Wednesday, April 30, 2008

WWS Reports




I love the WWS reports. If you do well it strokes your e-peen. If you do not so well, it can help show you what you are doing wrong. As a GL it helps me to see who in the raid could use some improvement. Its an invaluable tool if used correctly. I posted the screenshot for our first Vashj kill cause well... I'm e-peening a bit there. :p ( To be fair I was on the Elite nagas in phase two so so I wasn't running all over chasing elementals. That help keep the dps up. I'm no where near the top dpser in our raid. Still I'm pretty happy /flex )

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Down Goes Vashj!

Damn she's a tough one. Three and a half hours working on her before we finally got her down, but oh was it sweet. Despite people being tired and frustrated everyone pulled together, and we got her out of phase two with most of the raid up. After that it was smooth sailing. She dropped 3 hero tokens, and the Coral Band of the Revived as well as Belt of One Hundred Deaths. I got one of the token and now have Cataclysm Helm. Would have loved the belt, but I got the Money Belt off of Anetheron last week, so our other Enhancement Shaman got this one. The Helm was a much bigger upgrade. As a matter of fact its pretty much equal to the S3 helm I was planning on getting tomorrow, so I need to figure out what to spend my arena points on instead. Maybe the chest, as I'm wearing the S1 chest.

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Al'ar dead.

Al'ar downed.
I put myself on back up for the fight. We are melee heavy as a raid, and normally on boss fights w/o lots of AOE melee hold down most of the top 7-8 dps spots. But we couldn't take 3 rogues, 3 dps warrior, and 2 enhancement shamans up agaisnt Al'ar. So we sat one of each group. Sucks missing out on a first kill. But I can't very well tell people that everyone needs to go on back-up on occasion if I don't put myself there too. We swapped people back in for VR and Solarian. I did end up picking up Vambraces of EndingThey were a small upgrade, but an upgrade none the less. I've got family visiting this weekend, so no raids for me. But Fire and Blood is now 5/6 & 3/4 in T5 as well as 2/5 in Hyjal. Time to start working on Vashj and Kael.

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

PTR Patch notes 2.42

Hunter

Dire Ravens in Blade's Edge Mountains now tameable.
Tamed Drywallow Snappers now will know Bite 5 (instead of Claw 5.)
Mages

Talent: Improved Blink (Arcane) now reduces chance to be hit by 13/25% and the duration of Rank 1 has been increased to 4 seconds.
Completing the quest "Arcane Refreshment" will now properly teach the spell Conjure Water (Rank 7).
PvP

Arenas
If a character's personal rating is more than 150 points below the team rating, they will earn points based on their personal rating instead of the team rating.
If the average personal rating of the players queuing for a game is more than 150 points below the team's rating, the team will be queued against an opponent matching or similar to the average personal rating.
Professions

All 23-hour profession cooldowns are now 20-hour cooldowns.
All 4-day cooldowns are now 3 days, 20 hours.
Enchanting
Removed the cooldown from Void Shatter.
Void Shatter recipe now correctly requires 375 enchanting.
Engineering
The Engineering supply item Delicate Copper Wire will now properly fit into engineering bags.
Jewelcrafting
Brilliant Glass no longer requires a forge.
Brilliant Glass now has a small chance to make an epic gem.
Quick Dawnstone, Reckless Noble Topaz, Forceful Talasite are now all available at the Quel'danas gem vendor.
Leatherworking
Completing the quest "The Journey Has Just Begun" will now properly teach how to make an Onyxia Scale Cloak.
Greatly reduced the reagent cost for Glove Reinforcements. Also reduced the skill gain range slightly.
Quests

The categories for the quests "Wanted: Sisters of Torment" and "Wanted: The Signet Ring of Prince Kael'thas" have been fixed to now properly read as Magister's Terrace.
The Shadowy Disguise will no longer be applied to druids while they are in Moonkin or Tree of Life form for the quests "Who Are They?"
Jailor Eston and Jailor Marlgen for the quest "The Rescue" should now respawn more frequently.
Dungeons and Raids

Black Temple
Illidan will no longer despawn if a raid group wipes during his death speech.
Karazhan
Nightbane's Charred Earth ability will now properly deal Fire damage.
Magister's Terrace
Vexallus is no longer immune to taunt on Normal difficulty.
Kael'thas is no longer immune to taunt on Normal difficulty.
Wretched Skulkers, Wretched Husks, and Wretched Bruisers will now reset properly.
Sunblade Imps will now reset properly.
The doors in Heroic Magister's Terrace will no longer respawn after a soft reset if a boss has already been killed.
Sunwell Plateau
Hellfire will no longer remove Dark Touched in the Eredar Twins encounter.
Tempest Keep: The Eye
Void Reaver's Arcane orbs now generate combat log entries.
Items

