Monday, November 26, 2007

Happy Thanksgiving.

It has been a slow week due to the holiday and all. So, there isn't much to report.

I had high hopes for Monday. All of SSC was cleared except for Leo and Vashj, and most of the guild thought that we could get Leo down and hopefully get a couple of attempts in on Vashj. Unforunately it was not ment to be. Our warlock tank, who has all the fire resist gear was sick and couldn't log in to work on Leo. I wasn't sure if we were going to do anything because we didn't have very high attendence online, due to the holiday being so close. However, we were able to get 25 online and we ended up heading to VR. We hadn't done VR in months so it took a little bit of work but we ended up downing him. We also decided to get a couple of attempts in on Astromancer, but didn't have enough time to work out the kinks.

I don't know what happend the rest of the week because I was out of town, but I doubt anything big. We as a guild did clear ZA but I was not involved. All in all a pretty slow week.

Toon Update:
Not much to say. Graylo is pretty much the same as he always has been. No new gear, no new recipies. Graypal is about halfway to 60. I am trying to grind him there but it is boring as hell. I thought my interest in him would pick up when I hit Outland but it really hasn't. He feels really fragile right now. I realize that I am running a level 59 toon through level 60-62 content, but that doesn't mean that it is fun. Hopefully, it will pick up after he gets geared up a little bit. I am also really itching to start that Warlock I talked about earlier.

Friday, November 16, 2007

WA needs to Focus.

Since we seem to have similar issues each week, it seems like WA as a guild needs to focus. This has been a bit of an up and down week again. Some of it was technical issues but some of it was also people not staying focused on the fight. Anyway here is how the week has gone.

I sat out Tuesday, to spend time with my family and I expected the guild to do only old content by clearing to Leo. However, much to my dismay the decided to do Lurker, Tidwalker, and then Leo. Its not that big of a deal but I get a bigger thrill out of being in the first kill Screenshots then I do about getting loot. This is a good think since I share a tier token with mostly tanks and healers.

They put some very good attempts in on Leo, but didn't get him down. I think their best attempt got him down to 3%. Our biggest issue seems to be how to deal with the last 15%. It seems like most of the DPS panics and trys to do as much DPS as quick as possible but forgets to do the normal things like avoiding the Whirlwind and watching aggro. Not a huge deal, we just need to get a little more practice on him.

Wednesday was our down day. First off, we had quite a few technical issues. Our MT couldn't log on because of some one didn't pay his bill. Our lead healer was having big connection issues because he was playing from a hotel. Several other people were having issues with a losing power in their house. All of his caused the raid to go very slow and because a few mental lapses we couldn't get Hydross down. The raid ended up being called early, so I was able to do the Heroic daily quest and the BG daily quest. So, it wasn't a total loss.

Thursday started out looking like it was going to go well also, but it turned itself around. We were going to try Hydross again, but we weren't getting a lot of healers on line. Plus a few of the newer people were complaining that we didn't do Gruul's anymore. So we headed to Gruul's hoping that we could at least get that done. It went pretty well.

Got High King down and two of the warlocks got the shoulders they needed. We then started chain pulling to Gruul and got him down in one shot. The funny thing was that the raid MT died with Gruul at about 20%. This just proves how much you can do with better gear. He kept killing the next person on the aggro list but it would take him a little while and we were able to burn him down. He dropped two pieces of the WPD tier but no one need them. I ended up getting one of them and will probably use it for my Feral gear.

After Gruul's was done most people thought the raid would be called and we would break into ZA groups, but the Healing lead decided that we could do Hydross with 6 healers and one of our Shaman decided to respec back to resto. I think we got him down in 3 attempts so it went pretty well. The biggest issue in the first two attempts was that with our Frost resist tank. Our guild MT's account was still down but he was able to play on another guild members account since he had to leave. What we didn't realize was that he didn't have as much frost resist as the MT. We were able to adjust by pulling him out of the beams early and downed him quickly.

We then went to try Fathom-Lord. We wiped a few times because the tank assigned to FL didn't really have the gear to reduce the damage enough and died. However, after we changed tanks everything when well. Unfortunately for me he dropped two pieces of PRS tier legs, but they need the gear also.

The good news is that we have all of Monday for Leo. Hopefully we will be able to get him down quickly and maybe we will be able to get a few attempts in on Vashj.

After the raid I did the first two bosses in ZA and made some attempts on the 3rd. I don't have a lot of experience with it yet but it seems like a cool instance so far.

