I’ve been spending a lot of my free time in game lately and that has lead me to spend less time blogging about. I’ve had a few things to say and now with the new patch, even more. I’d like to get back into the swing of things by talking about what I like about new content and what I don’t.
What I like is probably the easiest to explain. The instances in Icecrown and the new raid are beautiful. I really think that Blizz dropped the ball on the Tournament and I think they have made up for it in ICC. The lore is deep, the graphics are stunning, and fights are complex and interesting. Of course there are new shiny gear epics to get as well.
The new LFG system is also a straight-up home run. It took 5 years, but Blizz finally got it right.
So far after the first week I’m pretty happy with my progression. My 10 man has cleared all available content and picked a couple of achievements. My 25 man has downed Lord Marrowgar. I’d like to clear all 4 released bosses in 25s, but for some reason content is always harder for us there than in 10s. Either way, for the first week this will do.
What I don’t like about new content is a little more complex, but it can be boiled down to basically unfinished old content. I am completionist and when things are not complete I am not happy.
My biggest disappointment is Ulduar. 25 mans were always dismal in there and it saddens me that my 7 shards of Val’nyr will most likely never see the other 23. I’ve learned to live with the loss of the legendary, albeit begrudgingly, but it’s 10 mans that I’m really not happy about.
We’ve cleared Firefighter, the hardest 10 man fight in the game, but we’ve only put one hour in on Algalon and failed. He sat there for weeks waiting to be tried, but we were too busy with “current content”. Alas to date I have no “Starcaller” and no Rusted Proto-Drake (we just need Yogg+1). I want them both badly even now, two content patches later.
Any fail idiot can grind gear or get an occasional drop in a 25 man, so gear score means almost nothing to me. For me titles like Starcaller and the Glory Drakes are what really let the top-level raiders show off. My team deserved to have them, but getting in there and doing it feels like pulling teeth.
At the end of the day I’m happy running the new content. It’s pretty and fun. I just really hope that my team doesn’t let the low hanging fruit we’ve worked so hard for pass us by in the name of gear score. The gear will come. The Drakes won’t be there forever…
Tuesday for Covenant is 10-man day. For my group this means ToC and ToGC back to back. Yesterday we started off as we usually do, except we were one man light. Our resident feral druid had some RL issues to take care of so we decided to 9-man ToC (10) on normal mode to farm badges while we waited.
We one-shot everything straight through with only a few deaths in 33 minutes. It was beyond trivial. The was no challenge at all. When we were done we still had no 10th for our Tribute run. We waited a while, and then we waited some more.
People were getting antsy and annoyed, and some, more inebriated by the minute. We ended up shuffling people around and taking the Raid Leader of the guild’s Bravo Group, a DPS Blood DK. Healing was also switched around and instead of our usual Tree Druid our Enhancement Shaman went Resto.
Things went bad right away with 2 stupid wipes to Beasts. People were pissed and dropping vent so it looked like we were going to have to call it for the night. We took a quick break and regrouped.
Some how in the meantime we managed to pull our shit together. We got Beasts down on the next pull. Then Jarraxis, Faction Champs, and Twins were all one-shot. This put us back on Anub. After all the fail of the last two weeks we were eager to get the kill behind us. We had 47 chance left to do it.
When he died we had 39 left and it was 2AM. We did it. Not only had we cleared ToGC (10), we also claimed the second ever Undermine-US Horde A Tribute to Skill. I was elated. The giant monkey was finally off our back and we could rightfully claim our place as a top raiding guild on the server.
Here’s a breakdown of the final attempt. We ran with 2 tanks, a DK on Anub, a Paladin on adds, 6 DPS, a Holy Priest, and me on Koramoor, my Holy Paladin. The tanks and healers were using Flasks of Lesser Resistance.
