Fate?
The joint raiding trial is now over and it has been a huge success. We've made some nice progress and we've had a lot of fun doing it.
A meeting was held between the chiefs and they have come up with a plan to bring the two guilds together permanently under one banner.
I'll be honest... as well as the raiding had gone, I was expecting the worst from the meeting and it to all end in ruins. I'm not normally this negative or pessimistic but I have lost a lot of confidence in the current leadership and our absent GM.
My fears were unfounded though and the guilds will officially come together this weekend! We are having a mini-event to commemorate the union but I'm not sure if I will be able to make it which is a shame.
Dawn of a new era...
We'll be in an excellent position roster-wise with 20+ raiders, setting us up nicely for Mythic should we prove capable.
From what I have seen so far, quite a large number of the raiders will be capable of making the step up while some will still need to make improvements in their play.
It's the usual indicators I'm looking at... dancing the presses on Hans and Franz, negotiating the maze on Oregorger, avoiding the spears on Darmac etc etc.
The basic awareness and movement stuff, not the numbers, are what's important in my opinion. Once you have that stuff sorted, then it's the numbers :-)
I have been top of the dps charts in most fights lately but it's that part of my game that I'm most pleased with, dealing with the mechanics and avoiding the avoidable.
One worry I do have is about the loot system. We've always used a DKP system which has it's flaws but works well for us, zero loot drama.
They want to continue with the DKP for most loot but introduce a Loot Council for tier pieces.
I am guessing that the thinking behind this is that they can fill out sets and make the raid as a whole stronger, rather than have the whole raid having parts of the set but no bonus.
It's an admirable aim but I have doubts about their (or anyone's) ability to implement it properly and fairly without causing loot drama. Loot drama is probably the biggest danger to a successful guild and I don't think it's worth the risk.
I also don't think it's necessary these days. We have normal mode to blast through a few times and pick up tier pieces, fill out our sets.
It basically comes down to trust though... I trust our DKP system more than I trust any of the officers from either guild to get the Loot Council right.
Raiding this week...
Another excellent week for us with 2 more progress bosses down!
Kromog...
We were making real headway on the fight but it was incredibly difficult, health bars spiking low over and over again putting massive pressure on the healers.
A quick calculation said we could afford an extra healer and still beat the enrage so I hearthed back to my garrison to dust off my healing gear! It's certainly been a while, and no doubt I made a few mistakes, but it turned out to be a great decision.
The extra healing stabilised us and kept people out of those risk areas, and the extra healing cooldowns certainly helped.
Next attempt he was down!
Personally, I was well out of practice as a healer but I really enjoyed it as a change of pace. My gear had been gathering dust in the bank for a while and was far from optimised so I ended up using a combination of my dps and healing gear.
My talents were all over the place too so, to be honest, I'm just glad I was able to get the numbers out to hold my own. Hopefully it bought the other healers some breathing space so they could show off their skills and do all the fancy stuff to get us the kill.
Operator Thogar...
Back to dps for this one as we could immediately tell it was a lot less punishing on the healers.
Despite it being our first time on heroic we were high on confidence after the Kromog kill so hunting another kill right from the start.
I figured that, apart from the trains, meter-whoring would be our biggest problem. Men-at-Arms and Flamemenders staying alive too long as our dps went full AoE, I tried to stress it before and during the fight that these adds needed to die as fast as possible.
It worked to a certain extent, enough anyway, as we made good progress through the fight up until the second split.
In that split we seemed to suddenly lose traction and a few people would go down.
This happened on 2 or 3 attempts in a row and we knew that the fight was basically ours if we could come through that phase in good shape.
Ix made a great call to use Heroism in that split to help healing and the reduced number of dps burn down the major targets.
It was a masterstroke! Just what we needed, and we flowed through that phase comfortably and into the final stretch.
It all seemed easy from that point onwards as we strolled to the finish line, barely breaking sweat.
Thogar was down!
Two progress bosses in one night, fantastic!
I couldn't record the kills as I was getting a bit of lag which was a shame but Vorosh managed to capture the Thogar kill. Whether the embarrassment of being hit by a train will stop him sharing it with the rest of the guild remains to be seen :-)
I had a fantastic week for loot...
Tier helm from Kromog allowed me to shuffle a few things around and replace both my 670ilvl legs and ring, great result!
Trinket from Darmac and Mythic shield from my follower missions and now I only have tier pieces at 670ilvl!
All that's left to do now is upgrade my tier pieces from normal to heroic (which I'll be trying to do with Seals so others can fill their sets) and a couple of itemisation upgrades (which, again, I'll only take if nobody else needs them).
The trinket from Blackhand would be nice though :-)
Side Projects...
I braved the lfr as tank over the weekend. I made a couple of mistakes but was generally fine. I may even do it again this weekend!
Slowly levelling a hunter towards max level. She's currently at level 50 which is much further than I've ever managed on any other hunter.
The heirlooms make it mindless but messing around with Disengage keeps it fun.
