Scant days ago I was promising myself that I wouldn't attempt to continue with alts beyond the class order hall and artefact weapon campaigns.
Yet, with Thundersocks laughter still faintly ringing in the air, I have already raided on my Mage and am now making plans for another alt!
This is a practical decision though this time, not my usual falling in love with each alt as I level them.
As I am raiding in two different groups, I want to raid on two different chars.
My Shaman is all set to push into Mythic Nighthold but I need a char for the social run with my old guild and friends.
I could, of course, just raid both of them on my Shaman and I have at times so far but that isn't really what I want to do.
I want to experience the content as part of that group, progress with them and face the same challenges (albeit with more experience of the fights).
And what that group really needs right now is... Healers!
We have none.
Well, one if we are lucky but she can't always make it.
So far we have been pugging for healers and a few dps but the pugging scene really gets me down. The attitude of some people in there is atrocious and I would rather just avoid it completely.
Even in the first week of a new raid, with the groupfinder post stressing the fact it was a relaxed, learning run, there were a couple of arseholes who wouldn't allow people time to learn the fights.
I don't want to raid in that environment.
So I am going to get a healer up to speed.
Not only is that 1 less healer we need to pug but it's also 1 less dps we need healer cover for.
To be honest, I am not sure of the 'best' raid compositions these days... I'm aiming to make roughly 2/3/8 or 2/3/9 and hoping that works out ok.
Anyway... which healer to choose?
The easiest option would be to use the Shaman of course but I'm not going to do that (see above)
The Paladin is already at 110 so it wouldn't take much to switch him over to Holy and throw some AP into the weapon... but that would probably be the final nail in the Tanking coffin and I'm not ready to give up on that dream just yet.
So... I need to level another char to max.
Any excuse eh? :-)
The Monk is out straight away... I don't really understand it and don't enjoy any of the specs. It was a struggle getting it to 100 and I will probably leave it until last this time around.
That means a straight shootout between Priest and Druid.
My first thought was to play Discipline Priest, the new gameplay intrigues me and I would love to have a go at it. Practicality shines through though, I am going to have enough problems healing and raid-leading without adding dps-ing to the mix!
I know it doesn't exactly work that way but it would still involve added complexity, requiring more of my already-strained attention.
Holy Priest, in my mind, is the archetypal healer from pretty much all fantasy lore but I find it a little bland and want more flavour from my healer... plus I would probably just spend all my time messing around with Surrender to Madness in Shadow.
So my choice is the Resto Druid.
A balanced all-round toolkit which looks fairly easy to pick up but with complexity later on to min-max.
Tranquility on the move is amazing and there is no better visual in WoW than a tree-form druid waving their branches in the air.
Yes, druid is my choice and I'm sticking with it... unless I can convince Mr.T. to bring back his wooden underpants ;-)
EDIT:
I didn't publish this post immediately and decided to think about it over the weekend.
I didn't want to ask MrT to switch away from his Hunter, the aim is for everyone to play whatever class and spec they feel like... so I asked another old raiding friend if he would like to help out.
He was a lot keener on the idea than I expected but wanted to play Druid.
Not wanting to put him off in anyway, I encouraged the choice and decided to look elsewhere for myself.
Back to the drawing board then...
The thoughts about Priest and Monk still ring true so that leaves Shaman and Paladin.
After briefly flirting with the idea of rolling a second Shaman, I realised the Paladin made much more sense.
He's already in the guild and at around the same ilvl as everyone else.
The gear is set up for tanking but it's simple to switch (got to love the new gear system, right?), just need to change gems/enchants and find some trinkets.
I hope this doesn't mean the end of my tanking but I know it is a risk.
Switching didn't take long, my Shaman is JC/Ench and has piles of mats. I had one trinket in my bags already from a WQ and bought (then upgraded) the DMF trinket.
Now all I need to do is learn how to play it...
Monday 30 January 2017
Wednesday 25 January 2017
Nighthold - First Impressions
I successfully avoided all spoilers for the upcoming raid so I could go in completely blind with only the Dungeon Journal to help with tactics.
I fully expected the RL to give us the lowdown on each boss anyway so didn't feel too guilty about not reading up... at least not until after the raid when there was a conversation about how little some people had prepared. They weren't talking about me specifically so I just kept quiet...
I wonder if my RL knows about/reads this blog, I guess I'll find out soon :-)
Anyway... to the Nighthold!
The elven theme continues from Suramar and is just as gorgeous, the whole place is very reminiscent of Sunwell Plateau which makes a lot of sense.
