A good day...
1. BUFFS!
First up some buffs announced for Ele Shaman.
Blizzard obviously read my post about levelling a mage and felt the need to act! :-P
Cooldown on Ascendance reduced to 2 minutes.
A big change even if Ascendance is pretty weak at the moment. The real gain here is that it will line up with the Legendary Ring, and we can also spec into Elemental Mastery to power it up even more.
All 3 of those lined up every two minutes should be a nice boost to our dps!
Mastery was also buffed but is still way behind all the other stats. I'm stuck with some Mastery pieces though so hey, a buff is a buff.
2. INSPIRED
Next up, we 1-shot Socrethar!
Is everyone reading my blog now? :-)
It's even less likely that my guild is reading my blog than Blizzard but we pulled of one of the cleanest kills I have ever experienced.
People moved, interrupted and switched targets almost perfectly but the real props go to the Bear tank who did an amazing job in the Construct.
We even followed it up with a first kill of Tyrant Velhari (after wiping 5 times on the trash :-s) taking us to 11/13HC
3. ACCEPTED
A great night was rounded off with the news that I have passed my trial!
I've still got a long way to go to catch the other Ele Shaman in the team (never mind the mages and hunters) but I am now officially a raider.
I'm hoping there will be a few more Heroic runs yet as I've had horrendous luck with the Personal Loot (27 bosses + 11 Seals = 3 minor upgrades). And we've now switched to DKP which puts me even further behind as a late-comer to the team.
It will be very difficult for me to force my way into the reckoning for the Mythic team (when we get there) but I am up for the challenge!
Happy Raiding!
Wednesday 22 July 2015
Tuesday 21 July 2015
Socrethar Heroic...
We go back tonight to Socrethar having skipped him on our way to 9/13HC for the week.
It seems like an incredibly simple fight to me.
Phase 1 is straight-forward, mostly just tank and spank but with a couple of mechanics we have dealt with before (many times) like moving out of the group when targeted by the charge.
Rotating some people in to help soak abilities with the tank sounds very much like Blackhand so that shouldn't cause many issues either.
Phase 2 seems to be where the problems start...
The tank in the construct seems to have the hardest job with a few things to juggle. Their ability to use these abilities well can have a massive affect on the difficulty of the fight, and can even change the tactics.
Thank Elune that this isn't one of those random target mechanics like Amber-Shaper back in HoF, can you imagine how hard this would be if we all had to get used to the construct?
It's just the tank though, he's great and getting better all the time.
For the rest of us, it is all pretty easy going.
We have some spells to interrupt
We have some adds to kill
We have a big add to focus down
We have a big debuff to track and need to move out of the group if it's on us
This is all pretty standard stuff.
We have great dps so the big add dies quickly
Excellent rotation of interrupts
Shamans and Boomkins to AoE down the other adds
An extremely vocal RL who shouts at anyone slow to move with the debuff
So why have we had so many problems on this boss?
Two weeks ago, before I was in the guild, they wiped many times and failed to get the kill.
Last week, they dropped to a 15-man team after only a couple of wipes to get the kill late on in the raid night.
This week, more wipes.
There seems like a psychological block with this boss, people believing it is too hard with a full raid group and being defeated even before the pull.
It might or might not be more difficult, I neither know nor care, because these are all mechanics we have dealt with a thousand times before.
I think people just need to remember how simple this fight really is.
It seems like an incredibly simple fight to me.
Phase 1 is straight-forward, mostly just tank and spank but with a couple of mechanics we have dealt with before (many times) like moving out of the group when targeted by the charge.
Rotating some people in to help soak abilities with the tank sounds very much like Blackhand so that shouldn't cause many issues either.
Phase 2 seems to be where the problems start...
The tank in the construct seems to have the hardest job with a few things to juggle. Their ability to use these abilities well can have a massive affect on the difficulty of the fight, and can even change the tactics.
Thank Elune that this isn't one of those random target mechanics like Amber-Shaper back in HoF, can you imagine how hard this would be if we all had to get used to the construct?
It's just the tank though, he's great and getting better all the time.
For the rest of us, it is all pretty easy going.
We have some spells to interrupt
We have some adds to kill
We have a big add to focus down
We have a big debuff to track and need to move out of the group if it's on us
This is all pretty standard stuff.
We have great dps so the big add dies quickly
Excellent rotation of interrupts
Shamans and Boomkins to AoE down the other adds
An extremely vocal RL who shouts at anyone slow to move with the debuff
So why have we had so many problems on this boss?