The big test, as always for me, will be when I hit 'old' Nagrand at around level 64.
I always hit a wall there and it's a struggle for me until I reach level 78 and go to Icecrown.
It's very strange I know, and I have no idea why I don't like those levels/zones, but it always follows the same pattern.
If I make it through, I will probably use this char to test the 'no gold' gearing method.
Wish me luck!
Thursday 16 April 2015
Thursday 9 April 2015
Raiding and.... well, at least there's Raiding.
There is an incredible 'end of expansion' feeling to the game at the moment, just logging in to raid and finding no enthusiasm for any other parts of the game.
I feel like I am just killing time until... until what? A new expansion? A new raid?
I'm not really sure to be honest but probably not a new raid as I'm still really enjoying Blackrock Foundry.
The raiding has been going exceptionally well, I'm loving raiding in a bigger group again. And we've been killing more bosses too!
Following on from our first night with our sister guild, we killed the Iron Maidens on normal and had a good look at Blackhand. What a great fight! Loving the huge arena with loads of stuff going on, it's an absolute blast!
We didn't actually kill him that night, best attempt was around 11% I think, but it was great fun. There was noticeable progress on the fight as the night went on, and I think it would only have taken a few more attempts to get the kill but we haven't been back since.
We have been back in normal but it was a fresh run, more hoping than expecting to reach Blackhand. We actually made good time but a few wipes on Blast Furnace ruined our chances. That fight is still hard for us on normal but it didn't help that the Bellows Operators bugged out and kept spawning in phase 2! :-)
We killed 9/10 that night but had no time for any attempts on Blackhand - I've now suggested that we boost an Alt through most of normal and keep him saved late into the raid, then we can use that save instead of doing a fresh run each week.
There isn't much reason for us to go into normal mode anyway... personally, I want the Blackhand kill but that's it for me. I have the gear, the 4-set tier bonus so I'm fine, it's now just a case of building those tier sets for the rest of the raid.
That's why I thought boosting the alt was a good idea. My first thought was to kill 9 and just leave Blackhand open.
Imagine, we could walk in, kill one trash mob, kill Blackhand and walk out with 2 tier tokens. The whole thing could be done in about 20 minutes leaving the rest of the night for heroic bosses. And Blackhand drops those special tokens that can be exchanged for any of the tier slots, none would be wasted.
I'm coming round to the idea of leaving a couple more bosses open, maybe Iron Maidens and Blast Furnace as well as Blackhand. They both drop tier tokens too and Vorosh insists we could use the practice on them. Considering the amount he stands in fire, and how quick he is to point out other's mistakes, I think he is talking about himself more than anyone else. :-)
More tier sets would definitely give us a boost to our heroic progress anyway. I don't think anyone else actually has the 4-set at the moment so it can't hurt.
Having said that, the heroics are going well anyway. Gruul, H&F and Oregorger don't cause any problems now. We repeated our kill on Flamebender Ka'graz without feeling lucky about it either, and then went on to 1-shot Beastlord Darmac!
I've always thought we were good enough to kill Darmac but it surpassed my expectations. It didn't feel lucky either, we just kind of got on with it and he died.
Let's hope we can repeat that this week.
Outside of raiding... well, nothing much is happening at all. Absolutely nothing is grabbing my interest. Aside from the raids, I log in to:
Send followers on missions
Restock my Barn
Use whatever gadget comes out of the workshop that day
...and that's about it.
I have started recruiting treasure hunter followers, mainly just to see how much gold it makes as it requires so little effort.
Harrison Jones is a god-send for this. As well as being a Treasure Hunter himself, he has the Mentor trait which must be the most overpowered trait of any follower.
The Mentor trait raises the level and gear of any follower that goes on a mission with Harrison up to his level. So, a fresh 90 recruit from the Inn can enter and contribute fully towards a 675ilvl 100 mission... and reap all the rewards!
That means it only takes 3 (yes, 3!!) missions to go from 90 to 100 with Harrison Jones. Amazing!
So, aside from raiding and the laziest gold-making attempts of all time, I'm looking for something to keep my attention... a new project!
Options...
1. Tanking.
My prot pala is at 657ilvl after a couple of lucky drops one night in heroic Highmaul and a lot of gold. It's still one aspect of the game (along with PvP) I feel that I haven't mastered to at least a decent level and that really irritates me.
I want to be good at tanking.
Unfortunately, I'm held back for some reason by a crippling lack of confidence and just can't bring myself to tick that tank box for an lfr or dungeon run.
Man up ffs.
2. Gearing
I've read so much about how poor the gearing system is in WoD. I disagreed, as I often do, and put it down to whining and entitlement. The options for gearing appear plentiful and varied to me but maybe my opinion was coloured by my ability to use gold to bypass any gearing issues that arose.
So, how would I do on a different char without that gold? Would my opinion change?
I have a selection of chars at 90 left behind on various realms without those resources to draw from, or I could just boost a brand new char to 90 and see it from a new player pov.
