Yes Please

Shaman news from WWI

* Shaman CC! Hex, previously the domain of NPCs only, was confirmed as a Shaman spell -- it'll have a quick 1.5 second cast, and will turn your enemy into a frog for about 8-10 seconds. The frogged person will still be able to move around, but they won't be able to attack or cast spells. A 1 minute cooldown was mentioned, but that's in opposition to the purpose of the spell, which is supposed to be emergency only, so that may change.
* The devs mentioned that Shaman were suffering from "Totem spam," so a few totems will be combined -- Strength of Earth and Grace of Air will become the same totem, and the physical school news was re-confirmed.
* Perhaps the biggest Shaman complaint since launch was answered: Shaman totems will now affect the whole raid, not just the local group. That's a big one.
* Weapon enchants are being revamped for more utility. Rockbiter is out completely, and Earthliving is replacing it -- it will give a +Healing buff. Flametongue will give spell damage, and Frostbrand will "more reliably snare" opponents.

I expect some of these will be nerfed and nerfed hard. Call me a cynic, :)

Turn this Mutha OUT!

We went into Mother as soon as we had 24 people with SR gear. One little hiccup on our first go, before downing her easy on our second attempt. Dropped one of each token and the off hand sword.

We didn't think it would go that fast so we were a bit unprepared for the Illidari Council. We wiped on them for the rest of the raid, but it was good practice.

We are rapidly approaching the big blindfolded guy himself.... I'm pretty excited.

Picked up Bloodsea Brigand's Vest this weekend. Funny how perspectives change. On Bannonn, I would have killed for this. Heck 2 months ago on Baleor I'd have killed for this. But with Archi on farm, I can't help but view this as just a placeholder. I'm such an elitist. :p

Upgrades

Tsunami Talisman
Nyn'jah's Tabi Boots
Deadly Cuffs
Choker of Serrated Blades
So, I've gotten some nice upgrades in the last week and a half. Replaced my Hourglass of The Unraveller which was my last blue. My Edgewalker Longboots which was my last piece of Kara gear. Vindicator's Pentant of Triumph,and Vambraces of Ending went bye bye too.
Now I need to hope Archie drops Midnight Chestgard again one of these weeks.

Patch 2.4.3 PTR notes

General
Dispel effects will no longer attempt to remove effects that have 100% dispel resistance.
Parry Rating, Defense Rating, and Block Rating: Low-level players will now convert these ratings into their corresponding defensive stats at the same rate as level 34 players.
Haris Pilton has launched a new line of bags and jewelry. Check her out in the World's End Tavern!
Mounts at 30?! Yes, it's true: Apprentice Riding and mounts are now available at level 30. Training costs 35 gold.
Blood Elf flightmasters outside of Silvermoon City and Tranquillien have traded in their bats for glorious fire-breathing dragonhawks.
Alcohol cooldowns have been rolled into Drinks: All 10-second cooldowns have been removed and replaced with the 1-second Drink cooldown.
Numerous flying non-combat pets have had their flight height modified to no longer skim along the ground: captured firefly, dragonhawk hatchlings, moths, owls, parrots, phoenix hatchling, spirit of summer, sprite darter, and tiny sporebat.
Nether Ray Fry (a non-combat pet) is now available from the Skyguard Quartermaster. This requires an Exalted reputation with Sha'tari Skyguard.
Equipping an item will now cancel any spell cast currently in progress.
Placing an item in your bank will now cancel any spell cast currently in progress if the spell was cast by that item.
You can no longer move backwards to stop racing rams.
When a stun wears off, the creature that was stunned will prefer the last target with the highest threat, versus the current target.

Druids
Barkskin: The cost of this spell is now reduced by Tree of Life Form.

Hunters
Growl: Pets will no longer generate additional threat from this ability based on attack power buffs cast on them. Attack power buffs on their master will still indirectly increase the threat generated by the pet's Growl.
Pet Aggro: Pets will no longer generate threat immediately from being summoned.
Scare Beast: This spell will now be limited correctly to one target.

Paladins
Greater Blessing of Light Rank 1: This spell will no longer overwrite Greater Blessing of Light Rank 2.
Summon Warhorse is now available at level 30.