Arcane Charges now deal arcane damage.
Abilities and trinkets that trigger after killing an opponent that gives experience or honor will no longer activate after killing mobs during bombing quests.
Battlecast's Garb should now properly grant pushback resistance in addition to interrupt resistance.
Borderland Fortress Grips have had their stats updated.
Botanist's Gloves of Growth have had their texture corrected.
Bow of Searing Arrows and Red Whelp Gloves will no longer break crowd control effects.
The Cloak of Swift Mending now has a level requirement (70).
Goblin Jumper Cables are no longer a trinket item.
Items that enchant other items no longer have tradeskill requirements (Mithril Spurs, Shield Spikes, Weapon Chains, etc.).
The Helm of Fire has had its casting range reduced.
The Magic Candle has had its casting range reduced.
Many items sold by Consortium vendors are now bind on pick up: Formula: Enchant Weapon- Major Striking, Design: Delicate Blood Garnet, Design: Shifting Shadow Draenite, Design: Lustrous Azure Moonstone, Design: Thick Golden Draenite.
Many items sold by Aldor reputation vendors are now bind on pick up: Design: Gleaming Golden Draenite, Design: Royal Shadow Draenite.
Many items sold by the Shattered Sun quartermaster are now bind on pick up: Naaru Ration, Design: Ember Skyfire Diamond.
The Lower City reputation item, Recipe: Flask of Chromatic Resistance, is now bind on pick up.
Most Main-Hand weapons are now One-Hand weapons.
Naturalist's Preserving Cinch have had their stats updated.
Reins of the Black War Elekk spell and buff now correspond to the item name.
Rocket Boots Xtreme and Rocket Boots Xtreme Lite now properly share the same cooldown.
The Romantic Picnic Basket will now display the blanket properly.
The socket bonus modifiers of some items will now properly display the bonus healing.
The reduced cooldown of Shaman Nature's Swiftness provided by the 4 piece set bonus from the Seer's Ringmail Battlegear PvP armor will now apply properly.
The Skyshatter Helmet's gem socket bonus will now properly reflect the plus damage in the tooltip.
Shadowsong Panther will no longer prematurely despawn.
Talasite Owl: This trinket will now properly restore full mana as described.
Troll Male off-hand items are now the same size as the main hand item.
Tauren weapons while sheathed have had their graphic readjusted to their pre-patch (2.4.0) state.
The Winterfall Firewater buff is no longer dispellable.
User Interface

Black Lotus will now show up under the Herb subcategory in the auction house.
Primal Nethers will now show up under the Materials subcategory in the auction house.
Mailboxes can now be tracked on the minimap.
For additional notes on Lua and XML changes please visit the UI & Macros Forum.
World Environment

Creature versions of the Polymorph spell no longer heal the affected target.
The dragons in Blade's Edge Mountains will no longer instantly knock you off your mount.
Mac

Fixed a bug causing ATI kernel panics; all spell effects should now be visible.
Weather effects are again visible on systems with ATI 2x00 graphics such as aluminum iMac.
Fixed a bug that precluded use of the FireWire iSight microphone with voice chat.
Symlinks can be used again for Interface and WTF folders and subfolders.
Cinematics playback is working again.
Bug Fixes

Fixed an issue where secondary sound effects would not work with the Use Hardware option enabled in the Sound options of the User Interface.
Fixed an issue where attempting to use some instant cast spells with Auto-Dismount in Flight checked in the interface would fail.
Items that have multiple charges will now properly display the amount of charges.
Fixed an issue where chain damage spells were chaining to critters.
Female Draenei horns will now correctly protrude through certain plate helms.
The Vengeful Gladiator's Rifle will now play the proper sound when used.
The Cursed Vision of Sargeras now gives the buff, "Sense Demons" which can be canceled normally. Additionally hunters and druids are able to track two things at once while using the item.
It is no longer possible for pets to get stuck in place after exiting the Spectral Realm in the Kalecgos encounter.
Blood Elf Priest: Consume Magic will now require the buff to be active in order to work properly.
Undead and Blood Elf Priest: Touch of Weakness will now properly reduce the melee damage of the attacker.
Fixed an issue where some spells had extraneous Floating Combat Text messages when using the Auras option.
Fixed an issue where sometimes debuff icons on a target did not scale properly to indicate the spells had been cast by you.
The hunter pet ability Growl will no longer scale with pet Attack Power.
Druid Talent- Primal Fury (Rank 2) will now be properly unlearned when it is untalented.
Druid Talent (Restoration)- Natural Perfection will no longer proc by normal melee attacks.
Mage Spell - Molten Armor will now do damage while a damage absorption shield is active.
Mage Spell - Noxious Breath (Ysondre) will no longer cause Arcane Missiles to only damage on the first volley.
Mage Spell- Fixed an issue that was causing a pink hue to appear when a mage would phase out via Invisibility.
Paladin Talent: Crusader Strike (Retribution) will now properly receive a damage increase from Seal of The Crusader.
Paladin healing spells used in castsequence macros are now properly completing the cast sequence when a rank is not specified.
The Paladin talent Precision (Ranks 1-3) will no longer improperly display daggers and staves as a weapon class in the tooltip.
Paladins that already have Apprentice Riding skill can now properly learn Summon Warhorse from the trainer.
Priest Talent- Power Infusion will now consume the correct amount of mana when cast on yourself.
The rogue talent Mutilate (Assassination) will no longer incorrectly appear multiple times in the combat log when used.
Shaman Talent: Frostbrand (Enhancement) Rank 6 will now properly do more damage than Rank 5.
Warlock Spell- Drain Soul will no longer continue to do damage to another player after they have died.
Ritual of Souls (Warlock) and Ritual of Refreshment (Mage) will no longer be placed on cooldown without having completed the summon.
Priest Spell: Power Word: Shield now has the correct sound associated with it and can no longer be heard from large distances.
Priest Spell: Fear Ward will no longer be consumed while under the effects of cyclone.
Looting a boss while a player is outside of the instance will no longer cause the corpse to despawn in 2 minutes if the player still has loot on the corpse.
Whirlwind now has the correct sound associated with it.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

