Wednesday, February 27, 2008

First Kara run with new guild

Disappointed. We burned through all bosses except Illhoof and Nightbane (the last boss essentially). We had group issues that prevented 10 guildies from showing up. One guildie left halfway through. We ended up with two PUGers which went fine, but the damn hunter PUGer got alot of the loot that i wanted. Damn it.

Anyway, general thoughts. Wow it's fast. When they say 7pm raid time they mean it. I really had to move ass to get home, get house reasonably cleaned up, cook dinner (was my turn), get logged in (with the queue, natch), and get there. As soon as i'm logged in I'm being summoned. I was sorta ready but oh well. Something like 5 minutes after login we're clearing trash. Holy cow. 15 min in, we're at first boss, Attuman. He's a pushover boss but basically asks the raid if you are competent to step foot into 10man raids. If you can't kill this boss on one shot, its not going to be fun for the rest of the raid. Anyway i died due to aggro or something. Annoying.

Next was moroes, I dont remember much, I didn't mess up, pretty sure of that. Didnt' do anything heroic either. Forgot to put stoneskin on my bar, in case of his garrotte attack! Duh.

Ditto for Maiden, she was a pushover, no holy fire on me either.

Opera - we had Romeo and Juliet. Extremely easy fight with enough dps and a rogue/warrior (we had 3 of these). We wiped once due to lack of heals on tank. Other time it was gravy.

Curator was more challenging, we wiped once. The next time it was smoother. We still had 9 ppl in raid at that point. We grabbed that damn hunter afterwords. I forgot to put on the arcane resist trinket. doh!

Shade...clearing to him i almost wiped the raid due to grabbing aggro. So i found this article and am taking it to heart. Basically, hunters shouldn't be grabbing aggro, ever. And if you do, don't FD in place. Instead, run to the tank, then FD.

Anyway Shade. I really hate shade, it's a tough tough fight. We wiped twice due to just bad stuff, usually timings on the elemental spawn, they never spawn at good moments. First time was blizzard, second time was flame wreath. I dont' think i did great on this but i did decent. Laying snake traps at his feet is helpful. Avoiding the blizzards is important. Etc. Finally on the third attempt the elementals spawned, they got controlled right away, therefore not wiping the raid, we dpsed them down easily, and finished off shade. (with 9 people in raid, natch)

(I think at this point we got boomkin? Or maybe after Netherspite).
Netherspite. Pushover! Some simple strategy involving rays. Basically dps take turns standing in the blue ray until 24 ticks, then you get out of it. We take alot of damage or something, I didn't notice. Healers were great. First time i've seen this boss and we one-shotted.

Prince. Prince was damn easy but the first infernal he spawned was right between the dpsers and the tank. So kenny (pig) got a heck of a lot of damage, so I pulled him back to wait it out. Essentially the dps just waited out the infernal, then did mad DPS through phase 2 (tough phase). After that it was easy. Again vent server really helped with coordination (for the Netherspite fight too).

At this point it was late and we were tired and there wasn't much left. We went back and tried Illhoof, but we were too tired/uncoordinated to do him. Usually its an easy boss. For grins and repair costs we tried Nightbane, the big badass dragon. We wiped hard. Not sure what to do for this guy, he's damn tough for sure.

Final thoughts. I really like all the new stuff I got since last kara run and this one (new gems, the alchemist trinket which gives you 40% more mana from pots, a new macro). I ended up doing way too much dps on trash, I died like 5x on trash, not good (especially when this was my first raid with new guild). So for now on, aspect of viper and blessing of salvation on trash. This lowers my threat like 40% and my dps 10%. Then for bosses blessing of might and aspect of hawk, this gives me a 20% dps boost over trash mode. This should handle all aggro problems, hopefully it won't be an issue. Its tough being #1 in dps but getting yelled at because of pulling aggro.