Priests
Mind Vision: This effect will now be cancelled immediately on targets who use an Invisibility Potion or Gnomish Cloaking Device.
Spiritual Healing: Ranks 2-5 of this talent will no longer prevent refreshing Prayer of Mending.

Rogues
Cheat Death: This talent has been rebalanced significantly. Killing blows are no longer 100% absorbed. If the Rogue is below 10% health, the killing blow is still completely absorbed; if the Rogue is over 10% health, enough damage will be absorbed to reduce the Rogue's health down to 10%. For the following 3 seconds, damage is not always reduced by 90%; it is now reduced by a maximum of 90%, depending on how much resilience the Rogue has. The damage reduction will be four times the damage reduction resilience causes against critical strikes.

Shaman
Earth Elemental: This pet will now leash back to its totem when pulled beyond 50 yards away.
Lightning Overload: This talent will no longer do excessive damage when used with Lightning Bolt Ranks 2-10.

Warlocks
Curse of Shadows: This spell has been removed.
Curse of Elements: This spell now applies to Arcane and Shadow damage, as well as Frost and Fire.
Demonic Sacrifice: This ability will now interact correctly with the Spirit Guide resurrection system in battlegrounds. A sacrificed pet will not be resummoned on death, and will not prevent keeping a record of the most recently created pet.
Health Funnel: This ability will now cancel channeling when the target pet is Banished.
Ritual of Summoning: The mana cost of this spell will now be properly deducted when cast.
Summon Felsteed is now available at level 30.

Warrior
Revenge: Ranks 1-5 of this ability now have damage ranges instead of fixed damage values (like ranks 6-8.)

PvP
The Warsong Gulch flag can no longer be picked up at the same time as a flag is capped.

Professions
Alchemy
Philosopher's Stone now requires 200 Alchemy.
Cooking
Juicy Bear Burgers now correctly increase healing as well as spell damage.
Jewelcrafting
Activated beneficial effects from jewelcrafting trinkets can no longer be dispelled.
Mining
Green quality gems can be found in mining nodes again. The drop rate of blue gems from mining nodes remains unchanged.
Tailoring
Removed the cooldown from regular Mooncloth.
Herb bags can now hold Un'goro Soil and Evergreen Pouches.
Mycah of Sporeggar has discovered how to create 28 slot herb bags.
New Tailoring patterns are available from Haughty Modiste in Steamwheedle Port, Tanaris: Haliscan Jacket and Haliscan Pantaloons.

Quests
Bhag'thera now spawns at a normal quest spawn rate.
For the quests, Intercepting the Mana Cells and Maintaining the Sunwell Portal, phased characters will not be able to see non-phased character AoE effects and vice-versa.
For the quests, Intercepting the Mana Cells and Maintaining the Sunwell Portal, pets gaining/losing phase status will now properly break off combat from unphased/phased opponents.

Dungeons and Raids
Players can now be summoned to raid instances from heroic dungeons.
Magister's Terrace
The Stun component to the Sunblade Mage Guard Glaive Throw has been removed and the Bounce range reduced.
Vexallus and Kael'thas are now tauntable in Heroic mode.
Vexallus' damage caused by Pure Energy has been decreased.
Kael'thas' Arcane Sphere has had its visual size increased. His Arcane Sphere attack has had its range decreased and the damage/second of Phase two on Normal mode has been decreased. (Heroic mode remains unchanged.)
Sunblade Warlocks have had their damage reduced slightly.
Fel Crystals in the Selin Fireheart encounter have had their health reduced slightly.
Warlord Salaris and Kagani Nightstrike have had their damage output reduced slightly.
Sunwell Plateau
Creatures in the area around Grand Warlock Alythess and Lady Sacrolash will no longer spawn while the twins are in combat.
Nether Protection will now correctly trigger from Kil'jaeden's Shield Orb Shadow Bolts.
Vanish now correctly wipes threat on Kil'jaeden.