Two weeks ago, before I was in the guild, they wiped many times and failed to get the kill.
Last week, they dropped to a 15-man team after only a couple of wipes to get the kill late on in the raid night.
This week, more wipes.
There seems like a psychological block with this boss, people believing it is too hard with a full raid group and being defeated even before the pull.
It might or might not be more difficult, I neither know nor care, because these are all mechanics we have dealt with a thousand times before.
I think people just need to remember how simple this fight really is.
Monday 20 July 2015
Flavour of the Month...
I rolled a new mage over the weekend.
I want to see if the mages in my guild are always ahead of me because they are better or because they are mages.
I have a sneaking suspicion it is both but it will be fun to play an OP mage for a while anyway :-)
Blizzard says classes have niches where they can excel but, unfortunately, the niche of the Elemental Shaman is on the trash.
When you have a big bad guy who just needs to die, then you call a mage, and it's pretty much always been that way.
So I'm going to level a mage up, gear him up as well as possible, and throw him into some raids.
I want to see if I can reproduce the difference in dps I see in my regular raids.
I know that people produce charts showing mages, hunters and warriors destroying everyone else but I want to see it for myself.
And, to be honest, I want to fail.
I don't want to be beaten by those players each week because of poor balance tuning or class design.
I want them to just be better players than I am.
Then I can either accept my position or try to improve.
Because that's in my hands, not Blizzard's.
I want to see if the mages in my guild are always ahead of me because they are better or because they are mages.
I have a sneaking suspicion it is both but it will be fun to play an OP mage for a while anyway :-)
Blizzard says classes have niches where they can excel but, unfortunately, the niche of the Elemental Shaman is on the trash.
When you have a big bad guy who just needs to die, then you call a mage, and it's pretty much always been that way.
So I'm going to level a mage up, gear him up as well as possible, and throw him into some raids.
I want to see if I can reproduce the difference in dps I see in my regular raids.
I know that people produce charts showing mages, hunters and warriors destroying everyone else but I want to see it for myself.
And, to be honest, I want to fail.
I don't want to be beaten by those players each week because of poor balance tuning or class design.
I want them to just be better players than I am.
Then I can either accept my position or try to improve.
Because that's in my hands, not Blizzard's.
Thursday 16 July 2015
The Trial Continues...
It just occurred to me... I have no idea how long this trial is supposed to last!
2nd night of the trial and I still feel like everyone knows more than I do... because it's still true :-s
It might be a progress night for them but they have had a few attempts at these bosses and cleared them on normal... they know what's going on.
I will be doing my headless chicken routine again while everyone else kills the boss.
A couple of drops from the first raid gave me a nice little ilvl boost, and I started upgrading some crafted gear for a bit more, so I was going to be closer in that regard at least.
We were starting on Fel Lord Zakuun...
My original plan of hiding at the back while everyone else dealt with the mechanics came unstuck when nobody was moving to soak the puddles furthest away from the boss.
Somebody has to do it so I figured it might as well be me and off I went and quickly realised why nobody else wanted to do it... it meant I was out of range of the boss! :-(
It's not about dps, it's about dealing with the mechanics and killing the boss (is what I rehearsed just in case my low dps was mentioned) - I didn't really want to be chasing distant puddles though, I wanted time to watch and learn the fight.
Well... I got the time to learn anyway as we wiped a few times. There were no major problems, just the usual wipes you expect when learning a fight...
Tanks getting used to the ramp up in damage in P2
Soakers getting used to the movement to avoid the waves of bad stuff (forget dps, that stuff hurts - move!)
Healers getting used to the healing barrier thing
The progress was almost tangible with each wipe until it just came to the point where we needed a clear run without silly mistakes.
This was where my old guild would fall down, those silly mistakes would just keep on coming causing wipe after wipe after wipe.
Here though, it felt different. It took us 4 more attempts to get that clean run and the kill.
There was also the feeling that this boss was sorted now. The feeling that next week might not be a 1-shot but it wouldn't be far off.
On to Socrethar...
Only 2 attempts on this boss but it seems easy enough.
After the 2nd wipe, they decided to drop half of the raid team and go with 15 people.
I'm not really sure of the reasoning behind it, something about number of debuffs coming in making it harder with 16+ was mentioned but no idea if it's true (or important).
Anyway, as a trial, I could see a bench in my future (despite being 3rd on dps) so I volunteered to step out.
