One day it will happen.
One day I will be a good tank.
That day is not today.
A push from the Paladin over the weekend took him to 110 and on to the gearing treadmill. It's an absolute god-send that world quests are open immediately so you can crack on with those while finishing off the zones and doing Suramar at leisure.
As per the latest incarnation of the alt plan, I am not doing any of the class order hall quests until 110, when I can do them pretty much in one go for a more cohesive storyline.
So I picked up where I had left off after opening up Light's Hope Chapel to follow the storyline.
I picked up a dungeon quest for Violet Hold but still had other quests so decided to do those first.
A few quests down the line... I began to wonder why there were so many references to Varian Wrynn and Ashbringer.
Isn't Ashbringer the Ret artefact weapon?
Yes, it is. I was on the Ret artefact quest line!
It's fortunate that Wowhead exists or I would probably not have found out until someone actually handed me the Ashbringer!
Despite the temptation to just carry on with nice, comfortable questing I was left with the dungeon quest in Violet Hold.
No way around it so I queued up.
I wondered if my gear would be good enough but it is a levelling dungeon so I figured I would be fine at any ilvl... how wrong I was!
First portal and my health bar is spiking up and down ridiculously, I'm blowing all cooldowns just to (barely) stay alive. As soon as I ran out of CDs, I was done for.
I ran back in quickly, picked up the mobs and died again.
Two others died before I could get back in again and now we were just on a loop of... Res, run in, die.
Every fear I had was coming true.
After a few death loops, and some rather fruity language, one of the dps left which was swiftly followed by everyone else leaving.
First attempt at tanking... disaster.
I checked my ilvl, it was only 747 so I figured (hoped) that the dungeon didn't scale like it does from 100-109 and was tuned for a specific ilvl at 110.
I feel like there should be some ilvl restriction on queueing though if that is the case, just like there is for heroic or lfr.
Regardless, I logged off for the night determined to attack it the next day.
I had no idea how long it would take me to bridge the gap by world quests alone so decided to hit the auction house!
So what piece do I need the most?
Helm... 810ilvl... fine there
Neck... 765ilvl... get the JC to make one
Shoulders... 800ilvl... fine
Chest... 810ilvl... hmmm.
Cloak... 790
Wrists... 795???
Gloves... 810???
Belt... 810???
Legs... 800???
Rings... 750/810
Trinkets... 765/765
How the hell was I only 747ilvl??
It was then that I noticed my weapon slot was blank...
It is supposed to automatically appear with the artefact shield so I can only assume that it bugged out when I started those Ret quests.
I took off the shield and equipped it again... 799ilvl.
The dungeon was a breeze :-s
Wednesday 30 November 2016
Friday 25 November 2016
We're Getting the Band Back Together...
That opportunity for tanking that I mentioned?
Some of my favourite times in WoW were with this group of people back in Dragon Soul and Mogu'shan Vaults. We didn't set the raiding world on fire or anything like that but we had a lot of fun!
Well... we've gathered some of the old crew back together for some fun and games, a bit of relaxed raiding and dungeon-ing. We've even taken up our old setup of co-raid leaders again which I am really looking forward to!
The guild has fallen on hard times recently so I'm hoping this will breathe some life back into it, but I am being extremely careful not to get too drawn into the day-to-day running of the guild... the last thing I want is to repeat the mistakes of the past and burn out on recruiting etc.
We are in the early stages right now and haven't had many turning up to our (two so far) raid nights but I'm hoping that will improve naturally with time as people see events running consistently.
In the mean-time, it's pug pug pug!
It's so easy today, despite it's flaws the group-finder is fantastic and the majority of the community seems to have bought into it.
Some groups still demand ridiculous achievements or gear levels but, as a starting group, I like to set the bar quite low.
We are learning to raid as a group again, why not let other people learn alongside us?
In the short term I am just playing whatever role we need most but really I am hoping this will be the opportunity for tanking that I have wanted for so long.
Even if it doesn't pan out that way I am incredibly excited about the prospect of raiding with these people again.
Some of my favourite times in WoW were with this group of people back in Dragon Soul and Mogu'shan Vaults. We didn't set the raiding world on fire or anything like that but we had a lot of fun!
Well... we've gathered some of the old crew back together for some fun and games, a bit of relaxed raiding and dungeon-ing. We've even taken up our old setup of co-raid leaders again which I am really looking forward to!
The guild has fallen on hard times recently so I'm hoping this will breathe some life back into it, but I am being extremely careful not to get too drawn into the day-to-day running of the guild... the last thing I want is to repeat the mistakes of the past and burn out on recruiting etc.
We are in the early stages right now and haven't had many turning up to our (two so far) raid nights but I'm hoping that will improve naturally with time as people see events running consistently.