2.3 First impressions:
  • Mail Boxes: I love how you can now attach 12 times to a letter.
  • Rebirth: The cool down reductions is much more noticeable than I expected.
  • Wizard Oil: 60 minutes is great.
  • Mad Alchemist Potion: Very underwhelming for a raiding caster.
  • BG Daily Quest: It is very nice but I kept running into premades yesterday.
  • Heroic Daily Quest: I love the reward and I am able to get guildies to run more, but I thought there would be more demand in the LFG tool.
  • Intensity Buff: It is very nice to have an extra 25 Mp5.

Toon Update:
Graylo - I've decided to try and get his Fishing up to 300. I was at 245 yesterday and was able to get him to 265 in 50 minutes of fishing. I don't really like fishing but I want to be able to fish for the motes and food in outland. So it looks like I have another 2 hours of fishing in Azeroth before I can start.
Graypal - Absolutely nothing except for rested XP. I may try and get him up this weekend since we have a holiday week next week. I don't want to have any wasted down time.

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

1% OMG!!!!!!

We had a pretty good week despite some issues early. On Tuesday we started with Hydross and had a lot more trouble then we should have. I wasn't in the raid but apparently it took them 3 hours to down him. Luckily they bounced back that same night and two shotted Lurker. On Wednesday we did Tidewalker without a lot of trouble. I think it was a 3 or 4 shot. We didn't have enough tanks to try Fathom-Lord so we headed over to get some attempts in on Leo. Thursday I wasn't in the raid but they downed Fathom-Lord and then tried Leo getting him down to 37%. Monday, we only focused on Leo and got him down to 1%.

Here is a little background. WA is not one of those guilds that has a core 25-30 people that show up to every raid. For us it is more like 35-40 people that show up to 75% of the raids. As a result even though we tried this fight 3 different nights we still had people learning the fight for the first time on the third night. With this in mind, even though a 1% wipe sucks, I am happy with the effort. The main issue we seem to be having so far is how DPS deals with the whirlwind and how they deal with the threat dumps. The tanks could have done a little better with picking him up after the threat dumbs but that is understandably hard after he starts running around because they are have dots on him or start dpsing to soon. We just need to be able to stay alive a little longer and we will have him down.

Loot: I was only present for the Tidewalker downing and I can't remember what the drops were. Needless to say none of them were for me. Fathom-Lord dropped 2 pieces of the WPD token which makes me happy even though I wasn't there. Even if I was there I probably wouldn't have gotten them since both went to tanks. At least it means less competition for the next time it drops.

Patch 2.3: The day has finally arrived. Nothing really huge for me as a moonkin, but still has some nice things. It doesn't really change much for me since I don't have enough badges to get any of the gear I want. I have 23 which is enough for the relic but I'm not sure if I want it. I may just save up to get the belt, boots or bracers. Anyway, I will do a more in depth post after I see the official patch notes.

Toon Update:
Graylo - Did some Heroic over the weekend and finally got the [Blackened Urn] to summon Nightbane. I will also get a great gem the next time I kill him. Other than that, not much happened.
Graypal - I got him up to just over 59, and he is now in Outland. As I said I would I took him to Outland at 58. It was a little strange but wasn't hard to do the quests. I am so used to Graylo being able to destroy mobs even ones that are a level or two higher then him with no problem. Graypal has made me go back and force myself to be careful. Plus, a level 58 mob in Outland is not the same as a level 58 mob in Azeroth. So it was a little strange to have to worry about patroling mobs again. Anyway, I went from 58 to 59 questing in HFC. I kind of wanted to get him to 60 before the patch as a matter of pride for having leveled two toons before the leveling nerf, but I guess this is close enough. I went 99% of the way. I think I am also planning on getting a lot of rested xp and grinding to level 60. I have found a couple of quests in my guide that I can't accept until I'm sixty and I really don't want to to them out of order. With rested xp and the leveling nerf I should only have to kill150 or so mobs.

Anyway, that is it for now. If you read my blog please post a comment. I just like to know if anyone sees it.

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Rough couple of days.

Thursday and Monday were fairly rough raiding days. As I said in my last post, we had some trouble with Fathom-Lord on Wednesday after we did Hydross. It didn't upset me much then because it was still a little new for some people and the fight does take some coordination. Our attempts on Thursday and Monday did upset me however.

On Thursday we spent 3 hours wiping on him where our best attempt got all 3 adds down but didn't have much dps left for Fathom-Lord. Sad part is that was the only attempt where we got all the adds down. On Monday we did get him down but we wiped for a couple of hours before had. I don't like to call people out (not that anyone reads this blog), but it seems like the main issue was with our healers. A majority of our wipes were caused by losing one of our tanks early or losing a lot of people when switching from the Hunter add to the priest add. The healers would clump together and all get hit by the tornado. Then they would not be able to heal because they were up in the air. Then in transition they wouldn't know who to heal. Plus, some of the healers would stand in range of the Fathom-Lord Spitfire totem and get killed.