The goal was a a hard DPS burn to 55% before the first burrow phase and then another burn to 30% before the second burrow phase. During the burrow phase we had 4 ice patches down in the corners of the room and kited in a modified X pattern (facing the back of the room, bottom left, top right, bottom right, emerge in route to top left). Scarabs were target priority over the Burrowers.
We got through the first two phases perfectly and were burning down to 30%. We hit our mark before the second burrow and Anub kicked off Leeching Swarm. I popped Divine Shield and Divine Sacrifice right away. The Enhancement Shaman popped Bloodlust. At 28% the Holy Priest died.
This left me to solo heal possibly the hardest part of the hardest 10-man encounter of the game. For the record I had 4500 HPS. I was also using Egg of Mortal Essence to haste my Holy Lights. I had a full mana bar at 32K. I only lost one other toon.
Aside from Anub’arak’s hard enrage timer he also has a soft enrage in Phase Three. Through all of Phase Three the OT is off-tanking 2 adds. 2 new adds spawn every 45 seconds. Because of the stacking damage buff the adds get it is impossible for the OT to tank more than 2, So basically when the last 2 adds spawn they will one-shot the OT and wipe the raid. You can see this at the very end of the TankSpot.com video guide for this encounter.
When Anub was at 1% the last two adds spawned. It looked like a wipe. Then Anub died, achievements popped on the screen and vent exploded into violent screaming cheers. As I took my shaking hands off of the keyboard I looked up and saw we had one toon alive, the Paladin OT surrounded by a Divine Shield bubble. He almost single handedly saved us from, and almost caused, the wipe. Here’s how:
At one percent he knew two things, the last two adds had spawned and were coming for him, and once they hit him he would die and we would wipe. So he bubbled. This let the 4 adds loose on the raid killing everyone instantly. It also gave 10 seconds for DoTs to tick and Anub was not getting healed. He landed the killing blow with a Hammer of Wrath. All I can say is pure fucking genius.
I would like to congratulate the entire team on this kill. It truly is a tribute to your skill as players and team members. We have achieved an elite level of play that the vast majority never will. You should all be very proud.
Now we have time to focus on the other monkey still hanging around, Algalon. In the meantime we’ll tighten up ToGC and aim for Tributes to Mad Skill and Insanity. I know we can do it and I can’t wait. I am one very happy Belf.
Anub’arak. No boss in all of Wrath has troubled me more than the Nerubian Traitor King. He has been a stumbling block that refuses to go away for almost all of the expansion so far. This has earned the giant Crypt Lord the distinction on being my own personal nemesis.
A long time ago when I had been a fairly fresh 80 Heroic Azjol-Nerub was a place to be avoided. You would think that an instance filled with poisonous undead would be a Holy Paladin’s cup of tea but it was not so. Vemonmancers and the big guy’s Pound always gave me fits.
As we progressed through Naxx and into Uludar and Heroics became easier and then trivial I thought that the days of the big blue bug were behind me. This was not to be. Apparently being the final boss in a five man dungeon was not good enough for a major lore figure like Anub’arak. When Blizzard announced that the King was coming back as the final boss in the Trial of the Crusade I knew we were in trouble.
I could not have been more right. Armed with a new bag of tricks, Anub’arak continues to be a weekly point of frustration for me and my guild. While our 25 man group has downed him on normal mode, we are not consistent. When we have done it is usually at the cost of quite a few toons.
My 10-man has normal mode on farm. One-shots are the norm. Heroic is another story. Last night we put about 20 attempts in. The closest we got was 16%. Where as 25-man normal can be sloppy and still be a win, Heroic 10-man requires perfection. One major mistake or death and it’s a wipe.
Short of random complete fuck ups, our issue is phase two. We have a solid plan for using 3 ice patches per burrow phase. However short or ill timed spike kites due to misplaced ice orbs and the Acid-Drenched Mandibles debuff from the Scarabs prove to be our downfall.