In the mean-time, it's pug pug pug!
It's so easy today, despite it's flaws the group-finder is fantastic and the majority of the community seems to have bought into it.
Some groups still demand ridiculous achievements or gear levels but, as a starting group, I like to set the bar quite low.
We are learning to raid as a group again, why not let other people learn alongside us?
In the short term I am just playing whatever role we need most but really I am hoping this will be the opportunity for tanking that I have wanted for so long.
Even if it doesn't pan out that way I am incredibly excited about the prospect of raiding with these people again.
Saturday 19 November 2016
Raar Nom Nom Nom...
In my head, that is the noise the bear makes when it eats Leo DiCaprio* in The Revenant.
Don't give me any of that nonsense about him single-handedly beating the bear, it's just not possible... you need 20 people for that! :-)
Ursoc!
As expected by some people (*cough*), this one took much less time than SpiderBird.
The fight is incredibly similar to Heroic. So similar in fact, that I'm not really sure what the differences are!
There is one rather obvious difference... Ursoc has invited a few of his friends to the party.
An extra bear joins in every now and then, lopes over to us, and we kill it.
Does the new bear actually do anything? No idea. Just an excuse for me to use Chain Lightning.
That is literally the only difference from the Heroic fight, an occasional extra bear that we cleave down in seconds.
That makes the fight sound dull though when it is actually the opposite, it is incredibly intense!
The main mechanic from normal and heroic remains, splitting into two groups and making sure the Focussed Gaze alternates running through each group.
Along with the Miasma pools left behind from Roaring Cacophony (Raar!), that means a rather deceptive amount of movement and you end up using the entire room.
Our biggest problem had nothing to do with movement though, it was that one of our tanks didn't know how, or more accurately when, to taunt.
That sounds bad enough but the reality is even worse... He knew the tactics so knew what he was supposed to be doing, taking one debuff while the other tank took the other debuff.
The problem arose because he couldn't tell when the other tank gained a debuff!
It was somehow hidden on his UI and he had no idea how to make it show up again.
Astounding!
Even with my extremely limited tanking experience, I know it's important to see what debuffs your co-tank has or doesn't have.
How did he even get this far without access to that key information?
Simple answer... he just did what DBM told him to do.
I suppose he's got a point :-)
After a few wipes and various attempts to fix the UI, we resorted to the main tank calling out every time a taunt was needed. DBM mark 2... not ideal but it did the job.
So we had everyone knowing where to run and tanks taunting on cue, now it was time to see if we had the numbers to kill the great bear.
We knew it would be tight, I imagine virtually all progress kills on this boss are tight, so we even had healers pre-potting with dps potions and doing their best to contribute whenever they could.
I said it was quite intense, it's only 5 minutes until enrage and that time just flies by!
We filled the outer circle and had to move into the middle of the room as time was running out.
Another add spawned but we had to ignore it (does it do anything anyway??) and focus the boss.
The 5 minutes were up and Ursoc went crazy!
With each passing second he would 1-shot a player or two but his health was dropping fast and, at 5mins10secs with only 8 people alive, he fell!
The tension had built to such a point, there were old-fashioned nerd-screams on teamspeak when he fell. It was fantastic! :-)
Dragons next!
Should be interesting as we have a healer that can't dispel :-s
*who is not Matt Damon
Don't give me any of that nonsense about him single-handedly beating the bear, it's just not possible... you need 20 people for that! :-)
Ursoc!
As expected by some people (*cough*), this one took much less time than SpiderBird.
The fight is incredibly similar to Heroic. So similar in fact, that I'm not really sure what the differences are!
There is one rather obvious difference... Ursoc has invited a few of his friends to the party.
An extra bear joins in every now and then, lopes over to us, and we kill it.
Does the new bear actually do anything? No idea. Just an excuse for me to use Chain Lightning.
That is literally the only difference from the Heroic fight, an occasional extra bear that we cleave down in seconds.
That makes the fight sound dull though when it is actually the opposite, it is incredibly intense!
The main mechanic from normal and heroic remains, splitting into two groups and making sure the Focussed Gaze alternates running through each group.
Along with the Miasma pools left behind from Roaring Cacophony (Raar!), that means a rather deceptive amount of movement and you end up using the entire room.
Our biggest problem had nothing to do with movement though, it was that one of our tanks didn't know how, or more accurately when, to taunt.
That sounds bad enough but the reality is even worse... He knew the tactics so knew what he was supposed to be doing, taking one debuff while the other tank took the other debuff.
The problem arose because he couldn't tell when the other tank gained a debuff!
It was somehow hidden on his UI and he had no idea how to make it show up again.
Astounding!
