Monday Morning Mumblings: Chapter 1

So here we are...another Monday morning...guess that means it's time to mumble a little.  Hey, bear with me please...I'm still working on that first cup of coffee.  It's hard to be coherent before say...NOON...on a Monday, despite having already been at work for a few hours.

As part of my Monday Morning rambling, I wanted to talk a little bit about feeling burnt out.  Hard to believe, right?  But it's true...I'm definitely feeling burnt out.  In the beginning of patch 4.1 or...whichever brought us Firelands...the whole idea of what my raid guild was doing seemed awesome.  We'd all be asked to raid 2 nights a week with the option to have a 3rd night off with an alternate taking our place.  That seemed so awesome...but our guild hit a rough patch a few weeks into Firelands and now we're struggling to fill our 25 man raid group.  No, there wasn't really any drama...but we've had a streak of nasty luck.  One of our main tanks got really sick, another main tank's computer died...two of our healers have too much RL stuff going on and have canceled their accounts for now...

That means that I get to raid 3 nights a week.  Every week.  And while I do love to raid...sometimes I just want to go be a total noob on an alt someplace...People keep saying to me that I can just tell my guild leader I need time off...but I don't want to be that guy.  You know...the person that's preventing your entire raid team from running because you aren't there...the 25th person they're waiting for...yeah I don't want to be that guy and like I said, I love raiding.  I've been there for all of our First Kills in Firelands so far and that's a cool feeling.

I'd especially like to be there for our first Staghelm kill...and Ragnaros.  The Rags fight looks so fun...

But anyway...I'm feeling a little less than enthusiastic lately.  I've let one of my dearest friends hang out on my account a lot lately.  Mainly he farms for me...occasionally does dailies...runs up repair bills...stuff like that...I love running instances on alts with friends still, but actually going out and questing and stuff...it's just not my cup of tea right now.  Running dungeons to gear my level 85 alts?  NO THANK YOU.

I'm sick of grinding rep and valor points...Luckily, my valor points get capped easily on my druid every week because she's actively raiding.  I usually only have to run 1 or 2 heroics to finish it off with her.  My shaman and priest (my "main" alts) are another story.  I haven't actively raided on either of them, nor do I even want to.  I'm so sick of healing I could scream...that's why I thought leveling my warlock would be a good change of pace...but she's 85 and trying to gear her makes me want to scream, so...I don't bother with her too much these days.  I don't even play my death knight or my mage at all anymore.  Maybe melee dps would be a good change of pace...I suppose I could give that a try, but I'd need to get my DK two weapons, because she's frost and 2h frost is broken supposedly.  

Meh.........

Maybe I'll just take some time off and go read the Twilight series...nothing would make you miss your night elf more than a twinkling vampire...right?  

I apologize for the "filler" post today.  I've been a little under the weather for the past 2 days and have sort of been less than enthusiastic about playing the game so I really don't have much to say.  

For someone without much to say, I sure do talk alot.

HA!  Anyway, RL calls so I'll post again soon.  Take care!

Reflections: Why My Main is a Druid

One of the most frequently asked questions to any World of Warcraft addict is:

Why did you pick that class as your main?

Recently, I got asked this question and decided that since I've never really talked about it...maybe today would be a good day to do that.

My WoW journey (aka addiction) began near the end of Burning Crusade.  My husband, at the time, had installed the game and paid for a subscription for me for Mother's Day.  It took me over a month to even log in for the first time because I had never really been a gamer and I was busy with getting us settled into our new home.  Once we were all settled in, I made the mistake of mentioning to a really close friend that my husband had given me a subscription as a gift and everything was installed and ready to go but that I wasn't sure I wanted to even log in.  My dear friend convinced me to give it a try, as we were long distance friends, and it would give us a way to "hang out".


Thus began the journey.


My friend decided to roll a hunter named Phaeryn.  I remember doing extensive research on the classes to try and decide what I wanted to play.  Maybe you'll giggle, but I have always  been fascinated by elves, so my first character (and many subsequent characters) had to be an elf.  Since all of the people I knew on my server were Alliance, I decided I would go that route...that and my husband at the time forbid me from playing Horde.


I originally picked the druid because the lore surrounding them made them seem so earthy and natural.  They were the protectors and seemed so peaceful.  When I found out that, ultimately, my druid would be able to turn into a bear...I was sold on the class.

I really miss the old bear form sometimes.

Phae and I leveled together each night after my child went off to bed, and I think it helped me adore my druid that much more.  It was the adventures we had, the trouble we found, the fun we had that really helped make my love for my druid become eternal and pushed me to actually begin learning about my class.


Admittedly, in the beginning, I really didn't know there even was an "end game".  I thought it was all about questing and picking flowers.  I didn't know anything about raiding.  It wasn't until after we had reached level 50 or so that the guild I was in really started talking about raiding with me.  


Phae had gone away to visit family for about two weeks and I was on my own.  One of the guild's main tanks sat me down and talked to me a little bit about raiding and what was involved.  That's the point where I started really trying to learn as much as I could about my class.  I updated her spec to become a tank and I started questing hard so that I could tank for our guild when I hit level 70.  (Which, unfortunately, left Phae behind...but that's another story for another day).