We have tried to mitigate the scarabs by stacking Nature Resistance and this seems to be working well, except when the stacks get over 5 on multiple toons. Fixing the kiting is just a matter of execution by both the kiter and the ranged dps pulling down the orbs. What is commonly referred to as “bad rng” I think can be overcome by tighter play.
I’d like to see us try and skip the second burrow all together with a better DPS burn. I think we are nerfing ourselves with a suboptimal raid composition. Fixing the comp would give us more wiggle room in what is otherwise a very tight encounter.Anub’arak is not a full-on DPS race, but the burn phases are and we seem to be a little behind.
In these last few weeks before patch 3.3 and Icecrown Citadel we really need to buckle down and finish off what I think is one of the hardest encounters on the game. Anub needs to die not just for the achievement and team morale but my personal sanity as well.
Stay tuned. We’ve killed one Big Blue Fail before, this one is just a matter of time.
The difficulty of raiding in Wrath of the Lich King has been the subject of widespread discussion since very soon after its release a year ago. Most folks say it is too easy. I agree to a point with that statement, but it think it needs to be further clarified.
I judge the difficulty level of an encounter based on two things:
1. How it is tuned versus appropriate gear iLevel
2. The level of coordinated execution required
Tuning is all about the math. The idea is that given a certain level of encounter there is a DPS floor. If you exceed that floor you will win. As that floor raises it becomes more difficult. The inverse is also true with a DTPS (damage taken per second) ceiling and the required healing. It is my opinion that post 3.1 Normal Mode encounter and under-tuned and Hard Modes are slightly over tuned.
What this means is that all things being equal given appropriate gear it should not be difficult to clear Normal content. Once the raid exceeds that gear level the content becomes trivial. Hard modes do fix some of this issue (ignoring the argument about repetitive content).
Hard modes at the appropriate gear level are extremely difficult from a math perspective. They are doable, but just barely so. As gear level increases the math becomes easier but still is a few tiers away from trivial.
I think this system works and the developers have done a decent job.
At this point I agree with the masses that the content is easy, if you disregard the second point. What almost all of these encounters come down to is a matter of execution.
Execution is important, sometimes more than others. Once the math is on your side it is all about how you perform the mechanics of the fight. Again there is separation in Normal and Hard modes. Hard mode encounters are much less forgiving of failure. If you do these well, loot rains from the heavens. If you do not, you wipe. Execution is 100% a matter of player skill. And yes, not standing in fire IS a skill.
This is why I respect anyone who has killed Yogg, Algalon, and any of the Trail of the Grand Crusader (bonus points for Anub’arak). These fights are “hard” because they require execution. You can be the “second best geared insert class here on the server” and if you keep standing in green clouds you fail. What makes someone a Raider (and not everyone who raids is…) is the ability to perform your role in killing the boss while also performing the obstacle course dance that Blizz tells you to do.
As with anything else, practice makes perfect. Learning from wipes and fixing mistakes makes the encounters easier as long as you have the basic situational awareness to understand what is going on. I believe you can teach what is happening, you can’t teach awareness. As long as players stand in fire guilds will wipe on farm content and bash their heads’ against progression kills.
People often wonder what the je ne sais quoi that top raid guilds have is. Quite simply it the ability of the members to execute the encounters flawlessly. They practice and learn on progression wipes and once they have it, they have it.
The current level of Normal mode content is forgiving enough to allow sloppy execution which can lead to lazy play and bad habits. Essentially it leads to wipes because it so easy. Only by tightening execution will clearing content become quick and smooth, leaving you time to practice the real skills you’ve learned on the Hard modes.
Having just recently gotten back into blogging I have not as of yet been tagged for this meme. I’ll go ahead and do it anyway!
1Q: What is the name, class, and spec of your primary healer?
1A: Koramoor, Paladin, PVE Holy 51/5/15 and PVP Holy 51/20/0
2Q: What is your primary group healing environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans)
2A: Raids 10 Hard and 25 Normal, I also PVP heal BGs and 5v5
3Q: What is your favorite healing spell for your class and why?