Even with my extremely limited tanking experience, I know it's important to see what debuffs your co-tank has or doesn't have.
How did he even get this far without access to that key information?
Simple answer... he just did what DBM told him to do.
I suppose he's got a point :-)
After a few wipes and various attempts to fix the UI, we resorted to the main tank calling out every time a taunt was needed. DBM mark 2... not ideal but it did the job.
So we had everyone knowing where to run and tanks taunting on cue, now it was time to see if we had the numbers to kill the great bear.
We knew it would be tight, I imagine virtually all progress kills on this boss are tight, so we even had healers pre-potting with dps potions and doing their best to contribute whenever they could.
I said it was quite intense, it's only 5 minutes until enrage and that time just flies by!
We filled the outer circle and had to move into the middle of the room as time was running out.
Another add spawned but we had to ignore it (does it do anything anyway??) and focus the boss.
The 5 minutes were up and Ursoc went crazy!
With each passing second he would 1-shot a player or two but his health was dropping fast and, at 5mins10secs with only 8 people alive, he fell!
The tension had built to such a point, there were old-fashioned nerd-screams on teamspeak when he fell. It was fantastic! :-)
Dragons next!
Should be interesting as we have a healer that can't dispel :-s
*who is not Matt Damon
Thursday 17 November 2016
Isle of Conquest...
Yes, those pesky followers sent me out to do PvP again!
Another trip to the battlegrounds!
I zoned into Isle of Conquest and immediately started changing my talents to the ones I like for PvP, namely Icefury. Unfortunately, this didn't work as there was a Tauren Paladin pounding me in the face!
What's going on?
Oh sh*t, we're already going!
Battleground mode activated.
RUN AWAY!
Luckily, Paladins are relatively easy to run away from so I survived and did enough to deter him from continuing his chase... or he just got bored and went for someone else.
This bought me enough time to survey the battlefield and work out what the hell was going on.
It didn't take long, we were losing.
My first clue should have been zoning into a part-done battle. Nobody leaves when they are winning, do they?
My second clue was the giant coo-beastie hitting me in the face, there were enemies in our base.
My third clue was that I deduced, from a quick look at the map, that we weren't in their base.
At this point, I just assumed we had lost.
All other visits to Isle of Conquest have followed a very simple pattern...
Horde and Alliance charge past each other to the opposite base, lay siege and throw people over the walls, open the doors, flood in and kill the boss.
My kind of PvP... one that doesn't involve the opposite faction! It's just a PvE race.
So I thought we had already lost, decided to have fun killing some Hordies and went looking for the Paladin.
Two very strange things happened...
1. Someone cut through the moaning in chat and came up with a plan.
2. People listened!
It was a simple plan.
Clear them out of our boss room before they all arrived.
Defend at the gates.
Attack the horde base and we have lost because they are already so far ahead.
And that's what we did!
Any horde that came up to our gates died under the full force of Alliance might (well, 30 of us) as we repelled attack after attack, each time retreating to the safety of the keep.
It took a little while but the horde realised our strategy and decided to group up and attack en masse.
They suffered heavily under the cannon fire on the approach but forced their way to our gates time and time again.
Each time we pushed them back and held within our keep.
I was having fun, killing the horde from the back, and I could see the strategy working but I did begin to wonder how we were actually going to win the battle if we never left our keep.
I had no idea about 'reinforcements'!
It was just a number at the top of the screen. Obviously, I assumed it had some impact on the battle but had no idea what that was.
I know all (both) of you reading this will think I'm an idiot but I told you, I've never done PvP. I had no idea.
It turns out that when the reinforcements drop to zero, you lose!
I didn't know. I'm guessing the horde didn't know either!
They just kept coming! And dying!
Until there were none left...
Another trip to the battlegrounds!
I zoned into Isle of Conquest and immediately started changing my talents to the ones I like for PvP, namely Icefury. Unfortunately, this didn't work as there was a Tauren Paladin pounding me in the face!
What's going on?
Oh sh*t, we're already going!
Battleground mode activated.
RUN AWAY!
Luckily, Paladins are relatively easy to run away from so I survived and did enough to deter him from continuing his chase... or he just got bored and went for someone else.
This bought me enough time to survey the battlefield and work out what the hell was going on.
It didn't take long, we were losing.
My first clue should have been zoning into a part-done battle. Nobody leaves when they are winning, do they?
My second clue was the giant coo-beastie hitting me in the face, there were enemies in our base.
My third clue was that I deduced, from a quick look at the map, that we weren't in their base.
At this point, I just assumed we had lost.
All other visits to Isle of Conquest have followed a very simple pattern...
Horde and Alliance charge past each other to the opposite base, lay siege and throw people over the walls, open the doors, flood in and kill the boss.