It took them 3 more attempts to get the kill which I suppose justifies their decision to go with the smaller team.
Xhul'horac on the final raid night of the week... this boss seems much tougher, a step up to a harder tier of bosses before Archimonde.
There was much debate about exploding puddles, black holes and interrupting adds all through the night but slowly all those things were sorted out and we closed in for the kill.
It's a fun fight but it seems quite manic, I was back into headless chicken mode just trying not to blow people up.
With so many adds around though, Chain Lightning and Earthquake were fantastic, dragging me up to 3rd on the meters for the kill.
10th boss down in only 10 pulls, incredible!
No great confidence in future kills like on Fel Lord but you never know. Another week of gear will make those adds go down that little bit faster and the fight that little bit easier.
A few pulls on Tyrant Velhari to round out the week gave us a decent look at the first two phases and I'm confident we can go back to make it 11/13Hc there this week.
I felt so much more comfortable over these two nights than the first and that is almost definitely down to the wipes.
I know I can walk into a raid and avoid the fire so, given a few wipes to see how the fights really shape up, I feel like I can really develop my positioning and movement to make it easier for myself (and to improve my dps)
I'm really enjoying the challenge, trying to compete with the extra gear and experience of the other raiders (and, in particular, the other shaman) and I can feel the gap closing all the time.
I've had no feedback from the officers so I have no idea how they think the trial is going but, even if I don't pass the trial for whatever reason, I will be full of confidence when I apply to another guild.
Happy Raiding!
2nd night of the trial and I still feel like everyone knows more than I do... because it's still true :-s
It might be a progress night for them but they have had a few attempts at these bosses and cleared them on normal... they know what's going on.
I will be doing my headless chicken routine again while everyone else kills the boss.
A couple of drops from the first raid gave me a nice little ilvl boost, and I started upgrading some crafted gear for a bit more, so I was going to be closer in that regard at least.
We were starting on Fel Lord Zakuun...
My original plan of hiding at the back while everyone else dealt with the mechanics came unstuck when nobody was moving to soak the puddles furthest away from the boss.
Somebody has to do it so I figured it might as well be me and off I went and quickly realised why nobody else wanted to do it... it meant I was out of range of the boss! :-(
It's not about dps, it's about dealing with the mechanics and killing the boss (is what I rehearsed just in case my low dps was mentioned) - I didn't really want to be chasing distant puddles though, I wanted time to watch and learn the fight.
Well... I got the time to learn anyway as we wiped a few times. There were no major problems, just the usual wipes you expect when learning a fight...
Tanks getting used to the ramp up in damage in P2
Soakers getting used to the movement to avoid the waves of bad stuff (forget dps, that stuff hurts - move!)
Healers getting used to the healing barrier thing
The progress was almost tangible with each wipe until it just came to the point where we needed a clear run without silly mistakes.
This was where my old guild would fall down, those silly mistakes would just keep on coming causing wipe after wipe after wipe.
Here though, it felt different. It took us 4 more attempts to get that clean run and the kill.
There was also the feeling that this boss was sorted now. The feeling that next week might not be a 1-shot but it wouldn't be far off.
On to Socrethar...
Only 2 attempts on this boss but it seems easy enough.
After the 2nd wipe, they decided to drop half of the raid team and go with 15 people.
I'm not really sure of the reasoning behind it, something about number of debuffs coming in making it harder with 16+ was mentioned but no idea if it's true (or important).
Anyway, as a trial, I could see a bench in my future (despite being 3rd on dps) so I volunteered to step out.
It took them 3 more attempts to get the kill which I suppose justifies their decision to go with the smaller team.
Xhul'horac on the final raid night of the week... this boss seems much tougher, a step up to a harder tier of bosses before Archimonde.
There was much debate about exploding puddles, black holes and interrupting adds all through the night but slowly all those things were sorted out and we closed in for the kill.
It's a fun fight but it seems quite manic, I was back into headless chicken mode just trying not to blow people up.
With so many adds around though, Chain Lightning and Earthquake were fantastic, dragging me up to 3rd on the meters for the kill.
10th boss down in only 10 pulls, incredible!
No great confidence in future kills like on Fel Lord but you never know. Another week of gear will make those adds go down that little bit faster and the fight that little bit easier.
A few pulls on Tyrant Velhari to round out the week gave us a decent look at the first two phases and I'm confident we can go back to make it 11/13Hc there this week.