I started reading up on EJ about my class, had found a great forum in The Druid's Grove in order to really learn what I was doing.  I had always been a bear at heart, but had never really tanked before because I was nervous and wasn't sure I knew what I was doing.  My first actual tanking experience was in Karazhan.  


Yeah, I know.  Nothing like tanking for the first time in a raid to get your feet wet, right?


Overall, I did well given how "poor" my gear was and being that it was my first ever time tanking...actually, it was my first time raiding...ever!  I got a lot of positive feedback which only pushed me to learn more about my class and get even better.  


As time passed and I started learning more about my druid as a whole, not just bear stuff...I started to fall even more in love with the class.  During Wrath of the Lich King, we were granted Dual Spec...which allowed me to transition back and forth between healing and tanking as needed...and let me just say, there is nothing more fun than going from being the main tank on one fight to the top healer on the next!  Dual spec made me love my class even more than I did before.

I miss the old tree form, too..../mourn

 I guess to make a long story short:  The reason I play a druid is because I love the versatility of the class and I love how much fun I have when I play my druid.

I hope that answers your question about why I chose a druid as my main.

And since I answered your question...Why did you pick the class you did for your main?  

Feel free to email responses or reply in the comments section below!  I'd love to hear the reason you chose your main!

Filler: A Blogger's Crutch

I intended to post more often.  It didn't happen.  My bad.

I have been busy.  Or not...

Quick updates:  The warlock is 85 now and I have to work on her gear.

BUT WAIT...

"Don't you still have to gear your shaman, priest, death knight, mage, and keep working on gearing your druid?"

Yeah.  I do.  Add the 'lock to the list of things to do now.  Except, she's lower on the list.  

That's about all I've got really for today.

I'd love to sit here and tell you that I'm going to go over patch 4.3 notes BEFORE it goes live, but we all know I won't ever end up doing that because ... Hey look!  A bunny!

Hey, At Least It's Progress...Right?

My main's guild took down Baleroc last night.  Finally.  We've been working on him for about two raid nights now and it took us a little fine-tuning but we got it.

The problem with that fight is that one mistake can really mess up the entire group.  People really need to be on the ball there.  

On the plus side though, we've almost got Shannox and Lord Rhyolith on farm.  That's a few guaranteed purples every week now, which is good.  I'm pretty sure we one shotted Rhyolith last night and maybe 2 attempts on Shannox to get him down.  That's definitely a leap in the right direction.  At least we're not spending 2 nights wiping on bosses and getting no kills.  No kills = frustrated raiders and miserable druids.

I got complimented last night I think.  Generally, we barely have enough raiders to completely fill our 25 man team, but last night we had a surplus of healers.  I had offered to sit out so that our regular paladin healer could step in and was told I was going to stay in the raid.

"There are four healers I want with me every night until all of these bosses are on farm."

That's what I was told.  I definitely took it as a compliment...and despite all my griping about being forced to heal during tier 1 raid content...I'm actually really enjoying it right now.


I really want to rant too, but that's for an entirely different reason and I'm going to save that for my next post.  If I get a chance, that will be posted today.  Time is working against me today, so I'm going to end for now.  I just wanted to share our recent progress and I'm trying to get back into the habit of posting more regularly.  

 (Yes, I got your emails...yes, I got your guild page link - no, I'm not switching factions/servers for the time being - sorry).

What Once Was, Isn't but what Isn't Might Be?

What Once Was, Isn't but what Isn't Might Be?

That's about as confusing for you to read as it was for me to write as I was coming up with a good title for my post.  Rest assured that this won't be another babbling rant.  Yes, it will be a lot of babbling, but not a rant.

What Once Was, Isn't.  

That means, I was a tank in tier 1 raiding content for Cataclysm with my raid guild.  Let me be more clear, I was an off-tank on quite a few nights and occasionally asked to heal.  

So...

I once was a tank.

Isn't?

In tier two raiding content, I'm healing almost all encounters and only occasionally being asked to tank here and there.

I isn't a tank anymore...kind of.

I didn't really think too much about it as we made our way through the first night or two of raiding.  I tend to think very little about the potential loot drops and more about the fact that I'm just happy to be bumbling around with the raid group.  It's an awful lot of fun most of the time.

But when we downed our first boss and a resto druid chest dropped, it dawned on me that I really had no idea what spec I was really supposed to be looking at as my main spec and which was an off spec.  I passed on the first two resto pieces and one potentially feral piece until I decided maybe I needed to check in with officers.

I mean...main spec in  previous raids was always bear.  Off spec was resto.  Surely that wasn't still the case.  But I wasn't sure.

When I inquired about this, you know, because inquiring bears wanna know...I was told that it seems like my main spec is resto for now, but that might or might not change.

That was kind of the conclusion I already had.

I guess I've never really been in a situation where this mattered before.  Previously, I always ran with 10 man raid groups because the guilds I ended up really just weren't big enough for 25 man raid groups.  So either I was the only one in the entire run that could wear any leather, or I was the only druid.  We rarely had rogues with us.  They seem to be a rare find these days.

And warlocks.


Where the hell have all the warlocks gone?  I WANT MY CANDY!


Oh right, stay focused...I don't even remember what I was talking about anymore.  I just finished working on a few things for work and basically my mind still all wrapped up in that.  I guess I felt guilty for not posting and thought I'd share some random stupid experience I've had since my last post.


