladin was capable of toward the end of my time on Mal'Ganis so I think that's what I'll end up rolling as. Server or faction I don't know, I'll decide that at another time, but I'll aim for a primarily English speaking PvE one on GMT with medium-to-high population.
(75 lost | Enter the storm)
Friday, March 21st, 2008 - 10:56 pm - Hi H.T.
blink drone
Tuesday, March 11th, 2008 - 12:06 pm - Baaaaaaaaaaaawl
An occasional source of humour over at /v/ this past month has been the periodic threads consisting of screencaps of posts like these from SmashBoards.
I had the original N64 version of Smash Brothers on the day of release and played it religiously. I loved it so much that anticipation for Melee became one of the precursors for me in laying out a hefty sum of money for my JP/US switched GameCube. If I'm honest, I don't remember a whole lot about the original version other than I played Ness when I unlocked him because he felt so much more advanced than the handful of characters available. Melee was obviously where the real addiction set in and my copy has about 1500-2000 hours logged into it. Sadly, my friends were never too keen on it, preferring to play Winning Eleven and Halo instead, so aside from the combined month I spent playing with my old Phantasy Star Online friends Aseuk and Atrox, the majority of that time was spent fighting computer players. Still, I liked to think I was pretty good at Melee with Jigglypuff and, primarily, Roy despite my lack of human competition.
I can't recall when but I found out about a huge competitive scene for Smash Brothers and decided to look into it. However, upon further inspection, the beat-'em-up so different from all the others that I regarded fun had been stripped of all of that and reduced to playing Final Destination with Fox, Marth and Sheik with no items on. I read of a story where Hyrule Castle had to be banned because a Fox player could shoot the person once and they spend the remaining time running away from his opponent until the clock ran down. Morally, where do you draw the line? If someone had done that to me I would step back and ask myself what the fuck I'm doing associating with people devaluing such a great game like this.
Someone said that Sakurai was the ultimate troll for removing all the unintended glitches "advanced techniques" and hilariously making characters occasionally trip and I wholeheartedly archive him for such an epic win. How on earth can you argue that all the characters being balanced now is bad?? Another screencap that I read was someone feeling sorry for his friend because he couldn't talk him out of using the character he found enjoyment in playing (Roy) to switch to a "top tier" one. One other was a guy crying because he'd spent the past few years saving up $2000 to tour the country playing Smash Brothers tournaments...
When I got the Japanese version I decided to sign up at those boards because I had read it was the largest community of players. I thought that I might be able to help contribute to it with unknown information or to answer questions people had but it quickly became apparent to me that the only voices people wanted to hear were their own. Threads consisting of little more than "I haven't played it but here's what I think..." reigned supreme and I quickly left. SmashBoards seems to be to Brawl what Allakhazam is to FFXI.
(23 lost | Enter the storm)
Thursday, February 14th, 2008 - 12:54 am - shit was SO cash
Russta - 3179-5441-6395
Rex - 0817-3022-1571
If any of you have Japanese Smash Bros Brawl, add us and leave your code in a comment!
(27 lost | Enter the storm)
Friday, January 4th, 2008 - 5:29 pm - 20 minute free-form jazz odyssey
We're coming up to the end of our three week break from World of Warcraft and boy do I feel better for it. No matter which way I've sliced it over the past month or two, it's hard not to come to the predictable conclusion that raiding just isn't fun anymore. For that reason alone, so many of our members needed such a lengthy break over Christmas and the New Year to recharge their batteries. Anything in WoW is a challenge until you beat it at which point it's (usually) instantly on farm and you move onto the next stuff. But what do you move on to when there's nothing left to move on to? As we seem to have discovered, each other. There were times where the guild atmosphere felt saturated in cabin fever so I stopped caring who was or wasn't in Vent nor if people were tabbed out for nearly every trash set for weeks on end. I mean, it isn't that I don't care per se, but what's the point in trying to squeeze a maximum performance out of everyone daily when it's going to take a night and a half either way? At this point in the guild's life cycle, it feels far more important to let people raid in the way that they themselves find the most fun. If that involves listening to Black Out on Winamp or talking in small groups rather than listening to me dictating Flame Crash movement, so be it.
A lot of my time away has been spent reflecting on where I currently stand and how I can improve things. Lord knows I've certainly been in better shape socially than I am now, so I'd like fix that where possible. It's pretty tough trying to strike a balance between what each and every person from our different strata define as fair and just. As a sort of New Year's Resolution for within WoW, I wrote down a flow chart of how to make decisions that involves my officers liberally and penned a few methods of spreading out the assets of the guild better. The issue of gems for PvP was something that sat as top priority for me considering many of our members are hardcore arena players and help earn them too. I'm also determined to tighten up DKP for The Sunwell in lieu of it actually being released. That's something I plan to seek advice and suggestions for from every raiding member of the guild. Having a system tweaked by the very people it affects built on our strong existing framework seems a logical step in fairness and keeping people happy for our final dungeon in the Azeroth that we know.