I felt so much more comfortable over these two nights than the first and that is almost definitely down to the wipes.
I know I can walk into a raid and avoid the fire so, given a few wipes to see how the fights really shape up, I feel like I can really develop my positioning and movement to make it easier for myself (and to improve my dps)
I'm really enjoying the challenge, trying to compete with the extra gear and experience of the other raiders (and, in particular, the other shaman) and I can feel the gap closing all the time.
I've had no feedback from the officers so I have no idea how they think the trial is going but, even if I don't pass the trial for whatever reason, I will be full of confidence when I apply to another guild.
Happy Raiding!
Wednesday 15 July 2015
Trials and Tribulations...
Once upon a time, I joined a pug trash run on Firelands for the rep.
This was before I had ever raided anything as current content and I was a little nervous... so I asked the RL for the tactics.
I swear I saw his char's eyes roll as he thought... who is this moron?
He replied with a rather bemused
"Er... this is a trash run"
If there were any mechanics, I was just expected to know them.
Right... just get on with it then.
I stood at the back, with a tank-assist macro to choose my target, watched what other people were doing and concentrated on moving out of bad stuff. My dps was woeful but I stayed alive and my confidence grew as each pack of trash died, and I slowly improved.
Fast forward to the present and I had that feeling again... the feeling that I'm the only one here who doesn't know what they are doing.
And it was true.
Thanks to Fatboss, Icy Veins, Gabestah and LOS Gaming I knew what to expect in the fights but that isn't the same as actually doing them.
They tell you the right thing to attack and the important stuff to avoid but that's only half the fight. The rest you can only learn by doing.
To be honest, I was hoping for some nod to the fact there were new people in the raid (me and one other) with a brief run-down of tactics for each boss... but I was left disappointed.
If there were any mechanics, I was expected to know them.
And how to deal with them.
Right... just get on with it then.
The Raid...
I was expecting to be a long way off the pace as far as dps was concerned but my focus would be on staying alive and learning the fights.
The ranged officer is also an Elemental Shaman so I had something to compare against and aim for, even if he was way ahead in terms of ilvl and experience.
Much of Hellfire Assault was spent running around like a headless chicken trying to work out what was going on around me. I still don't know as it just seemed like a mess of trash to me with the RL occasionally calling out a priority target (which most people had already switched to anyway). 13th out of 21 dps players on the meters, CL/EQ ftw!
Iron Reaver was marginally better as there were a couple of wipes. Thank god for wipes!
It's another opportunity for me to learn a bit more about the fight, refine positioning, and work out what movement is needed to avoid the abilities. I was hit by blitz on the first attempt but fine after that. 13th/20.
Of course, the RL didn't see wipes in quite the same way. Not on a farm boss anyway. I may have been expected to know the tactics but everyone was expected to perform well enough to 1-shot these farm bosses.
On to Hellfire High Council... Still no sign of any tactics brief so I ploughed on and made my first big mistake.
All was going ok until the second set of ghosts came in.
I moved out to let one pass but moved back into position too quickly and got caught by the trail of darkness behind the ghost.
I wasn't even aware this trailing thing existed until I ran into it and it virtually 1-shot me.
Dead shaman... and it must have looked like I just failed at moving from bad. :-(
I didn't get a res and the boss died so I didn't get another shot.
Kilrogg Deadeye... Yes! A fight I have done before!
They did it slightly differently but, if anything, it made it even easier than it was on normal. What a difference it makes to have seen the fight before!
I avoided all the bad stuff, hit the right targets and positioned the bloods perfectly (even if I do say so myself). Incredibly, I even beat the other Shaman! 11th/20.
Kormrok was a different story altogether... I could never seem to find a good position, even out of range of the boss at times as I tried to work out what the hell was going on.
I also had no idea how long the fight would last and missed out on a full set of cooldowns (which I frantically popped when he was at about 1%)
At least I can say I survived and didn't get hit by any of the bad stuff, a lot of ground to make up on the dps though. 14th/20.
Gorefiend is a really fun boss but, again, my lack of experience let my dps down. We used Hero in the first Feast of Souls phase to take advantage of the 200% dps... which I wasn't prepared for... I had popped all my cooldowns on the pull so had nothing left. The mechanics were straight-forward though so I had no issues there. 11th/20
Shadow Lord Iskar... An excellent fight for the Ele Shaman but also the scene of my second major mistake. You've probably already guessed that the cause of my downfall was... the Eye of Anzu.