We started on Normal to get a feel for the place and have a look at a few bosses on the first night.
As we overgeared it quite substantially with an average ilvl of 884 in the raid, the early bosses didn't provide much of a challenge although there was one hilarious wipe on Krosus as the main tank rolled off the edge of the bridge.
We were probably going to wipe anyway as half of the team was already in the water because they didn't move when the bridge was smashed.
We made our way to 8/10 on the first night with only High Botanist Tel'arn causing us problems.
That is one messy fight!
There is so much going on all the time, danger coming from all sides, it reminds me of pug killers in the past.
Fights like Horridon in ToT where, if you are not on point, the fight just degenerates into an absolute mess.
I love the variety of bosses though. Some bring back familiar mechanics and some are quite innovative, but they all look fantastic!
The time dilation on Chromatic Anomaly is particularly interesting but those cast times are painful in the 'slow' phase.
The arenas for the fights also vary quite substantially with the highlight undoubtedly being Star Augur Etraeus... I won't spoil it if you haven't seen it yet... it's a shame that this is the dullest fight though.
At least it gives you time to appreciate the scenery I suppose.
After much discussion, we returned to Normal on our second night.
The team was split on whether to finish normal or jump into heroic so I wasn't sure which way we would go... I'm glad Normal was chosen as I wanted to finish the raid as a team, we had no idea how long it would be until we reached and killed Gul'dan on heroic.
It would also help with pugging which, given that half the raid is on my tier token, I will probably need to do to complete the set.
So we returned to face the menace of Suramar, Grand Magistrix Elisande.
More time-bending shenanigans in this fun fight which I am looking forward to immensely on heroic, she fell a little too easily on normal.
Which brought us to Gul'dan, could we finally bring justice to this villain of villains?
This was one of the major doubts about continuing with normal, we could get stuck on a challenging last boss (Imperator Mar'gok?) while there was potentially lower-hanging fruit available in early heroics.
The doubts were unfounded though as we only took a couple of learning wipes before overpowering him. It was only gear that got us through the fight, we didn't handle the mechanics particularly well, and I'm looking forward to this fight on Heroic even more than Elisande!
Gul'dan looks like a final boss worthy of the name, a big step up from Xavius, and I can see this fight being a major challenge at the appropriate gear level.
Good luck to those World First guilds going at it with only a smattering of Heroic gear!
The switch to Heroic was expected to bring a bit more of a challenge, we had been joking about how many of our normal kills would have been wipes, so I was slightly surprised when we 1-shot the first two bosses!
Skorpyron is your typical entry boss so I wasn't expecting many issues but it was extremely forgiving, even on Heroic. A number of people were knocked back and spawned extra adds but we handled them comfortably.
We do have an insane amount of AoE in our team so that probably carried us through.
As this continued on the other bosses though, I was more surprised.
Trilliax was only one wipe as a few people failed the big central beam... although, to be completely honest, our warlock was an absolute hero on the kill and covered half of the mechanics on his own.
Two wipes on Spellblade Aluriel due to too many people (me, for one) getting frozen. The frost circle pushes you back and you freeze if you hit the edge... easy enough to run against it but that means no dps so I was trying (and failing) to get out of the circle before it fully spawned.
Another silly wipe with a drowning tank on Krosus before he fell too, lots of laughing at people failing the beam on this boss :-)
10/10 normal and 5/10 heroic in our first week!
Nighthold looks like a sparkling return to form after the rather lacklustre Emerald Nightmare and I can't wait to hit the mythics!
Monday 23 January 2017
2017 - Plans for the Year
Slightly later than is traditional but I thought I would set out some goals for 2017.
1. Complete all 12 class order hall campaigns.
Every year I tell myself that I am going to slow down with the alts, maybe just focus on one character for the whole expansion.
Not this time!
I want them all!
I am going to spread the levelling out, there are only 4 zones so it can get boring very quickly, but I want to have all 12 classes at 110 and all 36 artefact weapons by the end of the year.
The trade-off will be not planning to raid on all these alts for a change.
Current progress: 5/12 classes at 110 with 4 campaigns completed, 10/36 weapons.
2. Mythic Raiding.
I've been in guilds pushing for mythic clears before but it has never been a personal goal... my goal has just been to find the right guild for me.
Now I feel like I am in the right guild and I want that mythic progress!
I want to kill all the bosses and get those Cutting Edge achievements.
3. Join in more
I've found an excellent guild full of like-minded people but I stay on the periphery too much. I'm not sure what holds me back but I should volunteer more for the frequent group activities in the guild.