The Battle for Mount Hyjal


Last night was < Fire and Blood >'s first trip into T6 content. Sure its cheating a bit as we are only 5/6 & 2/4, but with the removal of attunements in 2.4 we wanted to check out Hyjal.

So for out first time in I think we did well. We one shotted Rage Winterchill. It was a tad sloppy as a lot of people including myself died to Death and Decay, but Rage went down, and a win is a win.

Next was Anetheron. He was a bit tougher. We had some issues getting the infernals picked up and burned down. It took us 4 goes to finally down him. But he was nice enough to drop Don Alejandro's Money Belt for me. Its not Belt of 100 Deaths, but its a nice upgrade from the Gronn-Stiched Girdle which I had been wearing.

Three months after rerolling we are one shotting a Tier 6 boss on our first go. Call me happy.

The Sunwell Badge Vendor opened last week. First thing I got was Vanir's Right Fist. I didn't have enough badges to get the offhand right way. Which was ok because Saturday on a Zul Aman run Fury dropped. That's close enough to the badge off-hand to make do for awhile. So I spent my badges on a Bloodlust Brooch. Not very sexy, but it was my weakest item left. Next upgrade needs to be my Helm. I'm going to be about 50 points short of the S3 helm this week, so another week on that. sigh. My gear on Baelor is about where I was on Bannonn. Its probably a bit better for raiding, as my gear score on Bannonn was inflated by having more Arena and Vindicator gear. Certainly my Shoulders and Belt are than the ZA gear I had and my Weapons are better as well. Chest and Helm are still lagging a bit behind. I should probably grind out the Vindicator's bracers as well, as they are an upgrade to the Bracers of Maliciousness

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

So Long my fine friend

I dropped mining yesterday. It made me a bit sad, as I really enjoy swooping down on a node and banging away. But it was time to make a change. With the dailys its easier to make gold that way, and I really need to get LW. I'm not relishing that grind again, as I did it on Bannonn, but Drums of Battle are worth that much for raiding. Plus some of the Sunwell items arefreaking amazing. the chsts in particular. I got my skinning up to 250 last night. Thats a fast grind. I'm going to stockpile all the mats and powerlevel leatherworking up.

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Leo's Dead Baby.



Last run of the reset had < Fire and Blood > back in SSC. We headed straight to Leo for our first look at him as a guild. It was a little bit sloppy but we got him down. Sure half the raid was dead, but a win's a win. I think we got one of each of the glove tokens and Coral Barbed Shoulderpads We moved on to Karathress and it took us a couple of tries to get the pull right. That's really the toughest part of that fight. Karathress dropped Fathom-Brooch of the Tidewalker Neither of the resto Shamans wanted it. The lack of +dmg/healing as well as no on use ability does make it seem unappealing but still the mana regen off of it seems really nice. A 15% proc rate with a 45 sec CD should still yield over 1ppm. At 1ppm its about 30 mp5. Looks like I'll need to do a bit more research into this and make sure if it drops again it doesn't get sharded. He also dropped 2 Champion and 1 Hero token. No chest for me.

Then we moved on to Vashj. This was my first look at her. Its a crazy fight. We got through Phase one just fine but Phase two was a mess. We got in three tries and didn't manage to get our coordination down enough to get her to phase 3. I have every confidence that we will get her soon though.