My kind of PvP... one that doesn't involve the opposite faction! It's just a PvE race.
So I thought we had already lost, decided to have fun killing some Hordies and went looking for the Paladin.
Two very strange things happened...
1. Someone cut through the moaning in chat and came up with a plan.
2. People listened!
It was a simple plan.
Clear them out of our boss room before they all arrived.
Defend at the gates.
Attack the horde base and we have lost because they are already so far ahead.
And that's what we did!
Any horde that came up to our gates died under the full force of Alliance might (well, 30 of us) as we repelled attack after attack, each time retreating to the safety of the keep.
It took a little while but the horde realised our strategy and decided to group up and attack en masse.
They suffered heavily under the cannon fire on the approach but forced their way to our gates time and time again.
Each time we pushed them back and held within our keep.
I was having fun, killing the horde from the back, and I could see the strategy working but I did begin to wonder how we were actually going to win the battle if we never left our keep.
I had no idea about 'reinforcements'!
It was just a number at the top of the screen. Obviously, I assumed it had some impact on the battle but had no idea what that was.
I know all (both) of you reading this will think I'm an idiot but I told you, I've never done PvP. I had no idea.
It turns out that when the reinforcements drop to zero, you lose!
I didn't know. I'm guessing the horde didn't know either!
They just kept coming! And dying!
Until there were none left...
Tuesday 15 November 2016
Is it a Spider? Is it a Bird?
No, it's a SpiderBird! And it's dead!
I was amazed when the Raid Leader decided this was our next Mythic boss. It is supposed to be the next easiest after Nythendra but I'm not sure that applies when you struggle each week to kill it on Heroic!
Struggle might be overstating it a little but it is an absolute mess and we've never made it to the end with a full team.
So it came as no surprise to me that it's taken us a while to move from 1/7M to 2/7M.
We have been plagued by other issues along the way which didn't help... main tank holidays and extreme lag issues amongst other things restricted the pure number of attempts we could manage.
Even on our kill night, we had given it up once because 3 or 4 of the team had so much lag they couldn't continue. We jumped into Trial of Valor heroic (reluctantly for some) as we didn't have enough for Mythic without the lag people but it settled down again so we went back to EN.
More time flying than killing bosses!
Anyway, we got back into Emerald Nightmare and stood in front of Elerethe once more.
Following the pattern of incremental difficulty levels, the fight is very similar to Heroic. Aside from the usual extra damage, the small changes to mechanics add a little complexity for those affected but that's about it.
The most interesting change comes from the 'linked' players during Spider form with two sets of two players being connected by a strange web.
Damage is transmitted down the web to the other player so, when the big feeding time damage comes in, you need to coordinate personal defensive cds or you give your healers a heart attack (we missed one and spiked down to sub 10% HP!)
The web itself knocks people back if they run into it so the linked people also need to move together to minimise the chances of running it over someone.
This was honestly the most interesting change from Heroic and, looking back on it, I wish they had extended it to affect more people each time. Ramp up the coordination needed to survive, I think it might have been too much for the healers though.
Progress was extremely slow, needing multiple wipes for us to come to terms with each aspect of the fight.
It often works out this way when you have mechanics that only target a couple of random people... you can look at Fatboss all you want but most people need to actually experience the mechanics once or twice to learn the fight. If only two people are targeted at a time, it takes quite a few attempts for everyone to gain that experience.
Amusingly, this often leads to some frustration from those that mastered it early.
The best recent example is the winds and passing the ball on Iskar... once mastered, everyone finds it incredibly easy but still gets frustrated when the new guy gets it wrong. Makes me laugh :-)
Sorry, back to the fight...
Progress was slow but it was being made on virtually every attempt. We inched our way through the first platform, refining every step, until we had it mastered.
The linked people ran together in specific directions, people dropped the green goo perfectly out of the way, the tornadoes were dropped well away from everything else and the adds killed almost instantly.
Now start again on platform 2 :-(
Well, we had to get there first. I love warlocks!
The tanks and a couple of healers got priority for the feathers with a free for all for the remainder. Mostly, I just left them to others as we had a warlock gateway for half the journey... when he remembered to put it down.
You would think this is the easy part of the fight, just run halfway across then use the portal or fly over with the wings.
That's it.
We had a spate of around 10 consecutive attempts where someone would use the wings' special ability to kill the spiders halfway across the bridge.
I have absolutely no idea why they were doing this.
I have even less idea why they continued to do it for 10+ attempts despite being told not to, under any circumstances, kill spiders on the bridge.
If you haven't done the fight... there are tornadoes on the bridge, they pick up the green goo left behind by a squashed spider and fling it at the raid! It does a ton of damage so you have to constantly dance out of the way, making everything much more difficult.
