Faction Champs Down / 3.2.2 dropping

After wiping all night to the Faction Champions on 25 man Heroic Sunday night, we managed to take them down on our 3rd go Monday. I really felt that we had it, as we were making good progress as the night went on Sunday.

The difficulty of the fight really varies based on which comp you happen to draw. We had Disco Priest, Resto Druid, Resto Shaman, Ret Pally, Shadow Priest, Mage, Hunter, DK, Warrior, Rogue. We ended up burning down the Disco, Resto Shaman first then taking out the Dps one by one. Its a fight that if you can get the first couple down with out losing many people it gets so much easier.

We spent the next couple hours burning through 19 tries on Valkyr Twins. We died to balls to the face a lot. But getting people to see the fight and learn was good.

Patch 3.2.2 drops today. Updated Onyxia should be fun.
The following are the key changes for shaman

Shaman

•Cleansing Totem: No longer pulses instantly when dropped.
•Flame Shock: The duration of all ranks has been increased by 6 seconds.
•Lava Burst: This ability no longer ever consumes a Flame Shock debuff off of the target.

Elemental Combat

•Shamanism: Your Lightning Bolt and Chain Lightning spells gain an additional 3/6/9/12/15% and your Lava Burst gains an additional 4/8/12/16/20% of your bonus damage effects.

Enhancement

•Earthen Power: No longer causes Earthbind to pulse a persistent snare immunity aura. It does still remove snares from allies as an instant pulse, but there is no lingering immunity. Earthen Power now also brings Earth Shock’s melee attack speed reduction up to -15%/-20% (with 1 or 2 points in it, respectively).

A bit of a nerf to cleansing totem. A nice buff to Flame Shock. It looks like it should now go into our rotation. 3:1 ES/FS looks to be the ratio I think. I also need to keep an eye on EJ to see of the new Flame Shock glyph is a worthwhile addition. (Dots can crit)

The change to earthen power is a pvp change so I dont really care much.

Also if you are a Leatherworker like myself they are bringing back drums.

Leatherworking

•Added a recipe for Drums of Forgotten Kings. These drums increase all stats by 8% for all players in a raid. The effect of these drums is exclusive with Blessing of Kings.
•Added a recipe for Drums of the Wild. These drums grant a buff equal to the highest rank of Mark of the Wild (untalented) to all players in a raid. The effect of these drums is exclusive with Mark of the Wild.

Just a way to fill out some missing buffs.

They buffed the enahncement Totem to bring it in line with the other T9 relics

•Totem of Quaking Earth: Attack power value increased to 400.

and as I mentioned above they redid glyph of flame shock

•Glyph of Flame Shock: Redesigned. This glyph now makes Flame Shock periodic damage able to be critical strikes.

Should be a nice little buff, and might replace glyph of windfury.

finally the bug fixes

Shaman

•Grounding Totem will now properly protect against the Death Grip spell.
•Lava Burst can no longer deal critical damage to targets who are immune to critical strikes (due to, e.g. Roar of Sacrifice, Blessed Resilience).
•Lightning Shield: This spell will no longer set off some trinkets when it is cast.
•Stoneclaw Totem's pulses will no longer break stealth on nearby hostile units.
•Thunderstorm and Shamanistic Rage can no longer be used while Frozen, Cycloned, Sapped, or Incapacitated.

Trial of the Grand Crusader

Lord Jaraxus Down
I was very impressed with how well we did on this boss last night. It is an extremely fun and chaotic fight. Lots of fire to not stand in, Buffs to Purge, Tank killing spells to Wind Shear. Portals to nuke, Volcanos to kill. He also dropped, Cuirass of Cruel Intent I already had the normal version, but heroic is a pretty big upgrade, so now I have my first ilevel 258 drop.

We had enough time left for a handfull of pulls on Faction Champions. We need work there. :)

Trial of the Crusader

Well 5 weeks in and 5 new bosses down. Now Heroic is open and from what I've read its much harder. < Fire and Blood > did a full clear of normal mode last night. We one shotted the newest and final boss, Anub'Arak. I think that he's the easiest boss in there, at least on normal mode.

Heroic mode is going to be a bit of a struggle for us at first. Normal was so easy we could just brute force our way through it, so people don't really know what they are doing. They spread fire, stand in fare, don't run away from charges, and many more. A night or so of wiping on heroic will hopefully motive people.

It also seems like people are saving DKP for heroic drops. I won 3 items last night, the last two no one else even wanted. Northrend Beasts dropped Cloak of the Untamed Predator. I think its a great looking cloak (see above). Faction Champions then dropped Icewalker Treads None of the rogues wanted them and as they were better than my brass-lined boots I took them rather than seeing them get sharded. Finally Anub'Arak dropped Hellscream Slicer I had finally gotten Golden Saronite Dragon a week or so ago, so I need to do a bit a simming to see what weapon combo works best. I'm leaning to offhanding the new Axe along with GSD rather than main handing it with a Vulmir I'd get the expertise bonus with both weapons that way, a 2.7 speed MH and a large dps upgrade OH at the cost of a small MH dps downgrade.