Megaera's Slumber

Rest in peace you multi-headed beast of frost, bile, and flame. We downed her, er..it last night and we've been getting lots of Thunderforged gear. I won two pieces of Thunderforged in a single run. Unbelievable right?

We're taking a break this week but will promptly start attempts at kicking Ji-Kun's feathery ass. This should be made a bit easier with the VP upgrades coming back this week.

On the LFR side, I have been having horrible "luck", but then again I think I've filled almost every slot from doing regular raiding. Well I'll be damned.

I also found that one thing I haven't been talking much about is what spurred this blog to begin with: raiding as a warlock.

Over the past couple of years a lot of great resource sites with beautiful graphics and layouts and accurate info popped up and I just didn't feel the need to talk about encounters or mechanics as they pretty much lay everything out. What I can still do is humanize the experience as I have been attempting to do with my LFR guides. What you will see and what to expect.

I am by no means a "good" player, as only those in the top 10 guilds in the world qualify for this prestige. Most of us are just "average".

On Demonology

Ah my once favourite and exclusive spec. I went Demo for one of our Megaera pulls and I actually managed to pull the same numbers as if I were destro. I find this amusing since the last time I was Demo seriously was waaaay back in early Cata.

There's just a few points about the spec that just doesn't "feel" right.

I know I have mentioned this many many times before but I found that I enjoy seeing a small amount of large numbers, rather than a large amount of small numbers. It makes internal mental calculations that much easier. For example, I know my Shadowburn hits on average for 250k and crits anywhere from 400k to 650k. If I havoc this, I can then forecast the amount of damage I will do, or can do. It's easy, two numbers.

Now with Demo or even Affliction, how am I supposed to calculate all my potential dot ticks/crits and also my demon damage? It's not efficient, and in turn it becomes not fun (I'm weird right?)

With Demo, rather than bursting high numbers, it's a steady stream of medium numbers.

Then there's the "Demon" aspect. Metamorphosis is great with the new mechanic, depending on how many fury resources you have generating, you may be able to stay in demon form for a very long time. The only thing is...Touch of Chaos doesn't look very interesting.

I've always been compelled at becoming very adept at the demonic fury dancing and juggling, managing my dots while juggling Meta uptime while my Dark Soul is on cooldown, but Touch of Chaos, while being an instant cast spell is just...boring.

What am I doing? Throwing a shadowy yo-yo at the enemy? How about changing the animation to a black/green shadowy chain lightning type animation. Something more malefic. Something with more oomph.

Visual feedback is a very important component to game design and where some spells lack any effect (think lightning bolt for shamans, which looks like a weak limp ribbon), some are pretty awesome (think chain lightning, where each crackle and impact is felt, or chaos bolt).

This has actually been bugging me since Beta and deserves a separate section that I just must get out of my system once and for all.

What's Wrong with Touch of Chaos

Ok, so the current animation for Touch of Chaos...it is like a purple beam that lashes from you to the opponent. Well, it kind of bounces. Well, it just sort of returns to you. Where's the impact? What am I touching? (Their no-no parts obviously)

Am I draining something from them? It doesn't look very drain-y. Why does it come back? Is it a lash? A whip? Whips crack, with great impact and I don't see a crack (except in their no-no parts). Why is there no sound? This is my great cooldown, and within this cooldown we are....spamming this weird purple yo-yo?

What I expect is something along the lines of the elemental shaman. I actually have a secret level 90 elemental shaman I never talk about. He is only whispered about.

Anyways, think of an elemental shaman's "Ascendance" cooldown. You turn into an elemental and you get to spam Lava Burst. Ok so what? Well, Lava Burst has a really awesome visual. It's a giant surge of lava that always crits, and with its clever animation, it looks like it slowly (for a fraction of a second) surges out of you then propels forward at great speed.

Now let's look at Touch of Chaos. You just spam it until your fury bar disappears and you are left feeling empty, disappointed. You are subconsciously discouraged from even wanting to enter Meta, since you know your core ability is kind of boring. (This also applies to the shaman's new lightning bolt, you know...the limp ribbon).

There could be many ways to improve this simple skill. Perhaps give it a demonic slash animation that tears at the enemy with a glowing purple cross, with a simple slashing sound, or maybe a fel whip, or perhaps a dark pulse of demonic energy. Something impactful.

I've travelled the entirety of Azeroth, and solicited many groups for "Felguard Transmog" to equip my Blagroon with beautiful 2-hander weapons, but perhaps this visual enhancement has been eclipse by a far greater one; of how Touch of Chaos looks sucky.

So there you go. How would you redesign Touch of Chaos?

And Peace Out!

Truny the Touching No No Bits

Deadly Cycle of LFR

Evening!

I made a realization last night after coming out of another LFR set empty-handed: There is actually nothing left "to do" but LFR for end-game. And we just have to accept that this is what we have for "content".

Ok wait, we do raid. But other than raiding, there's nothing else but LFR. This actually makes sense. Otherwise, there's really nothing left "to do" but log in for raiding.