It isn't a big guild but there is always something going on, I want to be part of it and the only thing stopping me is myself.
4. More PvP!
I've taken the first steps, usually only taken during the end of expansion lull, and I want to keep going. Blizzard has my attention with the season armour sets, my followers prod me from time to time with quests, there's no excuse not to do it!
5. Less Faffing!
Way too much of my time in-game is spent doing nothing.
Looking for groups to join (then not joining them), laps around Dalaran while talking on TS, or just stood in my order hall thinking of what to do next.
Less faffing, more doing!
6. Play More (some) StarCraft
I love watching pro SC2 but I am terrible at actually playing it.
When I was younger I used to be pretty good at RTS games but, even then, I was better at the macro than the micro. Now all micro just goes out of the window...and the macro isn't far behind it!
I get too hung up on being rubbish at the game when I should just be enjoying playing (same for WoW PvP) - there is a league for me and, if it is Bronze league, then so be it!
7. Play more games
I have a few games on Steam that I just never get round to playing, usually because I am faffing in WoW. Reduced faffing time should mean more free time to play the best other games... usually 3 years after release when they are on sale... still haven't got round to playing Portal 2.
8. Lose Weight/ Do More Exercise.
This has to go on the list, right?
9. More Blogging.
I've already been a bit slow after the Christmas break. So many half-written posts left abandoned, need to finish them at the time and get them published!
10. Learn to Tank.
This is the year.
Definitely this time.
Yes, I know I said that last year.
I mean it this time.
Yes, I do realise I also said that last year.
This time I really mean it though.
Yes, I know... Oh, just leave me alone.
1. Complete all 12 class order hall campaigns.
Every year I tell myself that I am going to slow down with the alts, maybe just focus on one character for the whole expansion.
Not this time!
I want them all!
I am going to spread the levelling out, there are only 4 zones so it can get boring very quickly, but I want to have all 12 classes at 110 and all 36 artefact weapons by the end of the year.
The trade-off will be not planning to raid on all these alts for a change.
Current progress: 5/12 classes at 110 with 4 campaigns completed, 10/36 weapons.
2. Mythic Raiding.
I've been in guilds pushing for mythic clears before but it has never been a personal goal... my goal has just been to find the right guild for me.
Now I feel like I am in the right guild and I want that mythic progress!
I want to kill all the bosses and get those Cutting Edge achievements.
3. Join in more
I've found an excellent guild full of like-minded people but I stay on the periphery too much. I'm not sure what holds me back but I should volunteer more for the frequent group activities in the guild.
It isn't a big guild but there is always something going on, I want to be part of it and the only thing stopping me is myself.
4. More PvP!
I've taken the first steps, usually only taken during the end of expansion lull, and I want to keep going. Blizzard has my attention with the season armour sets, my followers prod me from time to time with quests, there's no excuse not to do it!
5. Less Faffing!
Way too much of my time in-game is spent doing nothing.
Looking for groups to join (then not joining them), laps around Dalaran while talking on TS, or just stood in my order hall thinking of what to do next.
Less faffing, more doing!
6. Play More (some) StarCraft
I love watching pro SC2 but I am terrible at actually playing it.
When I was younger I used to be pretty good at RTS games but, even then, I was better at the macro than the micro. Now all micro just goes out of the window...and the macro isn't far behind it!
I get too hung up on being rubbish at the game when I should just be enjoying playing (same for WoW PvP) - there is a league for me and, if it is Bronze league, then so be it!
7. Play more games
I have a few games on Steam that I just never get round to playing, usually because I am faffing in WoW. Reduced faffing time should mean more free time to play the best other games... usually 3 years after release when they are on sale... still haven't got round to playing Portal 2.
8. Lose Weight/ Do More Exercise.
This has to go on the list, right?
9. More Blogging.
I've already been a bit slow after the Christmas break. So many half-written posts left abandoned, need to finish them at the time and get them published!
10. Learn to Tank.
This is the year.
Definitely this time.
Yes, I know I said that last year.
I mean it this time.
Yes, I do realise I also said that last year.
This time I really mean it though.
Yes, I know... Oh, just leave me alone.
Tuesday 17 January 2017
Big Kick at the Bell...
With the first raid coming to a close, we returned from our Christmas break ready to bash through some more bosses.
We were 4/7M in Emerald Nightmare but hadn't even looked at Trial of Valor since the first week when it was heavily overtuned.
Some of the guild had been pugging it here and there but I'm not interested in pugging progress, I don't mind it much for farm bosses but I like to learn fights with my guild.