3A: Beacon Of Light. With patch 3.2 is in insanely powerful.
4Q: What healing spell do you use least for your class and why?
4A: Holy Shock. I love it, I glyph it, I should use it more. I seem to always catch it on cool down.
5Q: What do you feel is the biggest strength of your healing class and why?
5A: Tank Heals. With the buff to Beacon a good Paladin can heal 2 tanks at the same time in normal mode encounters. Plus our raw thoughput is huge.
6Q: What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your healing class and why?
6A: Group heals. We have none. Period. Beacon and Divine Sacrifice don’t count.
7Q: In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best healing assignment for you?
7A: In most fights it is Main Tank heals with OT or “Special” assist (ie Ignis Pouch, Lord J’s Incerenate Flesh, etc.)
8Q: What healing class do you enjoy healing with most and why?
8A: My Discipline Priest. She is the most fun to play and love the mechanics. If I wasn’t so attached to Koramoor, Koramaar would be my main.
9Q: What healing class do you enjoy healing with least and why?
9A: Shaman. I love the idea of it, but I hate the totem mechanic.
10Q: What is your worst habit as a healer?
10A: Not trusting my fellow healers.
11Q: What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while healing?
11A: With other healers it is not taking care of their assignment. With DPS it is standing in fire and running out of range. With tanks it is chain pulling.
12Q: Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other healers for PvE healing?
12A: Yes, I think healer balance is pretty good right now.
13Q: What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a healer?
13A: Recount and World of Logs.
14Q: What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your healing class?
14A: That we are two button healers. I use 18.
15Q: What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new healers of your class to learn?
15A: The value of Sacred Shield. Refresh it every 30/60 seconds. Really do it.
16Q: If someone were to try to evaluate your performance as a healer via recount, what sort of patterns would they see (i.e. lots of overhealing, low healing output, etc)?
17A: Top of the Healing Done and Overhealing Charts.
18Q: Haste or Crit and why?
18A: Haste. Speed is life. Holy Light takes forever to cast.
19Q: What healing class do you feel you understand least?
19A: Shamans, I just don’t play mine as much as I should.
20Q: What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in healing?
20A: I use Grid and Clique. I also have 15 mouse-over macros bound to my Logitech G-13.
21Q: Do you strive primarily for balance between your healing stats, or do you stack some much higher than others, and why?
21A: Right now I stack INT because it is just still too good. I’ll keep stackin until Blizz gives me a reason not to.
Since he has not posted it yet, I’ll go ahead and tag Hikari from Lowered Expectations… even though he is a belf…
I often find myself saying that Covenant is a casual raiding guild with delusions of being hardcore. This is not actually true. After pondering our existence for some time the best that I can come up with is the oft-used oxymoron “casually hardcore”.
Most folks who take the time to think about it consider a person’s, and by extension guild’s, playtime in WoW to exist on a continuum. At one end you have the ultra casual. These folks play the game at their leisure. They probably don’t raid and love to play alts. Their ultimate goal is relaxed fun at their own pace. At the other end you have high structured, completive, goal driven guilds. These players dedicate themselves to the game above all else and strive for world first progression kills. Most of us fall somewhere in the middle.
On a scale from one to ten, with one being playing hide and seek in Silvermoon and ten being guilds like Ensidia and Premonition, I’d say we are a seven. This is a precarious place to be. Because of lax recruiting rules, guild mergers, and other things we have three levels of players in the guild. We also have three ten man groups A, B, and C.
Note: The levels of player are not always indicative of which ten man group they are on as these groups formed organically.
The players in the first level are more of 8 to 9 on the scale. They are goal driven students of the game. They push themselves to complete the top level of 10-man content and min-max their toons. They are the mentors and leaders of the guild. These players are driven by gear, achievements, server progression, and bragging rights. They are Type A personality people.