And apparently people in my guild are either starting to get used to me or are starting to like me?  I don't know.  Some of them are randomly being more social toward me than before.  It generally seems to be shamans that attach themselves to me.  Not sure why.  Because we share animal forms?  I really don't know.   Just saying.  


So I'm going to retreat back to my RL for a little while.  Hopefully I'll be back to post sooner, rather than much later.  Until next time...


MUCH LOVE!


PS:  So far, guild progression is - Some solid attempts on Beth'ilac, Starting Baleroc tonight and we've downed Shannox and Rhyolith (and basically have them on farm WOOT WOOT).

The Long Silence

It's been far too long since I've written.  Far too long.  Work has been hectic, life outside of work has been hectic, and being in any sort of raid guild generally limits the amount of free time you have to tab out of the game and write anything worthwhile.

But I mean...is a WoW blog ever worthwhile?



Meh...

Sorry to be all emo but not getting to write as often as I want to really makes me a grumpy, grumpy bear.  It's been so long that now I don't even remember all the things I was going to talk about.  I had notes but who knows where they are by now?

"It's 10:30am, do you know where your feckin' notes are?"  Yeah...no.

Anyway...

I'm sure a lot has happened since I last checked in.  I don't remember most of it.  I got a priest to 85 and switched her to Shadow/Holy instead of Discipline.  I either didn't understand Discipline or it was incredibly broken while I was playing it.  Any healer spec that leaves you completely OOM so often after blowing every CD you have for mana regeneration just isn't worth it, imo.

***FOR THE LOVE OF EVERYTHING HOLY I AM SO MAD RIGHT NOW***

So I wrote this totally profound and awesome post because I felt bad for wasting your time thus far and LO AND BEHOLD...Blogspot decided to devour it.


It is lost.


LOST.


If anybody finds it, you can leave it at my doorstep and I'll be eternally grateful and/or reward you with infinite gold!


Or not...


Anyway, I was basically talking about how I meant to review patch 4.2 notes before it went live (which I failed at), and talk about the new stuff, how to get it, where to go for new quests and awesome new raid goodies (which I failed at), but that I didn't get a chance to read the patch notes before it went live nor did I find time to post about the patch notes I didn't read (I would have made up some really awesome sounding stuff which you all would have eventually come to my door angry about with pitchforks and torches)...


Best run on sentence EVER?  I think so.


I was also going to tell you how "excited" I was to actually read the patch notes today and maybe post about them "soon" (but I define the term "soon" very much like Blizz does, meaning you probably won't see another post from me for months and months but if I do pop in early with a post it's a pleasant surprise YAY)...

And I was talking about how distracted I get when I'm reading patch no...omg look!  A BUNNY!

I'm going to go look at bunnies now!

Wait...no...bad druid...I'll find something much more constructive to do for my poor, neglected blog.


I'll post "soon" (tm).

Heroic Chimaeron 25 Man

Heroic:  Chimaeron (25 man)

For the first time since I started playing the game, I'm in a guild that can accomplish stuff.  

I'm going to start this off by congratulating the entire guild on our heroic kills.  The guild is currently 3/13 Hard Mode bosses, which is incredible.  For any of you out there that are running Cataclysm raids, you know that they're no walk in the park.  Heroic content is harder, much more chaotic, and much more demanding.  So, congratulations to everyone and thank you for working so hard.

This was also my first "guild first" heroic boss kill.  The even better part?  I was tanking for them.  Even better than that?  I didn't screw up as much as I was afraid I would.

Did I forget to mention that I lack serious confidence?  Oh.  Yes, I lack confidence when it comes to raiding.  Well, I guess it's more true to say I lack confidence in general.  Anyway...we're not here to psychoanalyze, right?

We're here to rejoice at another heroic raid boss down...another awesome night raiding and new lessons learned.  

What?  You didn't think I still learned stuff about my beloved druid?

Oh, believe me.  I do.  Chimaeron on heroic is no joke.  He hits like a freight train filled with lead at maximum velocity.  I learned a great deal more about precious cooldowns and how to use them more strategically in order to increase my TTL.  

TTL?

Time To Live.  You tanks out there should know that one...right?  

At any rate, we threw a BUNCH of attempts at this boss on heroic last night.  What I like about my guild is that we don't invest a few wipes then move on to something "easier".  I think that when you do that, you hurt your progress much more than helping further it.

What do I mean?

So many questions today...jeeeepers.  What I mean is...If you wipe, say, 4 times and either switch back to normal mode or move onto a "farm boss", I think people retain less of what they're figuring out from the wipes.  I know that wiping for 3+ hours straight on ONE boss is frustrating, but I think it forces people to look at what they did on the wiped attempt and try to tweak it for the next go at it.  I know that's what I do. 



The first few attempts - I had only a very, very poor understanding of what I needed to do and what was going on, despite watching numerous videos and reading as much as I could about tanking him.


The last few attempts - I had a much clearer idea of what I needed to do in the fight and how to help recover from losing a tank unexpectedly.  The lesson I learned:  Don't try to taunt Double Attacks with 2 stacks of Break on you.  It is deadly.

Each time we wiped, I learned a few more tricks.  We managed to get him into phase 2 two or three times before finally ending the night on our guild's 3rd heroic kill.  Vent practically exploded with happy raiders.