Once that was sorted, we were back to the incremental progress on platform two. We mastered the bird form then struggled for a while with the spider form again until, in the end (and when our main tank came back from his holidays!), we decided to run with an extra tank for more control.
This change made a massive difference to how smoothly the fight went and I highly recommend it for anyone progressing on this fight. The linked tanks take all the little spiders while the other takes the boss.
Now we had everything working well for two platforms and it was just a case of cutting out silly mistakes and bringing it all together to push on to platform 3.
We had only reached platform 3 once or twice and were a bit hazy about the tactics.
I think they are determined by your dps... if you can burn the boss down quickly, you don't need to deal with the new mechanics on the platform.
We had the dps! Somehow!
I thought the other platforms were a mess, they were nothing!
We somehow gained around 20 spiders while crossing the bridge so one of the tanks decided to wipe them out before they could kill everyone.
This unfortunately place massive amounts of green goo in the path of the tornadoes, there was green stuff flying everywhere!
I could barely cast anything for the final 10% of the fight due to almost constant movement, just had to squeeze in a spell whenever I could.
I think it's fair to say the melee carried us through to the end of the fight, managing to squeeze in enough damage to get the kill before the eggs were broken inevitably and wiped the raid.
Much like our heroic kills, an absolute clusterf*ck! Only 8 survived as the boss fell but we are now 2/7 Mythic! :-)
For an Elemental Shaman, the only chance to shine is to use Stormkeeper on the small spiders but it takes impeccable timing to get it right. You need to use the first cast just as Elerethe ascends for Feeding Time, then run across the room and hope the tanks have gathered the spiders into a nice tight group.
If you time it just right, it comes back up just after you have run across the platform for the second Feeding Time.
Stormkeeper + Chain Lightning = HUGE damage!
If you get a lucky proc of overload, it can virtually 1-shot the spiders.
Unfortunately, on our kill, I got it all wrong :-(
Not just the Stormkeeper but everything!
I missed the window completely on the first platform casting my first SK way too late but then compounded that with other dps mistakes.
Twice (Twice!!!), I popped Ascendance just as I got the tornado debuff and had to run across the room essentially wasting the cooldown each time.
I got the link every time and had to focus on that rather than using CL on the spiders.
My dps was way lower than it could have been by the end of the fight.
Luckily for me, almost everyone else was dead so I still finished 3rd :-)
On to Ursoc!
I was amazed when the Raid Leader decided this was our next Mythic boss. It is supposed to be the next easiest after Nythendra but I'm not sure that applies when you struggle each week to kill it on Heroic!
Struggle might be overstating it a little but it is an absolute mess and we've never made it to the end with a full team.
So it came as no surprise to me that it's taken us a while to move from 1/7M to 2/7M.
We have been plagued by other issues along the way which didn't help... main tank holidays and extreme lag issues amongst other things restricted the pure number of attempts we could manage.
Even on our kill night, we had given it up once because 3 or 4 of the team had so much lag they couldn't continue. We jumped into Trial of Valor heroic (reluctantly for some) as we didn't have enough for Mythic without the lag people but it settled down again so we went back to EN.
More time flying than killing bosses!
Anyway, we got back into Emerald Nightmare and stood in front of Elerethe once more.
Following the pattern of incremental difficulty levels, the fight is very similar to Heroic. Aside from the usual extra damage, the small changes to mechanics add a little complexity for those affected but that's about it.
The most interesting change comes from the 'linked' players during Spider form with two sets of two players being connected by a strange web.
Damage is transmitted down the web to the other player so, when the big feeding time damage comes in, you need to coordinate personal defensive cds or you give your healers a heart attack (we missed one and spiked down to sub 10% HP!)
The web itself knocks people back if they run into it so the linked people also need to move together to minimise the chances of running it over someone.
This was honestly the most interesting change from Heroic and, looking back on it, I wish they had extended it to affect more people each time. Ramp up the coordination needed to survive, I think it might have been too much for the healers though.
Progress was extremely slow, needing multiple wipes for us to come to terms with each aspect of the fight.
It often works out this way when you have mechanics that only target a couple of random people... you can look at Fatboss all you want but most people need to actually experience the mechanics once or twice to learn the fight. If only two people are targeted at a time, it takes quite a few attempts for everyone to gain that experience.
Amusingly, this often leads to some frustration from those that mastered it early.
The best recent example is the winds and passing the ball on Iskar... once mastered, everyone finds it incredibly easy but still gets frustrated when the new guy gets it wrong. Makes me laugh :-)
Sorry, back to the fight...
Progress was slow but it was being made on virtually every attempt. We inched our way through the first platform, refining every step, until we had it mastered.
