Resto Nation

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…

Progression is a common word when discussing Raiding in Warcraft. One is supposed to “progress” through content and down one boss after another until you have bested everything Blizzard has delivered. This is very intentionally not easy.

Progress is also not free. The costs can be high. Hundreds of gold, hours upon hours of time, and seemingly endless frustration are paid to make progress. Certain bosses are progression bosses. They have frustrated tens of thousands of raiders, destroyed guilds, and brought the pain to citizens of Azeroth. These are the gate keepers to the end bosses.

Yogg, and before him Kil’Jaeden, Illidan , and Archimonde are all very hard, as the end bosses should be. But before you can fight them you have to earn the right. Bosses like M’uru, Felmyst, and Illidari Council are progression bosses.

For Ulduar it is Mimiron.

The Mimiron fight is the World Series of knowing where to stand. One may think this sounds easy. If so, they have not fought this boss. In the past two days I and 9 other NO DRAMAtics have wiped 24 times on Mimiron. 24 Times. Today is the raid reset and we have to clear back to him to try again. This has been both expensive and frustrating.

We can get to stage 4 consistently but then some one-shot mechanic gets us. Either a Laser Barrage, or a Shock Blast, or Rocket Strike. Sometime it’s bad luck, sometimes it’s our fault. This really began to wear on the raiders. Even me, and I’m about as persistent and dedicated as it gets.

The good news is that is worth it. Even beyond the stellar loot table and shiny hats is access to the final bosses and a chance to clear current content. Loot, server bragging rights, and huge epeens all sound pretty good to me.

My final message is: Do not lose hope, this too shall pass. We will look back on the day when this was “impossible” like we have with many others. Even better is that nothing in this game beats the feeling when we do down him.

Remember, in progression after The Minor Fall comes The Major Lift. Hallelujah.

It is a fact of life that some days are better than others. This is just the way the universe works.

Tuesday and Wednesday could not have been more different. Yet when they are viewed together, it gives great insight into the highs and lows of raiding.

For the past couple weeks NO DRAMA has been a little rocky. Tension and apathy were high and attendance was low. Even the core the raiders we feeling the stress as the officers tried to figure out how to keep progression going while getting everyone else raiding as well. After a week of unsuccessful attempts to create multiple 10 man raid groups I made an executive decision.

I sent out invites to about 40 level 80 toons for a two night Naxx 25 farm run. It was to be a rollstravaganza. Loot Council would be suspended for the run, all main spec gear was open roll, the only limit would be your own greed. The goal in this run was to spark guild wide interest and participation.

Tuesday at 9PM server time 19 toons showed up and we invited one FoND (Friend of NO DRAMA) to make 20. We had enough for an aptly named Heroic: The Dedicated Few run. Time to see if Naxx really is that easy.

We started, as always on Anub’Rehkan. It went fairly well and the loot went quickly. We cleared trash up to GWF. And decided to try and use Widow’s Embrace for the first time (we always just heal through the enrage) since we lost one and only had 19. It was quickly figured out that killing an add near her does not break the enrage in Heroic. We had a priest switch to Shadow and Mind Control the adds. This worked well.

After GWF we moved to clear trash and things went terribly wrong. Due to maintenance Blizzards network and the terrible luck that Undermine has, the server froze and was offline for an extended time. This killed any chance at getting the next 4 bosses we had scheduled down as well as the 10 man Ulduar we had planned to follow. In the end it was productive but an overall disappointing night.

After the let down from the night before I was not looking forward to the runs very much on Wednesday. 9 PM rolled around again and 20 toons, mostly the same, showed up again. We picked up where we left off and headed to Maexxna. We one-shotted her, easily. We proceeded to clear the entire Plague wing with no wipes and very few deaths. No one even died in the Gauntlet before Loetheb. Not even the Rogue on follow.

We were good. Very good. After 4 bosses we called it for the night. I logged off my tree and hopped on Kora to head to 10 man Ulduar.

The win kept on coming.

We downed Flame Leviathan with Tower of Storms up, and headed straight to XT to try for Heartbreaker. We got the heart to 1% and then we wiped ourselves to try again. Army of Dead was going to be down for 20 minutes so we went back and one shotted Razorscale and Ignis. We even got A Quick Shave on Razorscale.  More win.

At this point Armys were back off cooldown and we headed back to XT. This time we made it. We killed the heart at 75% and went into hard-mode. We were pulling it off until I got stuck by a Gravity Bomb void-zone and a Life Spark and died.  We wiped a while later. But it was very doable. At this point it wsa nearing 2AM and we all had to work in the morning so we called it.