Aside from this, the weeks I was away, and quite a few preceeding them, were spent catching up on a lot of Wii games I've had build up since my Birthday. I'd like to share my experiences with them as best my memory allows.
Mario Galaxy
Aside from my beloved Zelda franchise, the two games I went to such lengths to get a Wii for were Super Smash Bros. Brawl and this. I always anticipated it to be good but in an age where the hype for games can hit ridiculous heights they're never going to to hit, this was a grand exception. I've had people say that the game was too easy but I felt the difficulty curve was spot on. If you wanted to just get the minimum amount of stars, the game would be pretty simple. Once you decide to start going for the comets, it takes a step up. The one I recall being a pain in the ass was having to beat Bouldergeist on the Daredevil Comet. That was still nothing to the frustration of the trial galaxies from the three green stars or some of the Purple Comets (the Dreadnaught and the one on the giant 8-bit Luigi spring to mind). Amazing game I fully intend to play through again soon and genuinly one of the best games ever - but Super Mario World is still better.
Metroid Prime 3
Buying this game, or asking for it as a gift rather, was pretty risky for me. I bought the original game on the GameCube and simply couldn't get into it. I don't know if it was because I was heavily into something specific on FFXI at the time, but that's how it was. Obviously I never bought the second one either.
And despite this, Metroid Prime 3 is my game of the year by a considerable margin.
The graphics, sound, atmosphere and especially the controls are incredible throughout this game. The levels had a bit more linearity to them than I would've expected from my days of Super Metroid and I found Bryyo dragged on just a tad too long but that was something Elysium more than made up for with the SkyTown level. One of the concious decisions I made was to play the game on veteran based on Darm's suggestion and it wasn't one I regretted. Well, to be fair, it did cross my mind when I sat there screaming at my TV how fucking impossible it was trying to pull down the three levers while defending them at the Titan guns preventing my ship detroying the barrier over Bryyo's Leviathan. The game was extremely challenging but in a way that never truly felt impossible, a feat seldom achieved in games these days.
A very special mention must go to the boss battles, they're epic. I can't remember a game ever having them this good. From wondering if the thirty minute battle with Mogenar was ever going to end to the absolute awesomeness of the Omega Ridley and Gandrayda fights, they were consistently impressive. I've shown a few people videos of them on hypermode and they're such enthralling spectacles that they've watched them in their entirety and expressed a strong desire to play the game. Keeping someone who previously held zero desire to ever play it hooked on a ten minute video is testament to the game's greatness.
I haven't felt so strongly toward a game since Resident Evil 4 and can't recommend this enough to anyone who'll devote the time it desires which, for me, was 18:56 for a 100% clear.
As a final note, if anyone with the PAL version of this game happens to be reading, post a comment as I'd like to trade some friend vouchers and it can't be done with my NTSC loving chums.
Super Paper Mario
Not gonna lie, I was slightly dissapointed with this game. I can't help but wonder if my choice of when to play it assisted in that or not though as I felt I would enjoy an easy, relaxing game after the difficulty of Metroid but found myself craving the same challenge. I like what they were trying to achieve with this game in creating an easily accessible RPG without any of the hardcore RPG elements but, in truth, it was hard to see that at times when it felt like I was playing a cross between Metal Gear Solid and some outsourced platformer hiding under a shiney Nintendo coat.
I do sorta feel guilty saying bad things about this game as it did have a nice charm to it and, on more than one occasion, made me laugh. The third chapter with the stereotypically fat weeaboo Francis in particular was a riot. I also couldn't help but snigger in my mind everytime Tippi spoke too as I would've named it Okan if it was possible. The art style was incredible to me too, but then I genuinly believe Wind Waker is the greatest looking game I will ever see in my lifetime.
Almost up there with Lego Star Wars as a true kids game amongst all the woeful licensed games palmed off as them but contradicts itself a bit with the monumental amount of text to read. I'm really not sure where I stand on this game.
Guitar Hero III
I've played this a few times in the past in various arcades and friend's houses but never actually owned it myself. I did want to but I refused to buy a third PSdouble after my first two broke, though my brother eventually caved in and did. All the custom song videos on YouTube over the past few months really sparked my interest up again though and I almost bought Guitar Hero II a week before the third was due to come out. I held off though and asked for the latter for Christmas.