WOOOHOOOO!!!!

Now that we've downed another heroic boss, I'm eager to see if we can bring down Atramedes on heroic.  We've put in a bunch of attempts, but we've yet to get too far into the fight on heroic.  I'm hoping that last night's victory boosts morale and encourages everyone to focus that much harder on bringing down more heroic bosses (especially frakkin Atramedes...the bastard!!!).

Anyway, that's really all I've got for today.  Life has been absolute chaos again, so of course I'm finding little to no time to drop in and post and say hello to you all and see how you're doing.  I'm wondering if anyone else out there has stories to share?  Epic stories, funny stories, screen shots?  Anything goes.  It would just be nice to share what other WoWheads have to say.

OH!!!!!!!  Before I forget...For those of you who have hit my armory and have been jabbing at me and prodding me to drop the BoE crafted epics in order to get at least 2pc t11...I did that finally last night for my bear gear.  Initially, I didn't do it because the guild wasn't really sure whether they needed me more for healing or tanking, but since we've recruited a few more dedicated healers and I've been tanking on most encounters...I decided to take the plunge and grab some t11.  I have the chest and gloves right now, I believe.  I could easily buy the legs with Valor Points as well, but I'm going to hold off on that in hopes that we'll win Tol Barad on a night I can actually get into Baradin Hold and see what drops.

One other important thing that happened last night:  My passion for my bear was revived.  I've always "liked" tanking, but I've generally been in guilds that don't see much progression or they don't attempt "hard" content until it's been nerfed into the ground and it just wasn't satisfying for the longest time.  But now...the passion is there once more.  RAWR BABY!!! 

RAWWWWWWWWWR!

F*ckin' ugly jerk...

I have a screen capture I can post of our crew standing with our kill, but of course, that's at home and I'll have to add it to this later on. 

Nefarion's End

I don't have much time to write, but I thought I'd stop by and update on raid progression with my beloved druid.

First of all, the guild has me alternating between tanking and healing, depending on what we need for the run we're in.  Now, I can honestly say I'm still nervous when I get asked to tank, but once I get into the swing of things I'm content and happy to tank for them.

Second of all, I wanted to let you know that my druid is now 11/12 Raid Bosses down.  We cleared all of Bastion of Twilight a week or two ago with me and a paladin tanking.  We've been having some trouble with the coordination on Nefarion in Blackwing Descent for a few weeks but we did manage to get him down last night.

It was such a relief to finally see him go down on a night I've been tanking with the crew.  I had begun to believe it was an impossible kill...but we got it so I'm pretty stoked.

I also finally got to see Throne of the Four Winds.  The first boss encounter seems really easy if your group is coordinated enough to do it.  We got the first 3 down without a problem.  Al'akir, however...seemed like chain lightning was puttin' a whoopin' on us!

Ah well.  It's a new raid week.  I'm hoping we can get through Throne of the Four Winds though.  I'd really like to see my Al'Akir kill before level 90 lol!

Anyway, just thought I'd stop in, say hello, quickly update and share my giddiness over the Nefarion kill from last night  before I head back out into the RL world.

Take care!

Des

Zul'Aman: Final Round - Daakara The Invincible

Daakara, The Invincible

Daakara the Invincible is the final boss in Zul'Aman.  Sure, he calls himself invincible but it couldn't be further from the truth.  This fight really isn't that hard because it's basically a melting pot of abilities you've already seen with the first four Avatar fights.

In my experiences, Daakara is only able to draw upon two of the avatar spirits before he's ground into dust by the group.  But what kind of guide would I be if I didn't get into the details?

This fight has a few different phases and the number of phases you will see depends on how quickly your group can kill him...or how long you survive.  

Phase One is always Mr. Daakara in troll form.  During this phase, he will cast a nasty whirlwind, dealing 110% of normal damage to all within melee range.  Here's a tip:  Move.  It's avoidable damage and you really need to avoid it.  Another fun little trick he has during phase one is to cast Grievous Throw on a random party member.  This is reminiscent of an ability that Rokmar the Crackler had in The Slavepens called Grievous Wound.  Essentially, this is a bleed effect that cannot be dispelled and will not go away until that player is healed to 100% health.  It's not a huge obstacle to overcome.  Just throw a fluffy heal on that player and get back to your tank.

Phase two will be random.  Exciting, right? He will take on one of the four avatar aspects:  eagle, lynx, dragonhawk, or bear.


Here's a quick list of the aspects and the abilities to watch for:


Eagle
Daakara will create an Energy Storm in which he will summon cyclones that circle around him that you must dodge.  These Cyclones will zap party members for roughly 12k damage with each hit.  You need to get as far away from the cyclones as possible to avoid damage.  They will move around the altar and "chase" players, so you'll need to be on the move for most of this fight.  


He will also summon a lightning totem during this phase which is low health and needs to be killed as well.


Dragonhawk
Daakara will create columns of fire which players need to move away from.  These are sometimes difficult to see, but the damage is hefty and you need to move away from them.  


He will also cast Flame Whirl which leaves a debuff on party members that increases their vulnerability to fire damage.  I don't believe this can be dispelled, so players need to be careful and avoid the columns of fire and flame breath.


Flame breath is the only other ability in this aspect that players need to be mindful of.  It's the exact same flame breath that Jan'alai casts and can and should be avoided.  He will turn toward a party member to cast, so if he turns to you make sure to immediately strafe out of the line of fire. 