We’ll pick up where we left off tonight or Sunday and get our second Ulduar Hard-Mode done. I am very excited. It was a great run and even better after the fail night before. Again, another reason why I raid. I love being reminded.

The past two nights have seen real progress for the <NO DRAMA> 10-man Ulduar team. We downed Thorim two nights ago and Hodir last night.

These fights have been the most difficult for us yet. We wiped on Thorim a total of 21 times this week and Hodir a total of 13. Kora had some serious repair bills, but even so, downing hard fought bosses is why end-game raiding is worth doing.

Each of the two victories had keys to sucess. Here’s how we won:

Thorim

After defeating Thorim I half-jokingly said that Thorim is 100% add management. Our Arena-side Tank did not find this as funny as I did. However, it is kinda true.

The key here is for the gauntlet team to finish the second mini-boss and be running to Thorim at 3:01 into the encounter. Since we did not want to engage hard-mode just yet this leaves just enough time for Sif to leave the Arena.

The second key is that the Arena team needs to survive for 3:30. At least.

When both teams complete their tasks Thorim drops to the floor and should be a fairly easy kill at his point. We got him in one shot once we could actually hit him.

For our troubles we got Tier 8 Paladin Shoulders and Legacy of Thunder.

Hodir

The first key to Hodir is to not stand in the fire falling ice. The encounter is all about where to stand. The Cliff Notes version is:

1. Keep Moving! Biting Cold is bad.

2. Do stand under Icicle. Treat the blue rune warning as a void zone.

3. Stand on Snowdrift when it appears. Flash Freeze is bad.

4. Stand in Tor Greycloud’s Starlight and next to Amira Blazeweaver’s Toasty Fire. This means freeing the NPCs is a priority.

Key number two is Frost Resist gear. Get some. Now. Your tank should have three pieces, everyone needs two. With the Paladin Frost Resist Aura you should be around 300. Don’t forget to Gem and Enchant this gear as well. We wiped 12 times without this gear and once with it.

The last key is to mitigate Frozen Blows. Do this just like XT’s Tantrum.

This fight looks like it will be easier now that we have the gear and know the movement. It should be one of the easier Watchers to down.

We picked up some  DK Tier 8 Legs and Stormedge from the Cache of Winter.

Tonight we are taking the guild on a quick Naxx 25 farm run and then we hope to do Flame Leviathan and XT on hard mode. Reports on this tomorrow.

The best part is that we one-shot her right after one shotting Kologarn. Wow that was awesome!

After having a rough night in Ulduar on Tuesday I really wanted back in. We had a Guild 25 Man Naxx run scheduled last night for the new folks and alts so we had to put Ulduar on hold. After pulling folks through Arachnid and Noth we decided we had 40 minutes to at least step foot into Ulduar and do something. I was pretty vocal that I wanted to skip Ignis and Razorscale and head to Kologarn, who most of the folks had not had a chance to kill yet.

We cleared the trash to the stairs and I explained the fight. We ran in and cleanly one-shot him. Very proud and a little surprised we ran across the newly formed bridge and grabbed our phat lootz, the Emerald Signet Ring and Mark of the Unyeilding.

Too stoked to quit now, we decided it was time for one more boss. Looking over the ledge at Auriaya I convinved the team to give her a shot. All I knew was that she had cat adds and was supposed to be a very tough pull. That was more than anyone else. Frost went and watched the Tank Spot video and explained it to us. We cleared two trash adds and setup to try our next brand new boss. 

Here’s how it went down:

We pulled here from the left side. The entire raid stacked on the edge of the curve to right of the top of the second set of stairs. Shaq dropped his totems and we waited for her to patrol back. When whe was just before the end of her route Frost ran down, dropped Death and Decay, ran back and stacked with us, breaking line of sight with the panther adds. 

Chor picked up Auriaya and Frost took the adds. All DPS on the adds as we all stacked right in front of the boss. The adds went down and DPS switched over. Frost picked up the Feral Defender when it spawned. We downed it and ran down the stairs from the Void Zone. Rinse and repeat the next time except we ran up the stairs this time.

 At this point it really looked like we were going to get her down. 30 seconds later she was on the ground and sparkley. For our well deserved loot we got Elemental Focus Stone and I picked up Shieldwall of the Breaker for Kora’s tanking set. 

Brand new boss… one-shot. That was very cool. Congrats to everyone. Hopefully we can down dome Watchers tonight!

After defeating Flame Leviathan for the past 3 weeks, we downed him on the first level of his four hard modes last night and earned the Orbital Bombarment achievement as well as two Emblems of Conquest instead of the normal Emblem of Valor.

