On OMGWTFBBQ

So yeah, the wifey and I have decided to try something different. I will likely not be updating this blog much, but head on over to Married IRL where we will be discussing all sorts of gaming goodness, including WoW of course.

Enjoy!

On Hot Tubs

So as you probably know already, AC downed Lurker Below last night. It was nice, we've killed a few Zul'Aman bosses, but this is our first 25 man progression since our first Gruul kill about 2 months ago now. Things got hectic for the holidays, etc, etc.

So, as a balance druid, here's my take on the fight:

1) As soon as the "Lurker Takes a Deep Breath" emote comes up, get in the water. That 500 damage evert 3 seconds is negligible, really. It would take a full minute or more to kill someone at 9k hit points, and hopefully you're in that neighborhood at this point. On the other hand, a single spout can take you out of the fight completely. If you stay on top of the water, you should be able to continue DPSing. When the spout passes over you, get out - UNLESS the spout started off facing you. Most of the time it'll start facing the tank, but for some reason he occasionally freaked out on us and started somewhere else. The spout turns a little OVER 360 degrees, so if the spout starts off facing you, it'll hit you again on the back end.

2) Practice getting onto the platforms quickly. I found the easiest way to do this was to be on top of the water and use my strafe key to move sideways toward the platform, then jump.

3) When the adds come out, make sure you're in moonkin. You can actually absorb some arrows better than most out there (I was getting hit for ~1200/each). This is a decent time to use your trees if they're up. Burn down the adds on your platform and then whatever melee mobs you're in range of.

4) Range is often a consideration for healers, especially during the whirl. If you notice someone somewhat low on HP and in an awkward place, watch them. If they don't get a heal within a few seconds, toss a HoT on them just to keep them up until a healer is free.

5) During the adds, again, watch out for a little fountain spray/naga appearing near you. That means one of the melee adds just teleported. Immediately hit barkskin to try to mitigate any cleave/direct damage, and get a cyclone ready. As it's casting, let either a hunter know, so they can misdirect the add onto the appropriate tank, or let a mage know, so they can sheep it and buy time for the tank to run over and shoot it. DO NOT DAMAGE IT. This will only solidify its aggro on you and make it much harder to pull back to the tank.

6) Blow cooldowns often and early. Any DPS trinkets, etc. Maybe even start off the fight with a destruction potion - you shouldn't have to be using a mana potion within the first 2 minutes of the fight anyway, and since you can't pull aggro, just let loose.

I like this fight. Once you get the rhythm down, it's almost dance-like, and quite enjoyable. I think it's one of my favorite boss fights so far.

I think that's about it. Otherwise, pew pew, and have fun!

On Me Not Always Reading Comments

I was looking through some past entries and saw some comments that I hadn't seen before. So if you were looking to talk to me about anything, go ahead and repost your request for contact here. Or you can email me at my username at gmail dot com. (Writing it out to help avoid spambots!)

On "Holy Crap, that is so much better"

Warning: rambling post to follow.

I did AB again last night for the first time since level 60. And even then, I hadn't done much. To give you an idea, go look at my "League of Arathor" reputation here.

Yeah, not much, is it?

Now, to give you some background, I tried a bit of PVP, and nothing ever really clicked for me except for AV. I loved AV. Did it all the time. Back when battle tokens were used as quest turnins, I literally ground from about 52 to 54-55 doing only AV. Mostly, I'd just run after the pack, find the tank, and keep him up against the NPCs, tossing a few offensive spells along the way. I had my Crackling Staff waiting for me by the end of that rush. That was my first big push PVPing, and I got to Sergeant Major. I took a break from it around 56 and quested up to 60 (I actually dinged 60 by crossing the bridge from WPL to EPL. Woot exploration ding!).

At 60, I did another PVP push, and made it to Knight rank. I was THREE PERCENT away from Knight-Lieutenant when they changed the honor system so I couldn't make it anymore. /sadpanda

I think what always attracted me to AV was 2 things. First, that it felt so epic. 40 people on either side, NPCs around to make it feel more like you're fighting an enemy army. Cool events that you can do (I'm a big fan of Ivus) and multiple approaches to winning - I've seen wins by rushing straight to the enemy general ignoring everything else, by methodically taking out every tower along the way, by turtling and utilizing turnins to give you such an advantage that you can turn into a steamroller, using ground troops, Ivus, etc.

The second thing is that I could win. Admittedly, Alliance won more often on my old server than Horde did. People will go on about how the map was imbalanced in favor of Alliance, etc, etc. I personally don't believe so - if that logic held true I could talk about how WSG and AB are imbalanced to favor the horde. I just think it was the fact that the scenario was half PvP, half raid, and Alliance simply took better to that.

So, back to my original point, I despised WSG and AB. First, because they felt like old rehashes of FPS games (Unreal Tournament, etc) I've played in the past. Oh look, it's capture the flag. They don't even bother to disguse it by saying "capture the secret enemy plans" or "take an enemy hostage" or something. And AB always seemed to me to favor the initial rush - a lucky break in the beginning could secure a win for a team, barring them screwing up. But mostly, it was because of the premades. There were 5-6 PvP guilds on horde side that I constantly saw in WSG and AB when I tried them. I mean constantly. At least 80% of the games I played were against them.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't mind losing sometimes, or even most of the time. I don't always need to win to have fun. I do need to feel like I have at least a reasonable chance. Out of 40 or so AB games that I did pre-BC, for example, I won exactly 1. Most of those games ended with Alliance at under 500 resources. It was pitiful.

So, back to the original point: our guild did a premade last night. It ranged from 10-15 for AB, with a couple people joining and dropping along the way. And dear god, it was actually kind of fun. Admittedly, after about 4 games, I'd had enough for the night, but I enjoyed myself. We won 3/4, and 5 capped one of the games, finishing 2000-10. But honestly, that wasn't my favorite one. I loved the one before that, where we were neck and neck with the horde most of the way - we had the blacksmith the whole time, and the stables most of the time. They had the Farm most of the time, and the lumber mill and mine kept swapping. It ended with us winning 2000-1780. And honestly, if we'd lost, it still would have been fun. Our guild is neither PVP specced, geared, nor practiced, so I don't expect that we'd win against a real PvP team, but at least we wouldn't make it easy for them.

I guess I'm making what is probably an obvious point, but I figured I'd spout some random thoughts today. :D

On Holidays

First off, I've decided that I will take the cheap way out, and from now on will post the little tidbits of limited substance that pop into my brain. At least it will keep the post count up.

That being said, this is my first holiday with a raiding guild (albeit a casual raiding guild). I'm expecting some slowdown for the holidays. In your experience, about when does it start getting back to normal? I'm guessing it'll probably be about a week after new years, not sure.

On Pity for the Fool

We so win here. Alliance gets Mr. T. Way better than William Shatner any day. Woo!

(For full disclosure, got this link from TJ, but I posted it first, so NYAH NYAH!)

Zul-a-Pun

So, we were in Zul'Aman last night, heading to the Lynx boss, Halazzi (probably spelled that wrong) for the first time. On the way there, we hit a patrol of 2 trolls and 2 cats. Our raid leader starts marking, and we're going to kill the trolls first, then the non-elite cats. I chime in my two cents, suggesting that we kill the cats first.

After all, they're the weakest links.