It's fairly simple, just pass the eye on to whoever needs it. It's not quite so easy when it's the first time you have seen it and the RL is just repeatedly shouting out names over and over again.
First time I got the Eye, I couldn't find the right person so I panicked and threw it to somebody at random in the hope they could pass it on. Far from ideal but it worked, not without him moaning about it though.
Second time, I was trying to use some Iskar addon and it wouldn't pass it on. RL just shouting at me to pass it over and over again, which was not even remotely helpful, until I gave up on the addon and used my own raid frames.
We survived and killed the boss.
That attempt was our third and after the official raid finish time so we had lost a few people. Did I mention that this was a good fight for Shaman? 2nd on dps out of 14 :-)
Behind the other Ele Shaman.
Overall, I was fairly happy with my performance on the night. I learned the fights as quickly as I could, didn't cause any wipes and competed as well as my gear allowed on most attempts.
My strengths as a player will never be based around lightning reflexes or split-second timings. Instead, I rely on awareness and preparation to always be in a good position and ready for what is coming next.
This means I am always good on the 'Damage Taken' and dealing with mechanics side of raiding... I hope that performance throughout the night outshone the couple of high-profile mistakes that I made.
The next raid nights would be progress bosses which should hopefully allow me to compete on a more even playing field. I would still be behind on gear but the experience gap should be much smaller.
This post is long enough though so I will save that for tomorrow.
This was before I had ever raided anything as current content and I was a little nervous... so I asked the RL for the tactics.
I swear I saw his char's eyes roll as he thought... who is this moron?
He replied with a rather bemused
"Er... this is a trash run"
If there were any mechanics, I was just expected to know them.
Right... just get on with it then.
I stood at the back, with a tank-assist macro to choose my target, watched what other people were doing and concentrated on moving out of bad stuff. My dps was woeful but I stayed alive and my confidence grew as each pack of trash died, and I slowly improved.
Fast forward to the present and I had that feeling again... the feeling that I'm the only one here who doesn't know what they are doing.
And it was true.
Thanks to Fatboss, Icy Veins, Gabestah and LOS Gaming I knew what to expect in the fights but that isn't the same as actually doing them.
They tell you the right thing to attack and the important stuff to avoid but that's only half the fight. The rest you can only learn by doing.
To be honest, I was hoping for some nod to the fact there were new people in the raid (me and one other) with a brief run-down of tactics for each boss... but I was left disappointed.
If there were any mechanics, I was expected to know them.
And how to deal with them.
Right... just get on with it then.
The Raid...
I was expecting to be a long way off the pace as far as dps was concerned but my focus would be on staying alive and learning the fights.
The ranged officer is also an Elemental Shaman so I had something to compare against and aim for, even if he was way ahead in terms of ilvl and experience.
Much of Hellfire Assault was spent running around like a headless chicken trying to work out what was going on around me. I still don't know as it just seemed like a mess of trash to me with the RL occasionally calling out a priority target (which most people had already switched to anyway). 13th out of 21 dps players on the meters, CL/EQ ftw!
Iron Reaver was marginally better as there were a couple of wipes. Thank god for wipes!
It's another opportunity for me to learn a bit more about the fight, refine positioning, and work out what movement is needed to avoid the abilities. I was hit by blitz on the first attempt but fine after that. 13th/20.
Of course, the RL didn't see wipes in quite the same way. Not on a farm boss anyway. I may have been expected to know the tactics but everyone was expected to perform well enough to 1-shot these farm bosses.
On to Hellfire High Council... Still no sign of any tactics brief so I ploughed on and made my first big mistake.
All was going ok until the second set of ghosts came in.
I moved out to let one pass but moved back into position too quickly and got caught by the trail of darkness behind the ghost.
I wasn't even aware this trailing thing existed until I ran into it and it virtually 1-shot me.
Dead shaman... and it must have looked like I just failed at moving from bad. :-(
I didn't get a res and the boss died so I didn't get another shot.
Kilrogg Deadeye... Yes! A fight I have done before!
They did it slightly differently but, if anything, it made it even easier than it was on normal. What a difference it makes to have seen the fight before!
I avoided all the bad stuff, hit the right targets and positioned the bloods perfectly (even if I do say so myself). Incredibly, I even beat the other Shaman! 11th/20.
Kormrok was a different story altogether... I could never seem to find a good position, even out of range of the boss at times as I tried to work out what the hell was going on.