3. Play FFXIV
I picked it up a couple of weeks ago as I had heard good things about it. I haven't made it very far into the game as yet, level 16 Thaumaturge (that's a mage to you and me), but I have been enjoying it immensely. There is an expansion arriving soon and it would be nice to 'finish' this story before it arrives, I'm not sure I will have time though.
I could really do with some more options...
I feel like I am just killing time until... until what? A new expansion? A new raid?
I'm not really sure to be honest but probably not a new raid as I'm still really enjoying Blackrock Foundry.
The raiding has been going exceptionally well, I'm loving raiding in a bigger group again. And we've been killing more bosses too!
Following on from our first night with our sister guild, we killed the Iron Maidens on normal and had a good look at Blackhand. What a great fight! Loving the huge arena with loads of stuff going on, it's an absolute blast!
We didn't actually kill him that night, best attempt was around 11% I think, but it was great fun. There was noticeable progress on the fight as the night went on, and I think it would only have taken a few more attempts to get the kill but we haven't been back since.
We have been back in normal but it was a fresh run, more hoping than expecting to reach Blackhand. We actually made good time but a few wipes on Blast Furnace ruined our chances. That fight is still hard for us on normal but it didn't help that the Bellows Operators bugged out and kept spawning in phase 2! :-)
We killed 9/10 that night but had no time for any attempts on Blackhand - I've now suggested that we boost an Alt through most of normal and keep him saved late into the raid, then we can use that save instead of doing a fresh run each week.
There isn't much reason for us to go into normal mode anyway... personally, I want the Blackhand kill but that's it for me. I have the gear, the 4-set tier bonus so I'm fine, it's now just a case of building those tier sets for the rest of the raid.
That's why I thought boosting the alt was a good idea. My first thought was to kill 9 and just leave Blackhand open.
Imagine, we could walk in, kill one trash mob, kill Blackhand and walk out with 2 tier tokens. The whole thing could be done in about 20 minutes leaving the rest of the night for heroic bosses. And Blackhand drops those special tokens that can be exchanged for any of the tier slots, none would be wasted.
I'm coming round to the idea of leaving a couple more bosses open, maybe Iron Maidens and Blast Furnace as well as Blackhand. They both drop tier tokens too and Vorosh insists we could use the practice on them. Considering the amount he stands in fire, and how quick he is to point out other's mistakes, I think he is talking about himself more than anyone else. :-)
More tier sets would definitely give us a boost to our heroic progress anyway. I don't think anyone else actually has the 4-set at the moment so it can't hurt.
Having said that, the heroics are going well anyway. Gruul, H&F and Oregorger don't cause any problems now. We repeated our kill on Flamebender Ka'graz without feeling lucky about it either, and then went on to 1-shot Beastlord Darmac!
I've always thought we were good enough to kill Darmac but it surpassed my expectations. It didn't feel lucky either, we just kind of got on with it and he died.
Let's hope we can repeat that this week.
Outside of raiding... well, nothing much is happening at all. Absolutely nothing is grabbing my interest. Aside from the raids, I log in to:
Send followers on missions
Restock my Barn
Use whatever gadget comes out of the workshop that day
...and that's about it.
I have started recruiting treasure hunter followers, mainly just to see how much gold it makes as it requires so little effort.
Harrison Jones is a god-send for this. As well as being a Treasure Hunter himself, he has the Mentor trait which must be the most overpowered trait of any follower.
The Mentor trait raises the level and gear of any follower that goes on a mission with Harrison up to his level. So, a fresh 90 recruit from the Inn can enter and contribute fully towards a 675ilvl 100 mission... and reap all the rewards!
That means it only takes 3 (yes, 3!!) missions to go from 90 to 100 with Harrison Jones. Amazing!
So, aside from raiding and the laziest gold-making attempts of all time, I'm looking for something to keep my attention... a new project!
Options...
1. Tanking.
My prot pala is at 657ilvl after a couple of lucky drops one night in heroic Highmaul and a lot of gold. It's still one aspect of the game (along with PvP) I feel that I haven't mastered to at least a decent level and that really irritates me.
I want to be good at tanking.
Unfortunately, I'm held back for some reason by a crippling lack of confidence and just can't bring myself to tick that tank box for an lfr or dungeon run.
Man up ffs.
2. Gearing
I've read so much about how poor the gearing system is in WoD. I disagreed, as I often do, and put it down to whining and entitlement. The options for gearing appear plentiful and varied to me but maybe my opinion was coloured by my ability to use gold to bypass any gearing issues that arose.
So, how would I do on a different char without that gold? Would my opinion change?
I have a selection of chars at 90 left behind on various realms without those resources to draw from, or I could just boost a brand new char to 90 and see it from a new player pov.
3. Play FFXIV
I picked it up a couple of weeks ago as I had heard good things about it. I haven't made it very far into the game as yet, level 16 Thaumaturge (that's a mage to you and me), but I have been enjoying it immensely. There is an expansion arriving soon and it would be nice to 'finish' this story before it arrives, I'm not sure I will have time though.
I could really do with some more options...
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