So I've taken a look at what I call the Deadly Cycle (of content consumption) and applied it out to LFR. We view LFR as a waste of time, a time sink to keep us playing. The devs see it as supplemental entertainment, keep the masses satiated because they hunger for content.

Ok let's use a concrete example: The Wrathion Legendary quest chain.

Unless you are in a top guild, I am going to bet that you've maximized your LFR use to first finish off your RNG based sigils, then used LFR for the Sha, and LFR for secrets, and also runestones. I sure have, as our group is probably looking at our first Megaera kill this week and aren't even close to the 3rd wing yet.

So how do the players react to feeling "forced" into LFR to do stuff? How many times have you personally said to yourself "Just let X drop, or let X quest be finished so I never have to do this again".

This is quite distressing for developers, I understand. Whoa, so they just want everything immediately and will completely stop doing whatever it is we gave them and want more? Timing and cost constraints anyone?

Players: Why are you forcing me into redundant LFR with a bunch of not-so optimal players where I am rewarded with nothing for my efforts? Rewarding based on luck is bull-shit, that afk paladin won his full tier whereas all I got was gold and I was top dps for every fight! Those like me should be rewarded for additional effort and never have to do this again! The only other way to progress is just to do this bull-shit all over again next week cause of the crappy drop rates.

Devs: So we design you this raid and you only want to do it once ever?

Players: Yes. Give me all my sigils, secrets, runestones on the get-go. 100% drop rate.

Devs: Then what are you going to do? Go back to your farm in the valley?

Players: Uh...no?

Devs: It's RNG, try again next week.

Players: But LFR is not even enjoyable. I end up doing 12% of the damage or 35% of the total heals every week and get rewarded with what? Gold.

Devs: The system doesn't care how much you contributed, you are just an over-achiever. Go afk or hold back, then you won't feel so entitled.

Players: Ahh I see...

And thus, this player now just auto-follows the tank during trash and puts in minimal effort on boss fights, which triggers the decline of overall LFR quality, as if it could get any lower. And to finish off the cycle, once they are done, they find they actually have nothing to do, level and ALT and complain about the same thing all over again.

Conclusion:

Despite how you were raised, this is what I have taught myself, that you will not be rewarded for performance in LFR. Or WILL WE? (Dramatic to be continued)

Truny the Underperformer

May Update

Oh hello,

I'd just like to say that my middle exam for my accounting program has finally passed! This means that I am FREE until mid-September! And thus, I shall promise that henceforth all my posts (except this one) will be accompanied with pictures! (This probably means I won't make anymore posts cause I'm still lazy).

Anyways. We've been downing Tortos consistently and are once again "working" on Megara, trying to get our heads in order. Otherwise, despite only having downed FOUR measley bosses apparently we're still 39th on the server? That's...kinda weird and scary and re-assuring. I mean, we only really get in 4.5 effective hours of raiding per week. That's just...interesting.

Well, I don't have much to say except ..oh! can I bitch about RNG raid drops?

Alright.

So last week I was left with 19/20 secrets of the empire. So shitty. I do all my LFRs early in the week so by the time we raid on Sunday and Monday I really have very little incentive to do anything except rack up my kill counts on regular. I'm usually VP capped, have nothing to spend VP on and oh nevermind.

So this week I managed to get my last secret on Horridon and got the hell out of that LFR, vowing to never do LFR on my warlock ever again.

Guess what Wrathion wants me to do next?

That's right. Get random drops off the last six bosses. Well, since we're not there yet on regular, this is a task for LFR. Now, if the legendary chain won't begin again until 5.4, I technically have all of 5.3 to finish this. Maybe we'll be working on the last half by then and I won't have to use LFR. But then again I'd like to get this out of the way and NOT do LFR. Bah!

The 3rd part is easy enough, as long as 10 people are alive you can carry the dead folk through Durumu but trying to get a FRESH queue for the 4th wing is near impossible. There's just no time. And Lei Shen's drops suck! Why? Why are you sending us back into LFR when it's quite obvious that not a lot of ...oh wait.

Then in due time will we finish this. Honestly we've been over-geared for the first few wings probably since launch. We don't really need upgrades, right? Do I, as a destro warlock really need a mini bloodlust that sometimes brings my incinerate down to a 0.70 second cast time? That's just silly.

Anyways, more pictures! I need to put up a guide on Serving Souls.

Truny the Soul Server

Tree With a Buzzsaw

 Many weeks ago when the first Throne of Thunder LFR was released, I was very excited to find out that the Zandalari Council would drop a healing weapon in the form of a fist weapon!

I used to run around on Turny, exploring old dungeons and collected a myriad of strange and wonderful weapons in which I would equip randomly to heal heroics back in Wrath. Transmogging before it was cool. Having picked up my druid once again, I managed to win this said fist weapon and immediately opened up my Mogit to find some cool transmogs. One of the most easily obtainable fist weapon was [Calamity's Grasp], which drops off 25M Kel'thuzad. A spinning buzz-saw...as a healer, and a tree? AWESOME! I am not going to be running Nightbane in Karazhan for a nice flamethrower offhand!