I also had no idea how long the fight would last and missed out on a full set of cooldowns (which I frantically popped when he was at about 1%)
At least I can say I survived and didn't get hit by any of the bad stuff, a lot of ground to make up on the dps though. 14th/20.
Gorefiend is a really fun boss but, again, my lack of experience let my dps down. We used Hero in the first Feast of Souls phase to take advantage of the 200% dps... which I wasn't prepared for... I had popped all my cooldowns on the pull so had nothing left. The mechanics were straight-forward though so I had no issues there. 11th/20
Shadow Lord Iskar... An excellent fight for the Ele Shaman but also the scene of my second major mistake. You've probably already guessed that the cause of my downfall was... the Eye of Anzu.
It's fairly simple, just pass the eye on to whoever needs it. It's not quite so easy when it's the first time you have seen it and the RL is just repeatedly shouting out names over and over again.
First time I got the Eye, I couldn't find the right person so I panicked and threw it to somebody at random in the hope they could pass it on. Far from ideal but it worked, not without him moaning about it though.
Second time, I was trying to use some Iskar addon and it wouldn't pass it on. RL just shouting at me to pass it over and over again, which was not even remotely helpful, until I gave up on the addon and used my own raid frames.
We survived and killed the boss.
That attempt was our third and after the official raid finish time so we had lost a few people. Did I mention that this was a good fight for Shaman? 2nd on dps out of 14 :-)
Behind the other Ele Shaman.
Overall, I was fairly happy with my performance on the night. I learned the fights as quickly as I could, didn't cause any wipes and competed as well as my gear allowed on most attempts.
My strengths as a player will never be based around lightning reflexes or split-second timings. Instead, I rely on awareness and preparation to always be in a good position and ready for what is coming next.
This means I am always good on the 'Damage Taken' and dealing with mechanics side of raiding... I hope that performance throughout the night outshone the couple of high-profile mistakes that I made.
The next raid nights would be progress bosses which should hopefully allow me to compete on a more even playing field. I would still be behind on gear but the experience gap should be much smaller.
This post is long enough though so I will save that for tomorrow.
Thursday 9 July 2015
A Little Bit Nervous...
Trial begins with my new guild tonight.
They are at 7/13HC in HFC and I'm getting a run on the farm night.
Should be straight-forward as it is Heroic rather than Mythic but I've only killed 1 boss so far in this tier, and that was on normal.
I am also painfully aware that Ele Shaman are felt to be under-powered at the moment.
I've heard the 'under-powered' stuff before and that has never bothered me.
I've never felt it to be true at my level of play, thinking it must be an issue that only affects the highest level, as I think most of my dps loss in any fight is down to my own mistakes.
I'm also a bit behind in gear, they have already had a few kills on heroic so I'm 10-15ilvls behind them in my BRF gear.
So... under-powered, under-geared and don't know the fights...
Yes, I'm a little bit nervous.
They are at 7/13HC in HFC and I'm getting a run on the farm night.
Should be straight-forward as it is Heroic rather than Mythic but I've only killed 1 boss so far in this tier, and that was on normal.
I am also painfully aware that Ele Shaman are felt to be under-powered at the moment.
I've heard the 'under-powered' stuff before and that has never bothered me.
I've never felt it to be true at my level of play, thinking it must be an issue that only affects the highest level, as I think most of my dps loss in any fight is down to my own mistakes.
I'm also a bit behind in gear, they have already had a few kills on heroic so I'm 10-15ilvls behind them in my BRF gear.
So... under-powered, under-geared and don't know the fights...
Yes, I'm a little bit nervous.
Monday 6 July 2015
All Pugged Out...
Our intrepid huntress battled her way through another week of LFR in Highmaul.
Crafting some 640ilvl shoulders and completing the Apexis part of the legendary quest to get the 680ilvl ring took her to an agonising 634ilvl.
Boss after boss went down with no drops and I was preparing to spend my hard-earned gold on some form of upgrade just to meet the BRF ilvl requirement until, on the last boss, a glorious Bow dropped! :-)
635 and on to Blackrock Foundry!
This is where her luck really kicked in!
5 items in the first week catapulted her ilvl up to around 643 and opened up the next stage in the process... pugging!
Wow... it's a jungle out there!
I thought I would start off easy with some Highmaul normal, except Highmaul normal isn't the easiest instance if you are a hunter because you have 'jobs' to do.