The linked people ran together in specific directions, people dropped the green goo perfectly out of the way, the tornadoes were dropped well away from everything else and the adds killed almost instantly.
Now start again on platform 2 :-(
Well, we had to get there first. I love warlocks!
The tanks and a couple of healers got priority for the feathers with a free for all for the remainder. Mostly, I just left them to others as we had a warlock gateway for half the journey... when he remembered to put it down.
You would think this is the easy part of the fight, just run halfway across then use the portal or fly over with the wings.
That's it.
We had a spate of around 10 consecutive attempts where someone would use the wings' special ability to kill the spiders halfway across the bridge.
I have absolutely no idea why they were doing this.
I have even less idea why they continued to do it for 10+ attempts despite being told not to, under any circumstances, kill spiders on the bridge.
If you haven't done the fight... there are tornadoes on the bridge, they pick up the green goo left behind by a squashed spider and fling it at the raid! It does a ton of damage so you have to constantly dance out of the way, making everything much more difficult.
Once that was sorted, we were back to the incremental progress on platform two. We mastered the bird form then struggled for a while with the spider form again until, in the end (and when our main tank came back from his holidays!), we decided to run with an extra tank for more control.
This change made a massive difference to how smoothly the fight went and I highly recommend it for anyone progressing on this fight. The linked tanks take all the little spiders while the other takes the boss.
Now we had everything working well for two platforms and it was just a case of cutting out silly mistakes and bringing it all together to push on to platform 3.
We had only reached platform 3 once or twice and were a bit hazy about the tactics.
I think they are determined by your dps... if you can burn the boss down quickly, you don't need to deal with the new mechanics on the platform.
We had the dps! Somehow!
I thought the other platforms were a mess, they were nothing!
We somehow gained around 20 spiders while crossing the bridge so one of the tanks decided to wipe them out before they could kill everyone.
This unfortunately place massive amounts of green goo in the path of the tornadoes, there was green stuff flying everywhere!
I could barely cast anything for the final 10% of the fight due to almost constant movement, just had to squeeze in a spell whenever I could.
I think it's fair to say the melee carried us through to the end of the fight, managing to squeeze in enough damage to get the kill before the eggs were broken inevitably and wiped the raid.
Much like our heroic kills, an absolute clusterf*ck! Only 8 survived as the boss fell but we are now 2/7 Mythic! :-)
For an Elemental Shaman, the only chance to shine is to use Stormkeeper on the small spiders but it takes impeccable timing to get it right. You need to use the first cast just as Elerethe ascends for Feeding Time, then run across the room and hope the tanks have gathered the spiders into a nice tight group.
If you time it just right, it comes back up just after you have run across the platform for the second Feeding Time.
Stormkeeper + Chain Lightning = HUGE damage!
If you get a lucky proc of overload, it can virtually 1-shot the spiders.
Unfortunately, on our kill, I got it all wrong :-(
Not just the Stormkeeper but everything!
I missed the window completely on the first platform casting my first SK way too late but then compounded that with other dps mistakes.
Twice (Twice!!!), I popped Ascendance just as I got the tornado debuff and had to run across the room essentially wasting the cooldown each time.
I got the link every time and had to focus on that rather than using CL on the spiders.
My dps was way lower than it could have been by the end of the fight.
Luckily for me, almost everyone else was dead so I still finished 3rd :-)
On to Ursoc!
Friday 11 November 2016
The White Whale Rises Again...
Welcome to my annual attempt to gather enough courage together for some tanking!
An opportunity has arisen, which I won't go into right now, that might just give me the platform I need to finally overcome my fears of tanking... so the rush is on to be ready as quickly as possible.
'Fear' is probably overstating it a bit, and it's not of the tanking itself, it's the random people you have to group with that are the issue.
There is so little patience in the LFD that it can be quite daunting and it's certainly not an atmosphere conducive to learning a new role.
The Paladin is up to 105 and has completed the 'end of zone' dungeons for Azsuna and Valsharaj... Eye of Azshara and Darkheart Thicket.
These are two dungeons I have done plenty of times on my Shaman, particularly DHT, so I know them quite well and wasn't expecting to have many issues tanking them.
In DHT I did lose my healer when he accidentally pulled an extra pack of trash near the start, I couldn't get them all off him quite quickly enough and he died. I managed to stay alive until he ran back in which was nice and he apologised so I'm calling it shared blame.
EoA was very simple, there isn't really much that can go wrong in this dungeon on normal mode.
As I said though, tanking itself is not the real issue. The EoA run had a feral druid who was a little bit... keen.
He moaned that I wasn't going fast enough. I'm not really sure how I could have gone much faster to be honest, I've done the dungeon many times and did the same pulls as every other tank I've seen.