The majority of my life revolves around music and gaming, frequently at the same time, so this seems a match made in heaven. Even so, I'm pretty amazed at my level of addiction to it. Though I want to be "that guy" who can play expert Dragonforce without looking, I've kept my progress through the game slow and steady, being sure to five star each difficulty before moving onto the next. After much swearing today, I finally got done with the final song I needed to do (Raining Blood) and moved onto hard where I must actually learn the songs for finger placement incorperating the orange button. I've been playing online with Rex a lot and started learning hard 'cause I was so sick of how stagnant medium had become. Something I did to ease the transition to hard was by playing bass online and it helped a lot. And if anyone feels like it;
Wii - 3527 1895 9401 7635
GH3 - 232048480250
(9 lost | Enter the storm)
Tuesday, November 20th, 2007 - 7:46 am - Kashmir
I've always had a checkered history when it comes to shields in WoW. Even going way back to the original Russta on Anetheron, I had to run Shadowfang Keep way too many times to get Commanders Crest. Then, in an infamous act which still gets brought up today, I "ninja looted" the Imperial Qiraji Armament from Satura for Blessed Qiraji Bulwark in my first ever raid just a few hours after hitting 60.
Moving onto The Burning Crusade, I guess I got lucky with Shield of Impenetrable Darkness dropping pretty quickly from Nightbane. The next upgrade to that, Ondori Legacy Defender, dropped on our tenth Gruul kill and even that was memorable to me because Bert had it on master looter and when he told me it dropped, I didn't believe him. Even though I'm pretty sure I was the only one that ever gave the fact that I said something untoward more than a moments thought, I still kinda feel embaressed about saying anything remotely insulting.
That's pretty much where the shields stopped for a long time. I used that beautiful looking shield through all of Serpentshrine Cavern, Tempest Keep, Hyjal and Black Temple and even blessed it with an ironic sorbriquet. Over the span of just under six months, Vashj, Kael'thas, Archimonde and Illidan all took the full force of Ondori until a shield finally dropped for me to be able to upgrade to. The one Kaz'rogal's Hardened Heart we got in seventeen kills I simply couldn't justify taking over Inffest, who was still using season two arena shield at the time. I caught some flak in the hypocrisy vein for it and it was two months between Heart and Bulwark but it's still a decision I'm glad I made and have never once regretted.
The only tanking equipment I'm missing now is Band of the Abyssal Lord, which isn't a big deal, and Myrmidon's Treads, which is. It's kinda ridiculous that in eighteen kills we still haven't seen a single pair. That we have to raid five days a week for four months in Black Temple to keep getting shafted by the random number generator when Joe Casual can spend two hours a week losing ten games in arena to pick the item he wants after a month is really fucking backward. But that's another argument for another day. I've finished my tier 6 and got my exalted Hyjal ring (even leveled Enchanting just to put +4 stats on it) which were big goals of mine. Now I aim to just relax and enjoy what little raiding we do until Blizzard sees fit to release Sunwell.
I had for the longest time intended to just do Zul'aman with the same exact people I did Karazhan with for many months. For whatever reasons, that didn't happen. When I sat down with my illuminous yellow Post-it and blue ball point pen, I fleshed out a balanced group of ten from within the guild that would greatly entertain me with good chemistry on Ventrilo. I'm very happy with the group I put together. They're all exceptional and reliable players and they make it fun for me everytime we go. Having Darm, QQbits and myself in a room together is a pretty solid guarantee of hilarity if I do say so myself. I don't need any equipment from the place really, I'm just doing it for fun so when it ceases to be that, I'll step away.
There's not really much to say about Nalorakk. One person tanks the Human form that does bleed effects, one person tanks the Bear form that multiplies the damage those bleed effects do tenfold. It's a simple yet ingenious concept for a fight, one that doesn't take a whole lot of explaining. I remember when we did him on the PTR and we kept getting Taunt resists, which is pretty much a wipe. He's single handedly the reason that all taunt's were changed from spell hit to melee hit which is great because even with zero of each, it's gone from a 16% chance to resist to 9%. I'm still not really sure how it kept that archaic mechanic for so long but at least it's changed now. I still haven't checked if you can taunt while silenced now though.
Akil'zon was the only other boss we managed to do on the abomination of a server that is known as the PTR. Unless we magically got better at it, it seems like they made his electrical storm a lot more forgiving. I seem to remember taking a phenomenal amount of damage when running from him to the designated cloud back then but not it seems negligible. The only problem I have with this fight is dealing with the fucking eagles. They're incredible annoying and impossible to traditionally DPS. Even with the two Warlocks in my group, SoC and DoT's don't really get rid of them sufficiently. I guess it's a simple enough fight to not really complain though and boy does that storm look pretty.
I think Jan'alai is an incredibly fun boss, probably up there with Thaddius.