The players in the second level are more of a 6-8 on the scale. They have many of the same goals as players in the first group but have been held back for various reasons. Time, real-life issues, issues in previous guilds have all put these players slightly behind the bleeding edge. They are also very goal driven and given the proper resources will join the first level of the hardcore in time.
The players in the third level are more in the 4-6 range. They aren’t min-maxers and generally have a lower level of play. This is either due to a lack of knowledge or a desire to play the game on a more casual level. This way of play is not bad, but it does not lend itself to successful raiding. Players at the third level who seek out knowledge to improve there play either on their own or through a mentor quickly move into level 2. These players also tend to be very loyal.
The one constant through all three levels in Covenant seems to be a desire to shift further towards the hardcore end of the spectrum. With the institution of DKP and recent forming of a third 10 man group this seems to be working well.
However a lack of a solid recruiting and application process as well as not having a system of negative incentives is hold us back from the top levels of play. These also seem to be a ways off so that could stunt growth in progression. However in the meantime the focus on balancing the needs and wants of all three kinds of players is more important to the heath and viability of the guild.
As players move up the levels and progress in their own toons the guild will progress better in content and we can make the call as to whether or not we want to ratchet up the intensity. We can’t become a hardcore progression guild overnight, but the path is visible. We just need to survive the process. As the GM is it my job to see that we do.
After a three month hiatus, I have returned to the blogosphere. This is not a sudden choice but in fact has been a long time coming. Some things needed to change for me to pick up the pen again and now I am ready to start anew.
The first thing that needed to go was the old the blog title. At the time I made it I thought it was witty, but I grew to not like it. I thought it was bulky and didn’t convey the essence of what I wanted my site to be about. I had good readership so for a long time I did not change it. Now, with the death of the guild <NO DRAMA> the name is completely dead to me. For the record, I also never liked the guild name.
I have been toying with the name Resto Nation since June and thought it would be appropriate, easy to remember, and just slightly witty. It’s a much better fit. The things I really enjoy in WoW are healing and leadership. That is what this blog will be about from now on.
Playing all four healing classes at level cap I feel I have a very strong grasp of the topic. I am also not only the GM of <Covenant>, I am the healing lead for raids. I spend a great deal of time researching the classes, specs, and gear that help keep nubcakes alive, even when they are standing in fire. This will be a forum to help me share that knowledge.
The thing that really brought me back to blogging was that I remembered why these sites are needed. Being a GM is a difficult, time consuming, and often thankless job. No one can really understand what it takes until you try and run a 25 man raiding guild with 130-150 toons. Often times it can leave you feeling frustrated, upset, and quite alone.
Other blogs have given me solace and understanding when I feel I am alone. I discovered they have almost the exact same problems that I have, sometimes it is so similar I think they are writing about me. The knowledge that these issues are common is comforting. Having a sounding board of other folks in your situation is very helpful. Learning from other peoples success and mistakes is priceless.
I’d like to thank a few of these folks publicly. Starman from Casual Raid Leader, Matticus from World of Matticus, and Amber from I Like Bubbles have all made my life better. I feel your pain and understand.
So now it is time for me to give back. Hopefully I can help out other players out there or at least give them comfort that they are not alone. I’ll be here for a while so stop by and hello. You now have one more star to help guide the ship.
So it’s been a little over a month and a lot has happened. Well, that’s kind of an Understatement.
Covenant has grown into a thriving 25 man raiding guild. We have had many guild firsts and the gear reset has given our progression a quick kick in the ass. We have many new toons who are working out splendidly and the old folks are doing well too.
Personally, inthe past month I have grown into the GM role and finished my 4th toon, The Priest. My healer collection is now complete. The new toon has given me hours of fun and I’m sure there are more to come.
Since so much has happened in the past month, here are some sceenshots to sum it up. Stay tuned there will be more back here shortly.
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