Items
Bow of the Verdant Keeper's Aim: This item's triggered effect no longer breaks the effect of Scatter Shot.
Brutal Gladiator's Pummeler has had its Stamina value increased to the appropriate value.
Clockwork Robot Bots fight amongst themselves again...without attacking people in the arena. Well... they'll blow up other Bots in the arena, but you know what we mean.
The Eredar Twins will now award the same items regardless of which order they are killed in.
Invisibility Potions: These potions now are on the same cooldown as other combat consumable potions (such as mana potions.)
Pendant of the Violet Eye: This item will again work correctly with Holy Light and Flash of Light.
Shattered Sun Pendant of Acumen: The triggered effect from this Item can now occur on periodic damage ticks.
Thori'dal, the Star's Fury is now Unique as intended.
Vengeful Gladiator's Baton of Light: This item now appears in the correct position on the vendor list

Reliquary of Souls

This fight took us as much time as Kael I think. One night last reset giving it a few tries after downing Bloodboil. More than half of Sunday night after Bloodboil again, and about 3 hours last night before finally downing him. We found a better strategy for Phase one last night so for the most part it went very smooth. Took us a few goes to get the interrupting down in Phase 2. Thats just so critical. One missed interrupt dazes the tank, which results in one or two melee getting killed, which is trouble as they are the interrupters, just making the whole fight spiral out of control. Got him to phase 3 probably half a dozen times, getting better every time. 405 wipe, then %20%, then 6%, 2%, 1% til we finally took him down.
Really fun fight, very challenging, and people really need to be on the ball.

Now we are up against the Shadow Resist roadblock. We only have 14 people with enough gear atm. So its farm , farm, farm for us.

Picked up Fists of Mukoa this week, and bought Anelista's Revenge a week or so ago. Still need upgrades for boots and bracers. Midnight Chestguard off of Archie would be pretty nice as well. The Bracers will drop from Rage or Teron sooner or later. Actually the ones did drop off of Gorefiend, last week, but I'd just spent my DKP on the gloves. For boots I'd like the Shadowmster's Boots off of Mother Shahraz, but that's probably a month before we get to that fight, so I'll likely either get the badge boots or hope for Gorefiend to drop his boots.

Another one bites the dust

Last night was back to the Black Temple. It took us a few tries, but we managed to down Gurtogg Bloodboil. Thats a pretty fun fight. I got Fel Raged twice in one attempt. First time I was at half health and died. The second time after Ahnking I was at full health and lived. I even equipped my shiny new tanking shield Dawnforged Defender

So from there we moved on to Reliquary of Soul. We had issues with this fight. The big one was on phase 2 interrupting the spirit shock. We weren't getting the first one, so the tank got disoriented and 2-3 of the melee group would get one shotted. So we still have some work ahead of us there. Just as well though, as we can't get any farther than RoS, for awhile. We don't have anywhere near enough Hearts of Darkness for our Shadow Resist gear yet. There aren't a lot of them to be had on Quel'dorei either. Only 2 guilds have even downed Ilidan. One on each faction, and the Horde guild only did it a month or so ago. We are 2nd in progression Horde side, so I think its up to us to farm the hearts ourselves.

Archimonde...DEAD!

So Friday night we took up where we left off in Hyjal. We one shotted. Anetheron, Kar'rogal, and Azgalor, which left us plenty of time to work on Archie. We were having issues with people dying for a bit, but finally on try 7 everything clicked. At about 40% I got the feeling that he was going down. People were avoiding the doomfires. Our dispellers were on the spot , no one was cratering, it was smooth as silk. Got him to 10% and it was beautiful. Everyone just unloaded and down he went.

That's Kael in one reset, Archie in the next for < Fire and Blood >. I was so proud of everyone.

So with Hyjal cleared we went back into Black Temple. One shots of Naj'entus, Supremus, and Shade of Akama followed. So it was on to a new progression boss. Teron Gorefiend. Its and extremely easy fight aside from one thing. The Shadowy Constructs. Being that is was almost everyone first time there, we had some issues with them. We were pretty close, getting him to 30% first try, but we kept getting to many constructs. Try five was a 2% wipe....argggg! Finally we got him down on try #7. So that's 2 new bosses this reset with us scheduled to go after Bloodboil tonight.