Bear
Creeping Paralysis is one of the key abilities to keep an eye out for, should you face Daakara in bear form.  This debuff, if not cleansed within six seconds will stun the player.  Both the paralysis and the stun can, and should be dispelled because he will also be surging at random party members, just like Nalorakk did.  The surge still has the same effect and you are still going to want to alternate who eats the surges to prevent an unnecessary death here.  


In Bear form, Daakara also has a warrior-esque ability called Nearly Overpowered Blow.  It works in the same fashion as Overpower for warriors.  It can be used whenever he feels like it after the tank dodges one of his attacks and hits for 115% of normal damage.  Fun stuff, really.


Lynx
During the Lynx phase, Daakara will summon lynx adds that should be burned quickly.  They do a pretty beefy amount of damage to both the tank and party members with the Lynx Rush and Claw Rage abilities and they leave bleed effects on their targets.  These adds can tear apart a party member if they're not taunted and deaded real quick like.  


That's basically the fight.  It's a recycled fight where you face similar abilities to the first four avatars.  It's fairly easy provided you avoid as much damage as possible and burn adds quickly.  It's doable.  I've seen groups soar during this fight and I've also been with some that crash and burn.  It's a test of your awareness, like so many other Cataclysm fights.  


So that's it for the Zul'Aman bosses.  I'll start working on the post about the trash, since that tends to be one of the biggest nightmares in this instance.  I haven't decided on a format for that post yet, but it's probably going to be a list-type post as it's just easier that way.


Until next time, take care and good luck pwning trolls!


With infinite love,


Des

Zul'Aman: Round #5 - Hex Lord Malacrass

The fifth boss you'll take on is Hex Lord Malacrass.  This boss is a little more complicated than the previous four because he will siphon abilities from your party members as you fight him.

Here is a rough list of the abilities he will steal:
Death Knight:  Death and Decay, Plague Strike (including Blood Plague), Blood Worms
Druid:  Lifebloom, Thorns, Moonfire
Hunter: Explosive Trap, Freezing Trap, Snake Trap
Mage:  Fireball, Frostbolt, Frost Nova, Ice Lance
Paladin:  Consecration, Holy Light, Avenging Wrath
Priest:  Heal, Mind Control, Mind Blast, Shadow Word:  Death, Psychic Scream, Pain Suppression
Rogue:  Blind, Slice and Dice, Wound Poison
Shaman:  Fire Nova Totem, Healing Wave, Chain Lightning
Warlock:  Bane of Doom, Rain of Fire, Unstable Affliction
Warrior:  Spell Reflection, Whirlwind, Mortal Strike


Obviously, you want to do your best to negate these abilities, avoid standing in the ground AoEs, and dispell as much as you can. 



There will always be two adds standing next to him drawn randomly from a pool of about 8 possible mobs.  That's according to old notes on the boss.  So far, I've only seen the blood elf, the snake, and the demon in some combination.

Generally, as you prepare to engage the boss, you'll crowd control both of the adds.  If you can only crowd control one of them, make sure to burn the other add right off the bat, then engage the boss.  You should always be able to remove one of them from the fight.  Keep it locked down with crowd control for the duration of the encounter.

The possible Guardians (and abilities) are:


A Blood Elf caster that heals Malacrass.
An Imp which casts fireballs at the party.
An undead which hits the party with a knockback and casts curses on the party.
An undead Wraith which will use an ability like Psychic Scream and AoE fear everyone.
An Ogre that regularly breaks CC and melees random party members.
A dragonkin with a flame breath and thunderclap.
A snake with a poison bolt volley.
An elemental which will cast an AoE nature damage.


So the basic concept of the fight is to deal with the little adds first, either via CC or nukefest and then obliterate the boss while dealing with abilities he steals from a random party member.  It's not a very difficult fight.  It just calls on your party to be aware and adjust a bit on the fly. 

Zul'Aman: Round #4 - Halazzi (Lynx Avatar)

The last of the four Avatar bosses you'll encounter, assuming your group takes the standard route through the instance is Halazzi.  It's really an incredibly easy fight if you pay attention.

Halazzi [Lynx Avatar]

Halazzi has two phases:  Normal and Lynx phases.  During his normal phase, he'll drop two types of totems, water and lightning.  When Halazzi drops a water totem, the tank simply needs to pull the boss away from it and all of your ranged, including the healer, need to stand inside the green circle. 

Now, I've seen quite a few caster dps NOT get in the totem which is just ridiculous.  While standing in the totem you have basically unlimited mana and it heals you.  Wait, rewind...let's see that again.  UNLIMITED MANA WHILE STANDING IN THE WATER TOTEM.  Whoa!

So if you're a mana user, just do yourself a favor and get in the green circle of amazingness.  You'd be dumb not to.  Hunters should just do it to reap the healing benefits, if nothing else.

The endless mana is going to be important for healing this fight, especially when Halazzi decides to enrage himself, decreasing time between attacks by 100% for six seconds.  That's a lot of damage, a lot of healing and a lot of mana. See?  Standing in the green circle of YAY is a good idea.

Halazzi will also drop Corrupted Lightning Totems.  Unless you're going for the achievement, you need to have your dps kill these ASAP.  These totems do pretty big damage and it's easier to just get rid of them right away.  