So...we decided to have a look at ToV on Heroic.
At this stage, the first two fights were not much of a challenge. The raid is sat at around 880ilvl and pure numbers overcame any issues we may have had.
Helya, on the other hand, was much more resilient! A true 'end of raid' boss!
Even comfortably out-gearing it as we did on Heroic it proved difficult and took us about 20 pulls to get the kill. Another achievement for the guild though and, with around two and a half raid nights to go, we went back to Emerald Nightmare.
I was hoping we would jump straight in at Il'gynoth, our progress boss, but we started a fresh run. Our rustiness showed with some silly wipes on each boss so it was probably a sensibly decision as we limped to 3 boss kills.
Now entering the final week before Nighthold was released, we had one last chance to push for more progress, one last chance to improve on our 4 Mythic kills... so I was astounded when we reset and went for another fresh run!
I think everyone gave up at that point... we might get one extra boss down but clearing our farm bosses then killing three progress bosses all in one week was asking too much.
Oh well, at least it would give me chance to try out the (amazing!) Elemental Shaman changes.
The sloppy play from our last raid continued as we scraped through a 1-shot of Nythendra with only 5 or 6 people alive at the end.
Elerethe has never really caused us any issues since the first kill and we cruised to another one whilst laughing at Coatsy, our Ret Pala, as he tried to fly across the platforms without picking up any wings.
Likewise, we laughed as someone hearthstoned to avoid a repair bill from an accidental pull of Ursoc.
Val (GM, RL, Boomkin) decided we should have a go at Il'gynoth... partly to see how far we would get and partly because he was a bit worried about Dragons.
The class balancing, plus the fact that most of us had reached that 35th artefact, had definitely left us with a net dps gain but I like to think it was the relaxed atmosphere that then allowed us to lift our performance on EyeTree boss.
Our first attempt was hilarious as we just had a go without refreshing tactics or anything, to see how much people remembered.
This boss reminds me of Mythic Gorefiend in HFC... it's as much about not hitting the wrong target as it is about hitting the right one.
We struggled with it in HFC and we struggled with it here but we finally convinced all of the dps not to AoE.
From there we made amazing progress on each successive attempt!
It was after only 5 more attempts that we saw the second heart phase, and only 3 more for us to be celebrating another Mythic kill!
5/7 Mythic!
And the legendary ring (the good Shaman one, not the rubbish universal one) for me!
There wasn't much time left in the raid but we headed off to Dragons buoyed by our success. Val's fears were unfounded as they crashed to the ground at the second attempt!
It was back on!
We only had one night left and two bosses to go but could it be done?
The final fling...
I've never seen the guild so pumped up for a raid, chat was flowing with tactics discussions, buying runes, helping with pots/flasks etc. as we felt that we had a big chance.
Everyone 'knew' it would be all about Cenarius with top guilds laughing at Xavius from day one. OK, we are not one of those top guilds but they didn't have all the gear in the world for their first kills.
Using our gear advantage, we decided on the zerg tactic of blow everything on the pull and push into phase 2 before the third set of adds.
In practice, we had an astounding amount of dps and were slowing down at times to make for a cleaner transition or to help healers manage certain high-damage moments.
Fatboss stresses over and over again... Don't be shit at brambles!
And, if you have the dps for this tactic, it is without doubt the only thing standing between you and the kill!
Silly mistakes aside, almost every wipe was down to brambles being out of control but we improved our positioning and refined our cleaning tactics and improved a bit more until we were hitting phase 2 with a clear platform.
I'd like to tell you that we were perfectly composed as we repeated what is essentially the heroic strategy for P2 on our way to a kill.
I'd like to tell you that.
Nah, it was a clusterfuck! :-)
All of the neat positioning of brambles, the controlled cleaning, the resetting stacks and everything else just went out of the window as everyone just tried to pour as much damage as possible into the boss.
Luckily, after a couple of attempts, a few people remembered the tactics and kept the rampant brambles under control buying us the breathing space we needed to get the kill!
Xavius up and an hour left to get the kill, plans were already being made to extend the raid if needed.
I remember the top guilds finding Xavius easy and underwhelming... unfortunately, they were right.
A total of 10 attempts needed to kill the final boss, even if we do overgear it, is a little disappointing but it didn't stop the nerdscreams as "Cutting Edge: Xavius" flashed all over the screen!
On to Nighthold!
We were 4/7M in Emerald Nightmare but hadn't even looked at Trial of Valor since the first week when it was heavily overtuned.