Maybe I was waiting too long before moving on to the next pack but I was going just before they died... I'm not really sure what the problem was and the druid just moaned rather than enlighten me.
Bear in mind that this was in a normal, levelling dungeon so the tanking was never even an issue. Fast forward to the more challenging content at max level, where I am actually trying to learn how to tank properly and that attitude just intensifies.
If mistakes on how fast to pull are not tolerated, what reaction will actual tanking mistakes provoke?
Regardless, I really want to be a good tank. And the only way to become a good tank is by pushing through this fear and getting in some practice.
Most people at this point would just suggest developing a thicker skin, not caring what random people on the internet say or think, but that is easier said than done.
I am working on it all the time though and improving, the aim is to reach a level of confidence in my tanking ability that allows me to step in and run content with friends at the level of my dps and healer alts.
I'm not talking about pushing mythic raid progression, just being able to run normal/heroic raids or mythic dungeons.
Could this be my year?
An opportunity has arisen, which I won't go into right now, that might just give me the platform I need to finally overcome my fears of tanking... so the rush is on to be ready as quickly as possible.
'Fear' is probably overstating it a bit, and it's not of the tanking itself, it's the random people you have to group with that are the issue.
There is so little patience in the LFD that it can be quite daunting and it's certainly not an atmosphere conducive to learning a new role.
The Paladin is up to 105 and has completed the 'end of zone' dungeons for Azsuna and Valsharaj... Eye of Azshara and Darkheart Thicket.
These are two dungeons I have done plenty of times on my Shaman, particularly DHT, so I know them quite well and wasn't expecting to have many issues tanking them.
In DHT I did lose my healer when he accidentally pulled an extra pack of trash near the start, I couldn't get them all off him quite quickly enough and he died. I managed to stay alive until he ran back in which was nice and he apologised so I'm calling it shared blame.
EoA was very simple, there isn't really much that can go wrong in this dungeon on normal mode.
As I said though, tanking itself is not the real issue. The EoA run had a feral druid who was a little bit... keen.
He moaned that I wasn't going fast enough. I'm not really sure how I could have gone much faster to be honest, I've done the dungeon many times and did the same pulls as every other tank I've seen.
Maybe I was waiting too long before moving on to the next pack but I was going just before they died... I'm not really sure what the problem was and the druid just moaned rather than enlighten me.
Bear in mind that this was in a normal, levelling dungeon so the tanking was never even an issue. Fast forward to the more challenging content at max level, where I am actually trying to learn how to tank properly and that attitude just intensifies.
If mistakes on how fast to pull are not tolerated, what reaction will actual tanking mistakes provoke?
Regardless, I really want to be a good tank. And the only way to become a good tank is by pushing through this fear and getting in some practice.
Most people at this point would just suggest developing a thicker skin, not caring what random people on the internet say or think, but that is easier said than done.
I am working on it all the time though and improving, the aim is to reach a level of confidence in my tanking ability that allows me to step in and run content with friends at the level of my dps and healer alts.
I'm not talking about pushing mythic raid progression, just being able to run normal/heroic raids or mythic dungeons.
Could this be my year?
Tuesday 8 November 2016
Very Demanding Followers...
I remember a much simpler time, not that long ago, when I had followers at my beck and call. I would send them out on dangerous missions and they would bring me back some loot or gold... lots and lots of gold!
I've left those followers behind now, even Garona the legendary follower, to rest after their exertions in Draenor... or maybe they are stuck in a different timeline or something. Who knows?!
Fear not though, I quickly started gathering more followers to my cause back on Azeroth!
Despite my notable achievements on multiple worlds, I could only muster a grand total of 8 followers so they will have to work extremely hard to match their Draenor counterparts.
Off you go guys, bring me some loot!
Oh, you've brought me an egg! Where do I equip it?
What... you want me to go and raid with it??
Ok, I suppose I am raiding anyway so just this once...
But it didn't end there!
Dungeon after dungeon, raid after raid, I am being sent out to gather my own loot!
Every time I get back, they have another vicious beast for me to kill.
I am an adventurer though, killing vicious beasts is my speciality! Well... killing vicious beasts and collecting squirrels, apparently.
So the cycle continued... I sent my followers out, they came back and sent me out...
Until... they decided to up the ante. They sent me out to do PvP!!!
Four days that quest sat in my quest log but I couldn't ignore it forever so, with more than a little trepidation, I queued for a random battleground.
My PvP experience consists mainly of a brief foray into 2v2 with my friend playing his Fury Warrior towards the end of MoP. We were routinely slaughtered, usually whilst stunned, and finished with a rating... well, I can't remember exactly what it was so let's just call it a low rating.
My biggest problem was dealing with melee, it felt like I was constantly stunned or interrupted and barely got a cast off before I died.