At both 66% health and 33% health, Halazzi will do something like a holy nova, splashing damage on all party members and healing himself to full.  At this point he'll summon Spirit of the Lynx.  You can't avoid the boss healing, so don't worry that you've done something to reset the fight.  You haven't.  It's just the way he works.

When Spirit of the Lynx is active, your party can either blow up the kitty or completely ignore it.  Most groups just ignore it and stay on the boss, knowing that the lynx will eventually despawn.  The lynx does pretty nasty damage, doesn't have a normal aggro table, and can't be CC'd.  It will "fixate" on a random party member and go to town.

When the lynx fixates on you, you can use damage reduction abilities or avoidance abilities to get away and cut your healer a little break.  For ranged dps, standing in the water totem ring will help the healer keep up with the lynx's Lynx Flurry damage.  Other than that, mages can use abilities like ice block or one of their bubbles, hunters can disengage, etc. 

The last notable ability of Halazzi is his Flame Shock.  It doesn't hit obnoxiously hard but leaves a DoT on the victim, inflicting fire damage to them.  I'm not entirely sure of the amount or duration, but I do know it can and should be dispelled.

But there you have it.  Halazzi in a nutshell.  Overall, it's a fairly easy fight as long as you use the Refreshing Water Totems to your advantage.  

Zul'Aman: Round #3 - Jan'alai (Dragonhawk Avatar)

And now for something you'll really enjoy...

Ladies and gentlemen...I present to you...Jan'alai!  [APPLAUSE}

Typically, Jan'alai will be your third encounter in Zul'Aman and unless your group knows what's up...he can be a tough kill.  The true key to winning this battle is coordination and awareness.  

There is a lot going on in this fight for certain and it's important that everyone in your group is paying attention.  Wait...it's not just important...it's imperative.  If people aren't focused, you're going to be running up against a spiked wall on this fight.  A lot of the damage is avoidable and for the sake of your healer, you should try your best to avoid it.


Jan'alai will target a random player and cast Flame Breath.  This does roughly 15k damage on impact and also leaves a line of fire on the ground for a few seconds afterward.  If he turns from the tank and looks at you, strafe to the side to avoid getting hit.  If you do happen to get hit, MOVE.  Don't stand in the fire.  It's bad.  K?  K.


Throughout the fight, Jan'alai will also summon Amani'shi Hatchers.  There are two trolls that will run onto the altar where you're fighting and will begin to hatch dragonhawk eggs.  There are two egg rooms at opposite ends of the altar and you don't want both sides hatching at the same time.  Decide before engaging the boss which hatcher you will kill (right or left) and which you will permit to hatch the eggs.  Once the eggs hatch, it's better to just have dps AoE them down, since they apply a stacking debuff to their target that increases fire damage taken.  It stacks and is difficult to cleanse, and it's really just better to have dps eat the debuff rather than risking your tank.


"But wait, Des, why let ANY eggs hatch?  Wouldn't it be easier to kill both hatchers?"


Sure it would.  But then when the boss reaches about 40 or 30% all of the unhatched eggs hatch and zerg your group.  Neat, huh?  Definitely wouldn't be fun for your healer OR your tank and would probably end in your group wiping.  Not so cool.  It's best to let one of the hatchers do his thing.

Oh gods!  Fire Bombs!  RUN!!!

Jan'alai's other "big" ability is called Fire Bomb.  The fire bombs look like orange orbs spread around the floor of the altar.  They're pretty big and easy to see, very easy to avoid, and do a nasty amount of damage.  Now, the elitist in me says, "If you get hit by one of these, you're an idiot" but I've been hit by one once.  It HURT.  It does nearly 80k damage and this damage is increased if you have the flame buffet debuff from the adds.  It could very, very easily one-shot you.  Do your absolute best to avoid these.  


Just looking at the words I wrote down here, the fight seems really easy.  I'm sure for DPS and tanks it might be pretty easy.  But from a healer perspective...it's more intense than the bear fight for sure.  There's a lot of damage and a lot of stuff that your healer has to move and avoid.  Do your best to help out your healer by avoiding as much damage as you can.  


If you haven't experienced this fight yet, you might not understand why I say awareness and avoidance is key here, but you will as soon as you try to slap around Jan'alai.  Once everyone's got the hang of this, it's pretty easy though.  I promise.

Zul'Aman: Round #2 - Nalorakk (Bear Avatar)

Well it has taken me a little while to get the rest of the fights posted here.  I apologize.  RL has been...wow.

Anyway, no blah blah today.  It's all  business.

hehe 

Okay, so in the last post, I talked about The Eagle Avatar (who has subsequently been nerfed it seems - and I can't express to you how thankful I am for that as a healer!), so in this post, we'll talk about Nalorakk.

This is typically your second encounter in Zul'Aman.  I'm not 100% sure why...it just works out that way I guess.  It seems most efficient to hit Eagle, Bear, Dragonhawk, then Lynx.  But that's for another post.  Once I get the main bosses down here I'm going to talk about the timed run and the warbear mount.


So what do you need to know about good ole Nalorakk?


First, this fight consists of two phases.  That's it.  Just two.  In my honest opinion, this fight is probably one of the easiest in here, hands down.