Finally after a little yelling from the guild leadership people figured out that this fight requires a little mobility and a little attention to your situation. All of our issues made me wonder if our first kill was a bit of fluke and that we really didn't know the fight yet. Hopefully our troubles this week have helped some of the lessons sink in and that we don't have a whole lot of trouble next week.

Needless to say we didn't get any attempts in on Al'ar or Leo this week.

Loot:
[Leggings of the Vanquished Hero] x 2
[Frayed Tether of the Drowned]
[Pattern: Boots of the Long Road]

Toon Update:
Graylo - A couple of cool things have happened since my last post. First, he discovered how to make the [Flask of Fortification]. Obviously, I have no plans for making this for my self since I don't have any tanks but it means that I have only one flask left to discover. Second, Graylo joined a 5v5 team. I think I am much more suited for 5v5 then I am for the other arena combinations. I find that I am not the main target right of the bat and I can put out a lot of DPS before they discover that I am killing them. Not to mention that the number of points you get is a lot better for 5v5. Maybe I will be able to get up to 3000 points before season 3 starts and I will able to get a couple of pieces of Merciless gear at the cheaper prices.
Graypal - I spent a lot of time on Graypal this weekend and he still has a ton of rested XP. I started only 2 bars from 55. When I dinged I saw that I had a whole level of rested xp which wasn't that surprising. However when I dinged 56 I still had over half a level of rested xp. In the end I got him about half way through 56 and I still have 7 or 8 bars of rested XP. I also did quite a bit to level his Enchanting and Tailoring. I got both up to 275. I've also decided that as soon as I hit 58 I am empting my quest log and heading to HFP. It might be a little ruff to start but I just don't think I can wait. There really isn't a reason to not go to Outland anymore. The gear from Pre-BC quests sucks, with the reduction to the Heroic requirements I don't need to save the Quest rep, and the XP is so much better in outland. Plus, with all the rested XP that Graypal builds up I will still probably hit 70 fairly early with a lot of quests left to earn gold.

Thursday, November 1, 2007

Back to Normal

After a hyper week of activity our progression has gone back to normal. Our Warlock tank didn't have enough fire resist gear for the Leo fight so we headed over to Al'ar instead. Since these were our first attempts I think we did pretty well. On our best attempt we got him down to 74% in the second phase. which is about 33% total.

The first phase isn't that hard but we did need a little experience to figure out the Fire Quill ability. For those of you that don't know, randomly through out the fight he will fly to the center of the room and nuke the top floor where he is tanked. To avoid it the tanks have to jump down, but they will be nuked unless they are touching the bottom floor. The problem we had was that he always seemed to do the Fire Quill when he was being tanked at the fourth position and it was hard to tell if he was flying across to the first position or doing the Fire Quill. As a result we kept loosing a tank. However, after we figured out what to look for it was easy. If he is going across he flies low. If he is doing the Fire Quill he flies high.

The second phase is significantly more difficult. Most of our problems here centered around the meteor and the adds it brings. One people wouldn't spread out enough and would get rocked by the meteor. Then we had a problem with getting both adds to the add tank, and had split dps on the adds. This should be a little easier once we get our pally tank in there, but we also need to set up some sort of assist for the DPS so that we focus on one target. Anyway it should go a little better next time.

We also worked on SSC a little this week. We have gotten down Hydross, Lurker, and Tidewalker, but not Fathom-Lord yet. Hydross and Fathom-Lord are not going as smoothly as we hope they would after we downed them, but this is not entirely unreasonable. For one, it has been a week since we downed them, so it isn't really fresh in our minds. Secondly, there were probably 5 or 6 people that were not there for the first downing. So there still was a bit of a learning curve. So, while I wish that things were going quicker, overall I am happy with our progress.

Toon Update:
Graylo - The biggest thing here is that Graylo is finally exalted with Netherwing. It is not that big of deal since I won't use the mount that much. Epic flight form is much better on all accounts. However, it does feel like an accomplishment. I probably still go out there quite a bit though. The Nether Pollen is a great source of Motes of mana and I also get quite a bit of Fel Lotus there. And it is a great source of money.
Graypal - He is a little stuck right now. I can't find a good block of time to put a lot of work into him and he has a lot of rested xp right now. Hopefully I will be able to do something with him this weekend, but I am kind of busy with other things so probably not.

On a side note, I have been really tempted to start a warlock recently. He would probably be a Gnome, because I haven't played a gnome yet, named Grayfel. I would probably level him with Demonology and make him a Mining Jewelcrafter.