It wasn't much fun to be honest, I like to actually play my shaman.
So this time round I devised a fiendishly cunning plan for dealing with melee... I was going to stay away from them!
Not really possible in 2v2 arena but in a battleground I can just hide at the back!
And it worked! Sometimes.
PvP as an Elemental Shaman is great fun but it is definitely not easy!
It works as a strange game of cat and mouse...
I would stay at max distance and just tickle them with a Flame Shock and a couple of Lightning Bolts.
If that didn't attract too much attention, I would start to unload the Lava Bursts.
This would hopefully build up enough Maelstrom for when their attention inevitably turned my way.
At that point... I would run away!
Blizzard has blessed us with some great tools for running away.
Icefury is fantastic, hugely buffing Frost Shock, giving us the ability to simultaneously run away, do some decent damage and slow the enemy!
Stormkeeper gives us 3 more instant cast spells which actually hit for a decent amount too.
The crowning glory though, the spell that has actually led to me immensely enjoying my latest foray into PvP, is Gust of Wind.
For those of you poor, non-shaman types out there, this is basically a forwards version of a Hunter's Disengage.
It might not seem like much, Mages and Druids have better, Disengage is arguably better itself, but it is the movement spell we have been crying out for... and it is so much fun to use!
I have been using it everywhere all expansion long but, in a PvP context, it gives us the ability to run away. I don't always make it, I've been stunned in mid-air more than once, but I feel like there is at least the possibility of escape when those pesky melee catch up with me.
Don't expect any guides popping up in this neck of the woods any time soon but I'll be sure to let you know how I get on next time my followers send Brave Sir Robin here out to PvP again.
I've left those followers behind now, even Garona the legendary follower, to rest after their exertions in Draenor... or maybe they are stuck in a different timeline or something. Who knows?!
Fear not though, I quickly started gathering more followers to my cause back on Azeroth!
Despite my notable achievements on multiple worlds, I could only muster a grand total of 8 followers so they will have to work extremely hard to match their Draenor counterparts.
Off you go guys, bring me some loot!
Oh, you've brought me an egg! Where do I equip it?
What... you want me to go and raid with it??
Ok, I suppose I am raiding anyway so just this once...
But it didn't end there!
Dungeon after dungeon, raid after raid, I am being sent out to gather my own loot!
Every time I get back, they have another vicious beast for me to kill.
I am an adventurer though, killing vicious beasts is my speciality! Well... killing vicious beasts and collecting squirrels, apparently.
So the cycle continued... I sent my followers out, they came back and sent me out...
Until... they decided to up the ante. They sent me out to do PvP!!!
Four days that quest sat in my quest log but I couldn't ignore it forever so, with more than a little trepidation, I queued for a random battleground.
My PvP experience consists mainly of a brief foray into 2v2 with my friend playing his Fury Warrior towards the end of MoP. We were routinely slaughtered, usually whilst stunned, and finished with a rating... well, I can't remember exactly what it was so let's just call it a low rating.
My biggest problem was dealing with melee, it felt like I was constantly stunned or interrupted and barely got a cast off before I died.
It wasn't much fun to be honest, I like to actually play my shaman.
So this time round I devised a fiendishly cunning plan for dealing with melee... I was going to stay away from them!
Not really possible in 2v2 arena but in a battleground I can just hide at the back!
And it worked! Sometimes.
PvP as an Elemental Shaman is great fun but it is definitely not easy!
It works as a strange game of cat and mouse...
I would stay at max distance and just tickle them with a Flame Shock and a couple of Lightning Bolts.
If that didn't attract too much attention, I would start to unload the Lava Bursts.
This would hopefully build up enough Maelstrom for when their attention inevitably turned my way.
At that point... I would run away!
Blizzard has blessed us with some great tools for running away.
Icefury is fantastic, hugely buffing Frost Shock, giving us the ability to simultaneously run away, do some decent damage and slow the enemy!
Stormkeeper gives us 3 more instant cast spells which actually hit for a decent amount too.
The crowning glory though, the spell that has actually led to me immensely enjoying my latest foray into PvP, is Gust of Wind.
For those of you poor, non-shaman types out there, this is basically a forwards version of a Hunter's Disengage.
It might not seem like much, Mages and Druids have better, Disengage is arguably better itself, but it is the movement spell we have been crying out for... and it is so much fun to use!
I have been using it everywhere all expansion long but, in a PvP context, it gives us the ability to run away. I don't always make it, I've been stunned in mid-air more than once, but I feel like there is at least the possibility of escape when those pesky melee catch up with me.
Don't expect any guides popping up in this neck of the woods any time soon but I'll be sure to let you know how I get on next time my followers send Brave Sir Robin here out to PvP again.
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