Phase one is his "normal form" phase.  He'll be slapping your tank around in troll form.  There are only really two things you need to know about this phase.  


The first ability he uses in "Normal Phase" is called Brutal Strike.  This melee attack hammers your tank for roughly 80k damage.  It's not hard to heal through it and there's very little AoE damage in this phase to worry about.  


I take that back.  The only "AoE" damage you'll have to worry about is Nalorakk's second ability:  Surge.  Nalorakk will charge the party member FARTHEST from him, inflicting roughly 35k damage to that person.  This leaves behind a debuff increasing the physical damage against the debuffed player by 500%.  That means you don't want to take 2 surges or you'll be dead.  It's that simple.


The easiest way to handle this is to have 3 party members take turns eating surges, since he does it 3 times before he transitions into phase 2.  Almost every group I've been involved in has used 3 different soakers for this.  All you need to do is stand further from him than everyone else.  After he surges you, move in closer than the other two ranged.  Then the other two designated "soakers" do the same.  Once he's done this 3 times, he'll shift into phase 2. 

Phase two is Bear phase!  YAY!!!!! 

Okay it's not really that exciting.  The biggest healer concern in this phase would be the silence and the Lacerating Slash, which inflicts about 180k damage over 24 seconds.  It's really not that hard to heal through, but you'll want to keep an eye on your tank's health.  The silence ability he uses is called Deafening Roar.  It only silences you for two seconds and cannot be dispelled.  To the best of my knowledge, it has unlimited range so there's no "safe place" to stand.  It's only 2 seconds though.  It really shouldn't cause any problems if you keep your tank close to topped off.


Now, I could be wrong here but I seem to remember him doing a thrash in bear form that hit all party members on my last run through there.  I don't see it noted on any of the boss guides though.  If that's the case, just know that the thrash inflicts a moderate amount of damage on everyone, but it's not going to cause the healer too much agony.  If I can do it, you can do it.


Overall, this boss is incredibly easy compared to some other Cataclysm bosses.  As long as your team knows what's up, this is basically free epics. 


That's the basic idea of Nalorakk - Bear Avatar.  Pretty simple.  Honestly, the trash leading up to him is FAR more aggravating than he is by himself.  I'll discuss trash in an entirely different post.  The trash in this instance is frustrating enough to earn itself a post!  


Off to work on the next writeup.  Hopefully I can get them all posted today.

Zul'Aman: Round #1 - Akil'Zon (Eagle Avatar)

We'll start with Zul'Aman, since I already griped about Akil'zon.

This guy....is definitely a test of coordination and awareness.  

The fight goes like this:

Once you engage Akil'zon, he'll randomly blast somebody with Static Disruption.  This inflicts roughly 35,000 nature damage on impact and leaves a debuff that increases nature damage to the affected target by 25% (and yes, it stacks).  At fairly regular intervals during the fight, an Amani Kidnapper will swoop in and pick up a random party member.  The bird does steady and pretty moderate damage to the player in its grip and must be killed IMMEDIATELY.  Amani Kidnappers are your kill priority whenever they're up.  He'll also cast Electrical Storm.  He'll select a random party member and launch them into the air.  The lightning storm will radiate from this person and it does a hefty amount of damage.  The idea is to stack under the person he's chosen to lift for the storm.

Seems easy enough right?

Yeah...maybe.  But the Static Disruption has to be dispelled.  It's pretty hard, if not impossible, to just heal through that debuff on all party members.  So that will be devouring your healer's mana pool for the entire fight.  The best thing you can do to help support your healer would be to stand 12 yards away from other party members. 

But his hitbox isn't that big...So if you've got 2+ melee dps in there along with your tank...your healer is going to want to throw their computer through a wall and punt bunnies all at the same time.  This spell will "splash" to everyone within 10 yards or so.  So if you're a rogue and you're standing on top of your tank...and he targets you with it...you're going to get your tank hit with it too.  See?  Not good.  Melee need to figure out how to be as far apart as possible while still being able to blow up the boss.  Oh, and as an added bonus.../range isn't even working right now for most of us.  I can /range 10 and be standing on top of someone and it'll never show up.  Good times...good times...

An important note about the Amani Kidnappers though is that they CAN be DPS'd by the person who has been "plucked" by them.  So that means, if you get snagged, you can blow the bird up.  Healers can also heal themselves and other party members from inside the bird's grip.  That's important to know.  If your healer doesn't know this, gently educate them.  GENTLY...don't be a jerk.  

Now let's talk about this Electrical Storm business...It's a fairly simple mechanic.  You get a warning that he's about to cast it and you should all start heading to the center of the platform.  Note that I didn't say stack up.  That's just asking for a wipe.  But when you see DBM or whatever boss mod you're using call out Electrical Storm, start moving toward the center.  The fewer ticks of the storm you take, the more your healer will adore you.  Trust me.  

Another pretty important thing about the combination of Electrical Storm and the Amani Kidnapper...I've been stuck in the bird's grip as Akil'zon starts to cast the storm while I've been trying to heal this fight.  DPS just left me up in the bird's claws.  The math looked like this:

Healer in bird's claws + taking bird claw damage + electrical storm damage = Dead Healer

Dead Healer = Dead Group

And guys, if your healer gets snatched up by a bird, they're PROBABLY not going to be dpsing themselves out of it.  The fight is very healing intensive.  Break your healer out of the bird's grip ASAP or you're doomed.  