Friday, April 11, 2008

Badge Vendor

Well as of last night Quel'Dorei was at 21% on building an anvil. I'm guessing that's at least a couple more days away. So its a good time to go back and look at my list of desired badge gear.
Dory's Embrace 60 HAVE
Scaled Drakeskin Chestguard 100
Master Assassin Wristwraps 35
Gauntlets of Rapidity 75
Belt of the Silent Path 75
Trousers of the Scryers' Retainer 100
Nyn'jah's Tabi Boots 60
Angelista's Revenge 60
Bloodlust Brooch 41
Stonebreaker's Totem 20 HAVE
Vanir's Right Fist of Brutality 105
Vanir's Left Fist of Brutality 45

So of the 776 badges needed, I've spent 80, so I'm down to wanting 696 and I'm sitting on 73 which leaves me needing only 623.
The trouble now becomes prioritizing my needs.
My weakest pieces of gear are my chest and second trinket. However with the bosses we are progressing through in SSC I should be able to get either Bloodsea Brigand's Vest or Ranger General's Chestguard both of which are on par with the badge chest. Trinket wise, there are a lot of drops I'd rather have ahead of the Bloodlust Brooch. If I didn't need so many other things I'd buy it until I got a better drop, but I just cant prioritize it that high.

The next biggest upgrade is the pants which are about 34% better than my Midnight Legguards The ring is about 26% better than my Vindicator's ring and 40% better than my Violet Signet(revered)

The smallest upgrades according to my theorycrafting are the Fists. I'm using Gladiator's Cleaver and Fool's Bane and they are only 14% lower on my EP scale than the fists. Am I nuts for wanting to get those first? They are both best in slot or at least right on par with S4 gladiator's weapons, which I won't ever get the rating to buy anyway. I need 32 more badges for the MH which with a full Kara clear and tonight's raid, I should be able to have this weekend. Another 2 weeks will net me the offhand. I'm not going to get better drops anytime soon. With the pace our raid is going I should have a chance at drops that are on par with the wrists and the belt soon.

So as of today my priorities on badges are as follows.
Right Fist
Left Fist
Then If I haven't replaced my chest I go for that.
If not Chest, then the Ring
Pants
Gloves
Boots
Trinket
Belt
Wrist

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Progression

Friday was Kara night. We had to many people for 1 run, so we rallied the troops and made two groups. Both group had full clears in under 4 hours. That goes along with the group that went on Thursday. Three groups farming Kara every week. That's pretty nice.

Saturday we went back to TK. Our last trip there we didn't manage to down Void Reaver. This time we got him on our second try of the night. From there we moved on to High Astromancer Solarian. We had a few issues with the debuff, and it took us 3 wipes before we downed her. Still Two more bosses on the hit list. I'll take two new bosses a night, I mean we can't do that very often can we?

Apparently we can. Last nights raid had us back in SSC before the reset. First up was Morogrim Tidewalker. After a couple of wipes on trash leading up to him we one shotted the big dwarf.

So we moved on to Karathress. It took as a few goes to get the pull down, but once we got that part down the fight was smooth as silk. We downed him with all 25 still standing.

So recap for the week.
Farm Status:
Kara 3 groups
HKM
Gruul
Magtheridon
Lurker

New Bosses downed
Hydross
Void Reaver
Solarian
Tidewalker
Karathress

Color me pleased!

Thursday, April 3, 2008

Hydross, Check.

Great raid last night. We one-shotted Gruul's and Maggy before moving on to SSC to give Hydross another try. People were much better this time, no one pulled agro at a bad time, and Hydross went down first try. Great job by everyone. We then went and took on lurker again. Had some bad luck first try so one wipe there, before we downed him handily on the second go. So three weeks into raiding we are 2/6 in SSC, and able to take out 5 bosses in 3.5 hours. This is beyond my wildest expectations for where this guild would be this soon.

The under geared Shaman did get some nice loots this week. I took home both the Liar's Tongue Glovesand Shoulderpads of the Stranger I also did pick up Cyclone Sholderplatestoo. I feel a bit bad about that, as I replaced them in under 2 hours. The Shoulderpads of the Stranger are the best Enhancement shoulders this side of the Sunwell, though and the rogue decided he wanted to keep his T4 set bonus.

I'm now down to 1 piece of mail gear. Its pretty sad that all of the best enhancement loot is rogue gear. Sure some of the T6 items are better, but they still have a lot of wasted itemization points. The mail DPS gear was almost all designed for hunters with AP and Agi. Of all the epic mail items ilevel 100 and up there are only 3 non tier, non PvP items with Strength on them. Of those 3, 2 of them still waste stat budgets on Int, Mp5 or both. WTB better itemization please.