Otherwise the raid was pretty smooth, even with the other mistakes I made and others made (bad positioning on curator/maiden for example). It was also extremely quick, maybe too much so. I also learned that nobody cares if you are #1 in dps if you are pulling aggro left and right. If you piss people off, they will remember that much more than anything nice or good that you did.
I wish we could do kara 2x a week instead of 1x, i need some upgrades there and some practice. I know others need upgrades as well. Not to mention badges (which is the main reason they won't let you do it more than once a week). But yeah it sucks being in a raiding guild and only doing one thing a week with them. Hope that changes soon.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

New macro

This is the new improved 3:2 macro. It's a higher mana burn and higher dps. Good for Sunfury.

Beast Mastery Steady Shot Shot Rotation (Higher Mana Usage, Higher DPS)
#showtooltip Steady Shot
/cast !Auto Shot
/cast [target=pettarget, exists] Kill command
/cast Steady Shot
/cast [target=pettarget, exists] Lightning Breath
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

Beast Mastery Steady Shot Shot Rotation (Lower Mana Usage, Lower DPS), good for WSR

Cheeky's spreadsheet says this is the best and most effiicent macro to use with crystalforged crossbow.


#showtooltip Steady Shot
/cast !Auto Shot
/cast [target=pettarget, exists] Kill command
/cast Steady Shot
/cast [target=pettarget, exists] Lightning Breath
/script UIErrorsFrame:Clear()

And this is my new raid spec

Finally this is the difference in pets via Cheeky's spreadsheet, using my gear.


cat/ravager 252/257 dps
WS: 225 dps
Boar: 210dps

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Farewell TAO

Last night I told my guild goodbye. It was definately a bittersweet parting. On the one hand, i've known these people for months (up to 6 months). On the other hand, I was getting quite estranged from the guild, and wanted to see more content than they were ready for. I wanted a guild that I had more participation in, a guild that wasn't about all-kara-all-the-time. Also organization, that's a key issue.

I was tired of basing my life around the guild and kara. At peak times we were raiding 5 nights a week, sometimes up to 3am. The new guild has, on paper, strict raid policies, you show up, do your job, and its two nights 4-5 hours. That's plenty of time to get through kara and other content. If you want to go do other stuff on off-nights, that's fine. But the raid will happen at a time and place.

That's the kind of guild I want. And if this guild doesn't turn out to be what it says, i'll find another. The new server is chock-full of guilds that have cleared kara.


Anyway I talked to a friend from the old guild today, and his take was that he would always stay with this guild because of loyality (and was hurt that I was disloyal). However, it's my $15/month, and if i'm not enjoying myself, why the heck am i paying? I look forward to this new guild and leveling my horde alt characters more on Docs.

Monday, February 18, 2008

The Raid

The Raid-

You raid with these people. You work with these people. These people are closer than your family. You should worry.

The GM- He’s sacrificed his family, friends, and probably a couple of jobs to drag you through new content. When the guild isn’t performing, these decisions are in question. Prone to shooting sprees, forum flame wars, and the rapid advancement/gearing of whatever toon the guild “needs”. If you can keep your mouth shut, he’ll go emo and quit before you get gkicked. Still, you do like the guy. Or did. Before he went crazy. See Drunks, below.

The Raid Leader- When you stand in the flames, he dies a little bit inside.

The Positive officer- “That was great. Just great. You know, only 5% of guilds have even made it to Supremus, and getting him down to 67% on the second attempt is hawt.” See Stoners, below.

The Negative officer- “Jesus Christ why are there corpses under all these goddamn volcanoes? It’s Supremus for !%%*s’s sake. GET OUT OF THE GODDAMN FLAME!”

The Healing Officer- Has this job because, as the newest officer who plays a healer, he’s stuck with it.

The Guy Who Runs the Guild- He’s been here a long time. Like forever. He’s an officer if he accepted the position. He knows all the gossip and understands the politics. For the love of God, don’t make this guy decide that you are hurting the guild. The last GM did.

The Hunter Class Lead- Will tell you that it does actually require skill and preparation to play a hunter well in the end game. He lies frequently.

The Gay guy- Affects the gay accent for effect. Upgrade decisions tend to involve lengthy discussions about gear appearance. Learned to use the dressing room function before the ‘v’key.