If all of the above isn't fun enough for you, there are smaller brown eagles that randomly peck at everyone during the entire encounter, doing a decent amount of damage to the player they hit.  Fun, right?

One of the things I'd like to really ask of all of you dps/tanks...on this fight...be forgiving of your healer.  It's tough to heal through.  There's a lot of damage incoming and the debuffs that need to be cleansed...this is a pretty stressful fight even for a really well geared healer.  Be kind to your healers and give them a chance to sort it out.  Most healers, after a few tries will figure out how to handle it and you'll be fine.   

So that's Akil'zon in a nutshell.  I'll be working on the rest of Zul'Aman when I get a chance.

Zul Gur....ugh and Zul AmAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH

I was going to write about these when they first came out, but I didn't have much time to really get myself familiar with these two new instances.

I've gotten to know them from both a healing and a dps perspective now.

Let me just say...UGH and AAAAAAAAAAAGH

Actually, I kid.  They're really not all that bad once you start to understand what's going on and they've preserved the fights so they're essentially the same as they were at 60 and 70 only...tuned for 5 people instead of 10.  

Before I get going further into this, let me say THANK YOU to all of the tanks and healers that are running with groups to take these instances on.  As a dps, you definitely have a job to do but I don't think it's nearly as stressful as what the tanks and healers have to go through.

No, I haven't tanked either of these yet.  I'm not really looking forward to it.  But I HAVE healed them both all the way through on both my shaman and my druid.  

The most difficult out of both entire instances, BY FAR, is Akil'zon (Eagle Avatar).  This fight...from a healer's perspective can be pure hell.  No joke.  It's doable, assuming your group knows wtf to do.  If your group doesn't bring their A game...you'll probably struggle here.

So then I guess this means I'm going to blabber about the fights in each of these instances right?

Yup!  I'll post each fight individually though to allow for some better discussion.


At any rate, I'm sorry for the no-posting thing again.  Things have been stressful and the holiday...things...stuff...I'll keep trying to be better but obviously I'm a slacker.


Much love,


Des

MUSIC BREAK!!!

I like to share, which is good, right?  Well, I was venturing around Youtube recently, looking for music to listen to...and I came across two really awesome artists.

The first one is a guy named Phil Schawel.  Phil Schawel's older youtube channel has a bunch of covers he's done.  It also has the link to his current youtube channel, but he doesn't have music up there yet.  He's done some duets with Laura and I definitely recommend checking her out as well.

Here is one of Phil's covers:



He covers a lot of Paramore but he does it justice for sure.  I can't get enough of him!

For any Jack Johnson fans out there...you should really, REALLY check out Matt! 

Here's one of my favorite songs by Matt (and this is one of his originals)





I know, I know.  It's such "softy" music.  But talent is talent and I really, really dig these guys.


I figured it was good to take a break from the whole gaming thing and throw some attention at some artists out there who deserve it.  Give them a listen, subscribe if you're so inclined, and if you come across something amazing, feel free to share it with me here!


Much love,


Des
 

Ding! Wait...Now What?

Right, my little priestypants hit level 85 last night and now it's back to the rep and gear grind...joy...

Honestly, if I wasn't such a slacker, I'd already have my tailoring maxed and just be grinding out orbs to make a few epic pieces to make heroic grinding much less painful.  But I'm a slacker and a lot of the recipes in higher level tailoring require SO many volatiles...good god.  40 Volatile life for an herb bag?  Pffft...

The dreamcloth, which you can only make once a week even require 30 volatiles a piece!  Well, wait...before you new tailors cry... You can only make each dream cloth pattern once a week.  There are currently six patterns.  That's 6 pieces of dreamcloth you can make every week, assuming that you've been a good little bugger and maxed out your tailoring and can figure out how to get that many volatiles and orbs every week. 

LUCKILY, the epic patterns are semi-reasonable as far as cloth requirements go.  The only item that takes more than 6 dreamcloth is the Illusionary Bag and let's be honest here, a 26 slot bag would be NICE, but if you're anything like me and you just disenchant everything in your bags all the time...it's unnecessary.  The only two epic (359) items that take six dreamcloth are the legs - Breeches of Mended Nightmares and Flame-Ascended Pantaloons.

LOL PANTALOONS!!!  (Thanks, Blizz.  I needed a giggle!)

This is what pantaloons look like...

Oh wait...you're not here to listen to me giggling about PANTALOONS...

Well, here are my thoughts on my priest thus far:  Discipline healing is RAWR.  Shadow Priesting is confusing, but I can definitely see how pwnage could happen there.  My aim is to re-spec and try out Holy in all it's sparkly glory at some point in the very near future...maybe even tonight since there's playoff Hockey on and my plan is to stay home, glued to the TV and have a few beers with my brother.  Yeah, I have relatives.  Terrifying right?  I know.

Anyway, I'll do a little more homework, try out a few more specs and try to see if I can't get a better review up here on priesthood.  She's a brand new level 85 and I still have two more "item levels" before I can even get into a heroic.  Bleh...

So, since I'm not sure I'll be around much this weekend:  Happy Easter to all!  Hope your weekend is safe and happy!  (Oh...and watch out for Nippies!!! I hear he's on the loose!)