Some of the guild had been pugging it here and there but I'm not interested in pugging progress, I don't mind it much for farm bosses but I like to learn fights with my guild.
So...we decided to have a look at ToV on Heroic.
At this stage, the first two fights were not much of a challenge. The raid is sat at around 880ilvl and pure numbers overcame any issues we may have had.
Helya, on the other hand, was much more resilient! A true 'end of raid' boss!
Even comfortably out-gearing it as we did on Heroic it proved difficult and took us about 20 pulls to get the kill. Another achievement for the guild though and, with around two and a half raid nights to go, we went back to Emerald Nightmare.
I was hoping we would jump straight in at Il'gynoth, our progress boss, but we started a fresh run. Our rustiness showed with some silly wipes on each boss so it was probably a sensibly decision as we limped to 3 boss kills.
Now entering the final week before Nighthold was released, we had one last chance to push for more progress, one last chance to improve on our 4 Mythic kills... so I was astounded when we reset and went for another fresh run!
I think everyone gave up at that point... we might get one extra boss down but clearing our farm bosses then killing three progress bosses all in one week was asking too much.
Oh well, at least it would give me chance to try out the (amazing!) Elemental Shaman changes.
The sloppy play from our last raid continued as we scraped through a 1-shot of Nythendra with only 5 or 6 people alive at the end.
Elerethe has never really caused us any issues since the first kill and we cruised to another one whilst laughing at Coatsy, our Ret Pala, as he tried to fly across the platforms without picking up any wings.
Likewise, we laughed as someone hearthstoned to avoid a repair bill from an accidental pull of Ursoc.
Val (GM, RL, Boomkin) decided we should have a go at Il'gynoth... partly to see how far we would get and partly because he was a bit worried about Dragons.
The class balancing, plus the fact that most of us had reached that 35th artefact, had definitely left us with a net dps gain but I like to think it was the relaxed atmosphere that then allowed us to lift our performance on EyeTree boss.
Our first attempt was hilarious as we just had a go without refreshing tactics or anything, to see how much people remembered.
This boss reminds me of Mythic Gorefiend in HFC... it's as much about not hitting the wrong target as it is about hitting the right one.
We struggled with it in HFC and we struggled with it here but we finally convinced all of the dps not to AoE.
From there we made amazing progress on each successive attempt!
It was after only 5 more attempts that we saw the second heart phase, and only 3 more for us to be celebrating another Mythic kill!
5/7 Mythic!
And the legendary ring (the good Shaman one, not the rubbish universal one) for me!
There wasn't much time left in the raid but we headed off to Dragons buoyed by our success. Val's fears were unfounded as they crashed to the ground at the second attempt!
It was back on!
We only had one night left and two bosses to go but could it be done?
The final fling...
I've never seen the guild so pumped up for a raid, chat was flowing with tactics discussions, buying runes, helping with pots/flasks etc. as we felt that we had a big chance.
Everyone 'knew' it would be all about Cenarius with top guilds laughing at Xavius from day one. OK, we are not one of those top guilds but they didn't have all the gear in the world for their first kills.
Using our gear advantage, we decided on the zerg tactic of blow everything on the pull and push into phase 2 before the third set of adds.
In practice, we had an astounding amount of dps and were slowing down at times to make for a cleaner transition or to help healers manage certain high-damage moments.
Fatboss stresses over and over again... Don't be shit at brambles!
And, if you have the dps for this tactic, it is without doubt the only thing standing between you and the kill!
Silly mistakes aside, almost every wipe was down to brambles being out of control but we improved our positioning and refined our cleaning tactics and improved a bit more until we were hitting phase 2 with a clear platform.
I'd like to tell you that we were perfectly composed as we repeated what is essentially the heroic strategy for P2 on our way to a kill.
I'd like to tell you that.
Nah, it was a clusterfuck! :-)
All of the neat positioning of brambles, the controlled cleaning, the resetting stacks and everything else just went out of the window as everyone just tried to pour as much damage as possible into the boss.
Luckily, after a couple of attempts, a few people remembered the tactics and kept the rampant brambles under control buying us the breathing space we needed to get the kill!
Xavius up and an hour left to get the kill, plans were already being made to extend the raid if needed.
I remember the top guilds finding Xavius easy and underwhelming... unfortunately, they were right.
A total of 10 attempts needed to kill the final boss, even if we do overgear it, is a little disappointing but it didn't stop the nerdscreams as "Cutting Edge: Xavius" flashed all over the screen!
On to Nighthold!
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