I was sure we had the fight down cold. To prevent it from becoming a lolfest I suggested that we leave up Thorim’s Tower (of Storms) up. We did and wiped once. We ran back, did it again and got it down. Ironsoul’s brother Firesoul dropped as well as Might of the Leviathan. We will continue to leave up one tower next week and and soon as we are comfortable with that I’d like to work on two.

Here is an how the towers work:

To start the event including hard mode options the Raid Leader needs to speak with Lore Keeper of Norgannon before Brann. This allows you to keep the towers up and active. Each tower adds something to the encounter.

Tower of Storms (Purple): Thorim’s Hammer. Deals Stormstrike damage to all enemies nearby. Additional damage is taken if directly under the impact location.   Flame Leviathan gains 25% more HP and does 25% more Physical damage. 

Tower of Flames (Red): Mimiron’s Inferno. Deals 150000 Fire damage to all nearby enemies and leaves a flaming blaze behind.  Flame Leviathan gains 25% more HP and does 50% more Fire damage. 

Tower of Frost (Blue): Hodir’s Fury. Deals 150000 Frost damage to all nearby enemies, entombing them in ice.  Flame Leviathan gains 25% more HP and slows vehicle movement by 20%. Ice tomb lasts for one minute unless broken or melted by flames.

Tower of Life: (Green): Freya’s Ward. Deals 13500 to 16500 Natures damage to all nearby enemies and summons guardians of nature to surround the enemy.  Flame Leviathan gains 25% more HP and decreases his fire damage taken by 10%.

Loot Changes:

No Towers: 2 Pieces of Regular Loot and one Emblem of Valor

1 Tower: 2 Pieces of Regular Loot and two Emblems of Conquest

2 Towers: Same as 1 Tower plus a Runed Orb

3 Towers: Same as Two Towers plus an additional Emblem of Conquest

4 Towers: Same as Three Towers plus an additional Emblem of Conquest as well as a Hard Mode item

It is nice to see Blizzard taking this approach in design. Flame Leviathan can either be a loot pinata or a very big challenge and rewards you accordingly. I am looking for ward to more of this in other Hard Modes. It should help keep the content fresh.

Congrats! Last night NO DRAMA downed 10 man Ignis the Furnace Master and Kologarn for the first time.

These were two long progression battles. We had 7 attempts on Ignis and 6 attempts on Kologarn. Totally worth the high repair bills.

Most of our usual ten man crew was not on last night. Frost and I decided not to waste the last day of our raid lock out and picked up 8 other guildies and headed into the fray. Right away on the trash before Ignis it was a shock to the system for most of them. Ulduar is not Naxx. In fact most of the trash in Ulduar would probably pwn most Naxx bosses. Molten Colossus versus Noth, I’ll take MC FTW.

We downed the Colossi and then we wiped on the Magma Reavers. We regrouped and figured out that you need to be facing down hill and standing uphill from the Reavers. You can also run from the Flame Tornado. We got this down and cleared the rest of the trash. Now we had Ignis.

This fight is 100% coordination. Here are some important things to know:

1. Once a Construct is Brittle you have 1 chance to hit it for over 5K.

2. On Normal Mode it takes 10 stacks to turn the Construct Molten.

3. You can heal yourself while in the Firey Fanny Pack of Death.

4. Do Not, I repeat Do Not, cast during Flame Jets. Silenced Healers = Raid Wipe.

For most of the attempts we wiped at 75%, then we got a little better. Then he was down. Yea loot parade!

Honestly at this point I was pretty burnt. It had been a long night with lots of wipes and I was kind of frustrated. We decided to move inside and try Kologarn since the normal crew had downed XT-002 Deconstructor earlier in the week. I can not pull myself away from a progression run, so I jumped in.

Again the new folks were amazed at the beauty of the art inside the Antechamber of Ulduar and the difficulty of the trash. In Naxx you AoE trash. In Ulduar trash AoEs you.

I also very much enjoyed they shock and awe I heard on vent when we entered the Shattered Walkway  and Kologarn rises up. I did not expect it the first time I ran in and it is one of the most epic things I’ve ever seen in WoW.

Most everyone except for the GM and I had not done the fight but had watched the video.  Most of them said: “Oh, that looks like an easy fight.” After the first wipe this changed to: “Oh, that is harder than it looked.”

We wiped and wiped and wiped and then we got it. Here is what I learned:

1. Deadly Boss Mods will not always tell you the Eye Beam is on you. Watch the screen. If they converge on you, you are the target.

2. When you are targeted, run back, then strafe. Don’t strafe first.

3. Paladin Main Tank Healers, tell the raid when you are the target of the Eye Beam. A Raid Healer needs to back you up since you only have one instant cast heal every 6 seconds (…5 glyphed). Tell them or the tank will die.