The Stay At Home Mom- She’s around children all day and craves adult conversation. Babbles incessantly in vent, forgetting that adult conversation doesn’t usually begin with, “So I was talking to (insert name of four-year-old child) and he says…” May or may not be on speaking terms with spouse. Is muted on vent by 90% of the raid.

Mr. Mikeless- Has a microphone. Hears the conversation and directions. Once wiped the raid because he started talking most folks alt-tabbed to see who the hell was speaking. May be your best player.

The Kid- So, you messed up on this guy’s interview and nobody noticed that he was 12. But, he can play. And if he gets a little bit excited when boobies are getting talked about? Hey, he’s young.

The other kid- Remember that accountant you interviewed for the fury warrior position? And how you wondered how he’d make time to raid during tax season? He couldn’t. His eleven year old daughter took over about that time. She’s been raiding since. Mages… that’s an eleven year-old girl owning you night after night.

Stratman- Has read every strategy on the entire internet for every boss. Unable to think critically. Knows where his talk key is. Hated by the officers. Likely to play a hunter. If this is also Chick With Accent, below, guild will probably collapse.

The Drunks- The core of your guild. As raid progresses, their voices in vent are getting just ever so slightly slurred. You don’t notice because you’re trying to sound sober yourself.

The Stoners- Quietly wiping raids since the beta. They really, really, really hate having to move out of the fire. Two of them are dead under the volcanoes. They live in fear of the negative officer. They have their own channel. Try /join (insertguildname)stoners. You’ll see who’s in there. It’ll explain a lot. They’re also having more fun that everyone else combined

The Prima Donna- Requires special attention from management. Constantly whining. Plays some vital role. Might be a main tank, mage tanks, or lock tank. The officers really hate this guy and as soon as they can find another tank with 24,000 buffed HP, he’s out.

The Chick with the Accent- Is the accent fake? Nobody knows or cares. Future visits to Australia/Britian/New Zealand/Alabama are now planned by all single raid members.

The Healing Pallie- Hates healing and had to go holy to see endgame. If you raid with a boomkin, a feral druid, a fury warrior, or any non-resto shaman, you are not getting a 10 minute blessing. Forget it. He hates you. Also, see Prima Donna, the gay guy.

The New Guy- Begins most sentences with, "That's not how we did it in my old guild on Korgath." Likely to remain guilded for approximately one week. You wonder if he'll be tellign his next guild, "In my old guild, we ran TOWARDS the volcanoes.

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Latest news

Well i finally got to go into Kara last night, the last night before reset today. We had cleared up to Shade at that point (did chess). We skipped shade b/c shade is a PITA, and went straight to Prince. Because we are so slow respawns are an issue. So basically everything is one shot stuff, no total wipes, we wouldn't have time to reclear everything. We get up to Prince, fumble a few times (we had soul stones and divine inspiration to save the raid from a wipe). And on the third time Prince goes down, and what does he drop, but my T4 helm token. By my i mean i wasted almost all my DKP and got it. Now with Prince down, i get another epic trinket, useful for curator and the like. I also hit exalted, so i got my Kara ring upgraded. So that's 3 epics in one swoop. Nice upgrades.

Anyway we were happy Prince was down but still, can't wipe. So we clear to Illhoof, and after a few stumbles (need to get demon chains), he goes down. Again we used soul stone and DI. Finally at close to 2am we go for Shade. Shade owns us like usual. We always get to 40% and elementals respawn, and each time there was a blizzard and elemental respawn. Once i thought we could handle it but raid leader said wipe, so we did. The other time we had no chance whatsoever. So hopefully we'll just get lucky someday and bring down Shade. Shade isn't necessary but very helpful. However we have so many issues with shade, i'd rather skip shade and get gear from Illhoof and Prince, who we pretty much have on farm now.

Further, we got a huge influx of level 70 people recently. That means we should have enough for two kara groups and maybe a gruul run. If not this week then definately soon. People are reading that we have Prince on farm, and they will come to us. Once we start to do 25 mans i am guessing there will be some turnover but also an influx, everyone who can do all of kara wants to do 25mans. So yeah things are def. looking up. I find i dont really need to do kara all week, i have a bunch of the gear from there and we have so many people. Maybe i'll switch to the B team and help them out.

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