Hello!
Yes, I'm back. Again.
The usual stuff... work mental, blog first to suffer, yada yada yada... but I think I have finally found a plan to fit everything in so time for a catch up.
Mythic Shamaning...
Although the team is virtually unrecognisable from the one that started the expansion, I am still in it... which is a first.
Could I actually last a whole expansion in the same guild?
Is the guild hopping behind me at last?
Still early enough in the expansion for things to change but I'm hopeful.
The holiday season has crushed our Cutting Edge hopes in Nighthold as we've had to scrabble around for a team on the last couple of raid nights and have further planned absences coming up in the next few weeks.
Progress was difficult enough with the full team available, the management have decided it is not worth pursuing when the team is constantly being filled with different reserves or pugs.
Although disappointed, I think I agree with them on this one.
So progress has ended at... 8/10 Mythic.
The fights in the palace grounds, between Trilliax and Elisande, are excellently designed and all completely different and I have enjoyed progressing all of them.
They had some surprising elements too...
Krosus, billed as the big dps check of the raid, was more about soaking the burning pitch than pure numbers.
Tichondrius, on the other hand, was a much tighter dps check for our group. This was particularly surprising given our strength at AoE.
Unsurprisingly, the fights we excelled on as Elemental were the big AoE fights.
Top dps on Spellblade, Tichondrius and Skorpyron as our Chain Lightning reigned supreme but way down on High Botanist Tel'arn (and our few attempts on Elisande) as our weaknesses were ruthlessly exposed at every turn.
Although feeling strong was fun, and the challenge on the weaker fights was enjoyable, the bosses that really captured my imagination were the others...
Chronomatic Anomaly is such a fun fight, challenging but has room for error and can be approached in numerous ways.
Krosus is a nice take on the Patchwerk style tank and spank, with possibly the greatest enrage mechanic I've seen.
Star Augur was my favourite fight of all though...
The Grand Conjunctions were an unusual mechanic and often led to hilarious wipes, getting melee players to move away from the boss is possibly the hardest mechanic in all of raiding :-)
Overall, I'm happy with 8/10. We did kill some of the bosses post-nerfs which I'm positive changed the fights, particularly Krosus, but it's been an excellent raid.
Heroic Paladining...
The 'other' team has made it's way through Normal and into Heroic, now at 5/10HC and we're currently banging our heads against Botanist.
Progress has been slow and has felt just as difficult as the Mythic progress on my Shaman!
My experience on the fights has meant the mechanics don't offer me a personal challenge, but I haven't done any raid leading for a while and finding solutions to the various problems caused by bosses has been very challenging.
Having a roster of 10-12 people is challenging enough, the fights change drastically when you reach 13-14 including 3 healers, and that is holding us back now we have reached the trickier heroics.
It has been a lot of fun though and we still have some plans to make more progress before Tomb of Sargeras opens.
Another positive from the paladining is that I have been able to try out all 3 specs, even tanking on occasion! I'm hoping for more tanking opportunities soon.
The slowdown in the Shaman guild has probably come at the right time for me, I was definitely feeling drained from the almost constant push for progress on 4 raid nights.
I'm just not that hardcore, I guess.
The Alt Plan...
Harder than Mythic raiding
Harder than Raid leading
Possibly even harder than getting the melee to move away from the boss!
Resisting the temptation to raid on the alts is the hardest thing in the game :)
It's hard enough to stay away from all the old raids, every time I walk past those empty armour stands it is like a dagger to my heart.
Anyway...
Now up to 8 at 110 with the Hunter as a recent arrival.
My Rogue has ventured into normal mode with the paladin's team, just dipped his daggers in so far and nothing more.
The Mage is the one I really want to push forwards and I've been messing around with all 3 specs.
Frost is the most powerful at the top end, Fire is still the darling of Mythic+, while Arcane has always got stronger and stronger as an expansion progressed.
Unfortunately, I can't really get into any of the playstyles :-(
I'm going to try some Mythic+ as Fire (they were boring as Frost) over the weekend to see how much fun it is.
Anyway, that's enough from me.
How've you been?