Luckily, I've done those jobs before on my shaman during progress so it wasn't too much of an issue... the hardest part being on Butcher when I realised my UI wasn't set up properly to see the stacks on the other hunter. We got through it anyway, just had to count the slices, and the amazing trinket dropped. Off to a flier!
Then there is a difficult range of 650-655ilvl where pugs won't take you for BRF normal and there isn't much left for you in Highmaul normal.
Again, I got a bit lucky here. A Highmaul run completed 6/7 on normal and decided it would be easier to run through some on heroic rather than go for Imperator Mar'gok.
We only killed 2 heroic bosses before I had to leave but two more pieces dropped for me taking me out of that difficult range and into BRF pug territory.
655+ is generally what people want for BRF normal and I just scraped in. I applied to join lots of pugs, being rejected almost instantly from many of them, but the odd one or two were letting me in.
This is where I have a big advantage over the new or returning player, I know these fights inside out! Getting into the pug was the hard part, once in there I was confident of holding my place just by virtue of not making any mistakes or causing any wipes.
So, of course, Barrage on the first set of adds pulls the whole f*cking room. Fearing the worst, I apologised, but the others just laughed it off and we moved on.
Only Gruul died on that run and, since then, I have had wildly varying success in pugs.
There are a lot of strange people out there, some complete arseholes and some fantastic groups with everything in between, you meet them all while pugging.
It has been quite a jump into the unknown for me to do so much pugging and I've really enjoyed pushing myself out of my comfort zone. It's taken a lot of my fear of pugging away too and I'll be a lot more confident in future.
I finished the tier at a respectable 669ilvl, only weapon and trinkets holding me back (all 655ilvl).
As this experiment now draws to a close I definitely feel like I will continue with the hunter but how much time she will now get when there is new content for my shaman is anyone's guess.
It's been a while since I did Highmaul on my shaman but Blackrock Foundry is something else altogether and it was really interesting to compare how a hunter approaches these fights.
So much of the Shaman's focus in a fight is minimising the impact of movement on dps but that is a complete non-issue for the hunter, particularly as I hate using Focusing Shot (why take away the hunter's greatest strength?).
Anyway, that comparison is for another post...
Crafting some 640ilvl shoulders and completing the Apexis part of the legendary quest to get the 680ilvl ring took her to an agonising 634ilvl.
Boss after boss went down with no drops and I was preparing to spend my hard-earned gold on some form of upgrade just to meet the BRF ilvl requirement until, on the last boss, a glorious Bow dropped! :-)
635 and on to Blackrock Foundry!
This is where her luck really kicked in!
5 items in the first week catapulted her ilvl up to around 643 and opened up the next stage in the process... pugging!
Wow... it's a jungle out there!
I thought I would start off easy with some Highmaul normal, except Highmaul normal isn't the easiest instance if you are a hunter because you have 'jobs' to do.
Luckily, I've done those jobs before on my shaman during progress so it wasn't too much of an issue... the hardest part being on Butcher when I realised my UI wasn't set up properly to see the stacks on the other hunter. We got through it anyway, just had to count the slices, and the amazing trinket dropped. Off to a flier!
Then there is a difficult range of 650-655ilvl where pugs won't take you for BRF normal and there isn't much left for you in Highmaul normal.
Again, I got a bit lucky here. A Highmaul run completed 6/7 on normal and decided it would be easier to run through some on heroic rather than go for Imperator Mar'gok.
We only killed 2 heroic bosses before I had to leave but two more pieces dropped for me taking me out of that difficult range and into BRF pug territory.
655+ is generally what people want for BRF normal and I just scraped in. I applied to join lots of pugs, being rejected almost instantly from many of them, but the odd one or two were letting me in.
This is where I have a big advantage over the new or returning player, I know these fights inside out! Getting into the pug was the hard part, once in there I was confident of holding my place just by virtue of not making any mistakes or causing any wipes.
So, of course, Barrage on the first set of adds pulls the whole f*cking room. Fearing the worst, I apologised, but the others just laughed it off and we moved on.
Only Gruul died on that run and, since then, I have had wildly varying success in pugs.
There are a lot of strange people out there, some complete arseholes and some fantastic groups with everything in between, you meet them all while pugging.
It has been quite a jump into the unknown for me to do so much pugging and I've really enjoyed pushing myself out of my comfort zone. It's taken a lot of my fear of pugging away too and I'll be a lot more confident in future.
I finished the tier at a respectable 669ilvl, only weapon and trinkets holding me back (all 655ilvl).