In this game of full out DPS on anything and everything, the key here is to focus it perfectly in the correct area. Kill one hatcher, let the other pop a certain amount of eggs, kill him, kill birds and repeat that while being sure not to push him over 35% until you know you're not gonna get overrun and sodomised. From the few times we're killed him, it seems as though you wanna have pushed him into enrage just after all the birds are dead, which is a pretty steep DPS requirement for what I feel Zul'aman is aimed at. I'd be interested to see how groups wearing primarily Karazhan gear deal with all aspects of this fight. To us, it feels as easy as the other bosses but I can imagine it's a decent jump in difficulty when you aren't wearing tier 6.
His fire bombs still enamor me when he throws them out. It's such a treat for the senses.
A special mention must go to his trash here, most notably Amani'shi Scouts. We haven't successfully gotten to the point where we're rushing through it yet on the timer due to some pretty fucking epic fails by us but I have no doubt that these will be the biggest cockblock for all attempting it. We've tested several methods for killing and controlling them and I think we have it down now, however, that doesn't stop the massive gayness that is their respawning. How fair is it that you're fighting a four pull and, while in combat, a Scout spawns in the hut behind you and runs to a drum ten feet away from him before you can react? Yeah, as shitty as it is, sure, have them spawn and despawn between huts but in combat? Fuck that, it's not fair.
Incorperating Mother Shahraz, Fathom-Lord Karathress and some random pet, this guy is pretty easy. I still haven't figured out what's going on with his HP when the Spirit of the Lynx splits out but there's not really much to it. The totems taking forever to die brings me back to all the shit we had with our Rogues not wanting to waste combo points on Spitfire Totems.
The most interesting thing about this fight is not the fight itself, but the loot. While we were taking a short break before moving onto Malacrass, QQbits decided to tab out and look up the stats of a ring he wanted. Upon doing so, he noticed a marked down comment on Wowhead that said there was an urn inside of Halazzi's room that you can loot if you angle the camera correctly. When everyone was back, we ran there to see if it was true and, sure enough, there inside the jar was a chest containing... an Amani War Bear! We told the other group about it and, when they tried it, they got a mount too which was pretty suspicious. I told Chilicheese but his group got Signet of Primal Wrath. I asked him this morning if Halazzi was the third boss he'd killed and he said that it was. So, upon some discussion on EJ, the forth chest has 100% drop rate on Amani War Bear. Seeing as you don't have to try or put any effort in to get one chest, if you make sure Halazzi is the last boss you kill, you'll get a free mount every three days until they fix it. Then, you'll have to actually try.
I love this guy, not least because he drops the only item I truly want in Zul'aman (Tiny Voodoo Mask). To me, the concept of having a mob pick someone and use their class abilities against the raid is amazing. It adds such a fun, random element to the fight that'll never get old as long as we're doing this. The worst one we've experienced is definitly Paladin. Avenging Wrath and Consecration for 2.5k a tick is brutal. The adds are pretty much a non-issue and we keep one shackled, one banished and kill the other two. I think they just wanted another Moroes in here.
The one aspect of Malacrass I feel that would be pretty tough is his shadow volley but like so many other fights in WoW, we're able to negate that with our game destroying Shadow Resist BT gear.
Zul'jin is pretty easy for being the last boss. I'd be amazed at any guild able to get through the first five bosses and being unable to kill him. Still, I guess retard attrition during phase three could negate previous luck.
Phase one: Pretty straight forward. The only nasty thing he does is a high damage Whirlwind but considering there's very little other damage going on, it's hard to complain even if it does make topping off to remove the grievous wound type debuff more work.
I lol'd at being unable to disarm him.
Phase two: Starts hitting harder, but, again, straight forward tank and spank. The paralysis debuff is easily taken care of by two or three single dispels then a mass one on the rest of the raid.
This is the best phase of any fight ever due to the amount of Terry Schiavo jokes we can squeeze out in the 20% it lasts.
Phase three: Everyone, including myself, swears bloody murder at this phase but it's really not that bad if you stick to the Archimonde mentality of "live first, DPS second". After instilling that into peoples minds we didn't have a single death the last time we killed him. Just don't get cornered... not rocket science. The 1250 damage penalty for spellcasting is really, really shitty though.
Fun fact - you can use the tornados to knock yourself out of the arena at which point you can kite it around till he's almost at 40% and then use it to knock yourself back in. Do this if you're a worthless caster.
Phase four: Needs Sweeping Strikes for epic lulz. This phase is stupid. It's just nothing. We were using all manner of threat switches to put the debuff on me and he dropped in no time.
Phase five: I read that the flame debuff thing that stacks up on people acts as a sort of enrage timer in that it will stack to a point where the Heaven's Punisher will just one shot you. That made perfect sense until we were able to have the stacks reset without even trying.
(3 lost | Enter the storm)
Saturday, October 27th, 2007 - 1:00 am - #fortune
Your fortune: Godly Luck
(9 lost | Enter the storm)
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