4. Raid Healers need to heal the toon in Stone Grip right away. Treat it like Kel’Thuzad’s Frost Blast.

5. Forget the Left Arm. AoE the Adds and DPS the body.

For loot tables and WWS Report check out the <NO DRAMA> Raid Tracker page.

As we get more into hardcore raiding as a guild there are a few things we can work on to communicate better and make things run smooth. Here are some things we need to consider with Ventrillo:

1. Once the boss is engaged begin radio silence. These fights require great concentration.

2. The Raid Leader, or Main Tank with assist should be the only one calling out direction and coordination. 3 players echoing the order does not help.

3. Response is ok. An example: RL says down the add. If you are on downing the add call out when it is done.

4. We know you need healing. We do almost nothing but look at your health bar. If you need it that bad and we did not notice, you’ll be dead by the time we hear you. Then, feel free to blame the healer.

5. Do not say you are dead or going down until you eat the floor. Tank goes down = wipe. People stop trying when we wipe. If you have 1hp, we can still heal you back.

6. You need a headset with a mic. Please be mindful of background noise. It is distracting and unpleasent.

7. Main Tanks, even after every /readycheck has come in positive, declare you are going to pull. It helps keep you alive.

That’s an awful lot of advice for one post, but small things go along way. These things all lead to smoother raids. Smoother raids lead to more dead bosses and more loot for everyone.

<NO DRAMA> is dangerously close to becomeing a serious guild to be reckoned with. A few more tweaks and we’ll be there.

Patch day was as patch day is… delayed, laggy,, and full of bugs. Even with the deck stacked against us <NO DRAMA> was sent two full 10-man teams into the gates of Ulduar when Undermine-US finally came up around 9:30 EDT. In short, if Ulduar is half as good as it looks then Blizz has delivered in spades.

Myself and most of the other officers formed one of the raid teams. We flew up to Storm Peaks and assembled on the Iron Concourse ready to mount our Vehicles and take on Flame Leviathan.

The first part of the encounter seemed much more like a strange theme park ride diversion than WoW, but none the less it was very fun. Much more so than I had anticipated. Although, I would hardly call it clearing trash.

We worked our way to the Flame Leviathan and got pwned hard straight away. It was at this point that we did a little strat research and figured out that we had to down the 4 surrounding towers first. We rezzed, mounted up, and cleared out the towers.

At this point we engaged FL again, did better, but still wiped. Rinse and repeat this a couple more times and then all of Ulduar crashed. Hard. We were locked out of our toons for 30 min while Blizz worked on the issues. We got back in and tried at it some more. My this time it was going on well after 1AM.

A couple more tries later and the giant train looking Boss was down! We picked up Combustion Braces and Kinetic Ripper for our efforts. As this point right before we looted we were all mowed down by little helicopters. Wow.

We rezzed. got back in and collected the lootz. From here we teleported into the Colossal Forge. We attempted both Razorscale and the trash leading up to Ignis the Furnace Master. Again we were pwned. This time very hard. Ulduar looks to be a serious step up from Naxx.

We called it a night around 3AM and will pick it up tonight. There is still much I have not checked out in the patch that I am looking forward to, like the new Fishing and Argent Tournament dailies. Unfortunately, A ridiculously late work meeting tonight will keep me offline until 9PM server time.

I should have quite a bit more content in the next few weeks, especially when I figure out what the hell Blizz did to Healadins. Until then stay tuned fearless adventurers, Yogg-Saron will not escape for long!

In the mean time check out this great Flame Leviathan Strat by master healer Matticus.

It’s here! Well almost. After much speculation and waiting patch 3.1 The Secrets of Ulduar goes live on the realms. There are a number of new things in the patch. Here are a few things to know:

1. Dual Spec
The long anticipated dual spec feature is now with us. With all the talent tree changes there is going to be a talent point reset so you will already be at your trainer. Bring 1000 gold and if you’re over level 40 you can get two specs for the price of one.

2. New Dailies
Not only is there a new fishing daily quest in Dalaran, there a number of new dailies involving the Argent Tournament. Check out the new quest givers up in Icecrown after you finish catching your new fish.

3. Gear Manager
The new Gear Manager is NOT going live today. Outfitter is dead! Long live Outfitter!

4. Ulduar
The new Ulduar raid instance opens today. This is where I will be spending most of my time. I guess leveling Shai will have to wait.

Check back tomorrow for most impressions and reports on Ulduar and spec changes as they hit the live realms.

In guild news, I’d like to welcome all of the new members we have added in the past week. We are growing by leaps and bounds. Also, congrats to Darktris(Docheals) and Graithe(Rastlan) on being promoted to Officer. You both deserve it.