As this experiment now draws to a close I definitely feel like I will continue with the hunter but how much time she will now get when there is new content for my shaman is anyone's guess.
It's been a while since I did Highmaul on my shaman but Blackrock Foundry is something else altogether and it was really interesting to compare how a hunter approaches these fights.
So much of the Shaman's focus in a fight is minimising the impact of movement on dps but that is a complete non-issue for the hunter, particularly as I hate using Focusing Shot (why take away the hunter's greatest strength?).
Anyway, that comparison is for another post...
Thursday 2 July 2015
Bye Bye Blackhand...
I've been burning myself in the glorious Glastonbury sunshine so lacking any posts for a while, time to bring things up to date.
Shaman raiding...
An agonising 2% wipe was the closest we got to Heroic Blackhand despite throwing everything we had at him.
It was phase 2 that ultimately cost us the kill, far too many wipes caused by people repeatedly failing the "spot the giant siege engine" test - It even got to the point where I could predict who would be targeted by Mark of Death by how far out of position they were :-P
Maybe we should have had more organised positioning and movement?
It really shouldn't have been necessary but the usual tunnel vision/lack of awareness cost us over and over again so maybe we should have done it anyway.
It meant we never really got comfortable with phase 3 and it was almost blind panic each time we made it that far for the first few attempts. Even our best attempts (and our 2% wipe) were scrappy and seemed to be more luck than judgement.
I was left with the feeling that we needed to see it a few more times but we couldn't consistently string together good P2's so the times we reached P3 in a strong position were few and far between.
Ultimately disappointed and demoralised we gave up on Blackhand and the "Ahead of the Curve" achievement has eluded us.
What next?
The recent guild merger changed our raid times and, with some changes at home, they are no longer viable for me so I am looking for a new guild.
I'll be honest, I'm a little relieved.
I have become more and more frustrated with the repeated simple mistakes from our raid team and some of the decision-making (or lack of) by our officers.
It's not all of the team of course, but it's enough so that there were always some of those players present in every raid team. And the officers just stood aside and did nothing.
I suggested appointing role officers to give more direct feedback to people who were having problems, helping them to overcome those issues and improve as a player.
Nothing was ever done.
We just went back week after week and failed to the same mechanics over and over until the better players in the guild had enough gear to carry those that failed.
I want to play with better players.
Does this make me an elitist jerk?
I don't think so, I just don't want to feel frustrated after every raid.
Mistakes (and wipes) will always be a part of raiding but isn't learning from those mistakes a part of it too?
Time to find another guild and see what this Tanaan Jungle is all about!
Shaman raiding...
An agonising 2% wipe was the closest we got to Heroic Blackhand despite throwing everything we had at him.
It was phase 2 that ultimately cost us the kill, far too many wipes caused by people repeatedly failing the "spot the giant siege engine" test - It even got to the point where I could predict who would be targeted by Mark of Death by how far out of position they were :-P
Maybe we should have had more organised positioning and movement?
It really shouldn't have been necessary but the usual tunnel vision/lack of awareness cost us over and over again so maybe we should have done it anyway.
It meant we never really got comfortable with phase 3 and it was almost blind panic each time we made it that far for the first few attempts. Even our best attempts (and our 2% wipe) were scrappy and seemed to be more luck than judgement.
I was left with the feeling that we needed to see it a few more times but we couldn't consistently string together good P2's so the times we reached P3 in a strong position were few and far between.
Ultimately disappointed and demoralised we gave up on Blackhand and the "Ahead of the Curve" achievement has eluded us.
What next?
The recent guild merger changed our raid times and, with some changes at home, they are no longer viable for me so I am looking for a new guild.
I'll be honest, I'm a little relieved.
I have become more and more frustrated with the repeated simple mistakes from our raid team and some of the decision-making (or lack of) by our officers.
It's not all of the team of course, but it's enough so that there were always some of those players present in every raid team. And the officers just stood aside and did nothing.
I suggested appointing role officers to give more direct feedback to people who were having problems, helping them to overcome those issues and improve as a player.
Nothing was ever done.
We just went back week after week and failed to the same mechanics over and over until the better players in the guild had enough gear to carry those that failed.
I want to play with better players.
Does this make me an elitist jerk?
I don't think so, I just don't want to feel frustrated after every raid.
Mistakes (and wipes) will always be a part of raiding but isn't learning from those mistakes a part of it too?
Time to find another guild and see what this Tanaan Jungle is all about!
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