Weekly Progression

This week's progression update actually has progression within it! We downed Tortos! We put in several attempts last week at the end of raid and our healers just kept dying. Having re-thought our bat acquisition methods and allocated our turtle kicking appropriately, we finally downed this turtle-a-hole and I can reasonably say that we can do this again fairly easily.

In retrospect, I think next week I can manage my embers a bit better, perhaps saving one to F&B an immolate on all the bats, and also to keep my uptime of ROF on them a bit higher. But...I'll worry about that this weekend.

EAT CRAP TORTOS!

Random Notes

Now that the entire set of TOT LFR is out, I find that I don't have enough time to do them all on two characters. I am now picking and choosing which has the prettiest upgrades, then weighed based on which wing is the easiest.

Last week it took about six or seven queues of trying for the Pinnacle of Storms just to get into FRESH queue. I somehow managed to maintain top heals, EVEN when I was exclusively the one going in connecting the star-dots for the celestials. WTF?

It's an odd feeling not doing everything for once. My warlock did not even touch the 4th wing. Time and time again I'd get into a failed Lei Shen run. Seriously who wipes to Lei Shen LFR more than 5 times? What mechanic is still not getting through or not being communicated it boggles my mind.

Anyways. Missed out on some rep and possible Secrets of the Empire, but then again I do not yet have a qualifying helm (still using a 483 of all things) to put the new shiny meta in anyways.

The sucky part is, Iron Qon and Twin Consorts are so easy, coupled by the fact that they drop the two more awesome tier pieces, shoulder and helm. For druids, this helm is the only model and I believe is not imitated by any other off-set.

I believe the phenomenon happening now is that once Twin Consorts dies, HALF the raid is "peace out", because we sure did when we finally managed to get into a fresh queue.

Frustrating indeed, perhaps this will get better in the next couple of weeks. STOP QUEUING US TO LEI SHEN! And let's end off with a cool picture!



Turny the Buzzsaw Healer

MoP LFR Tips: Throne of Thunder - Lei Shen

Oh hello!

The fourth and final quarter of the Throne of Thunder has been released in LFR as of yesterday and I am sure many people have questions or want to have a quick brief understanding of the Lei Shen fight in order to facilitate a smooth kill.

I am skipping over Iron Qon and Twin Consorts momentarily as they are fairly insignificant. Let's get straight to Lei Shen.

Lei Shen

Organization
First off, you will want to assign your raid to cover the four different quadrants of the platform. I'll tell you why later. Mark each corner and split people up making sure there's at least one healer in each group. Also make sure people are paying attention and make sure they know what group they are in.

Lei Shen's general mechanic throughout the first phase is that he needs to be tanked near one of the four lightning conduits around the room. By doing this, he will charge the conduit instead of doing an AOE to everyone in the raid.

Dangerous Ability: Occasionally Lei Shen casts Thunderstruck, denoted by a bright blue lightning circle on the ground. Get out of this circle!


Tanks: I believe you taunt off each other after each "Decapitate".


Overall Strategy
The Lei Shen fight boils down to handling each mechanic at each different conduit located on each corner of the platform, and also splitting up into groups to handle ALL of those mechanics at once in each corner. Now I will explain what to do at each conduit:

You will probably tank him starting at the north conduit, and once this conduit is charged once, you will move to the east, then south, then west and so on. As he is moving he will do his AOE since he is not near a conduit, but it won't last long as long as tanks move quickly. Heal through it.


The Conduits
Each conduit, which will be denoted by the cardinal points of the compass, N, E, S, W, each have a different mechanic tied to them when Lei Shen is near them.


North: If you get targeted by an arrow, stack with everyone as this will do HUGE damage that needs to be split.

East: Spread out, as he casts a chain lightning that spawns adds when anyone gets hit. Kill the adds ASAP.

South: Someone will get targeted by a lightning ring that will explode after 3 seconds, stunning anyone caught in it. As a healer I found this platform to be moot as there are no adds. Or perhaps it was because I was healing it.

West: Occasionally you will see pale blue circley pools on the ground. STAND IN THEM to soak lightning balls. If you do not, an add shows up and adds a lot of unnecessary damage. Don't confuse these with Thunderstruck, which is really bright.

Hopefully by the time you've seen all the conduits he's at 65%....

Phase 2: Once Lei Shen hits 65% and 30% he will teleport to the middle of the room and this is where the assigned groups go to their assigned corners. You will need to handle the stun, kill adds, and soak damage all at once in your smaller groups. Once this phase ends, kill off any additional adds and continue to kill the boss. Most importantly, someone will get targeted by the north conduit ability and must split this damage between the group.

Post Phase 2 & Phase 3: After the Lei Shen teleports to the middle (65%) he will gain lightning whip, which is a huge cone to dodge, which leaves lightning streaks on the ground. You can jump over these streaks. And after the 30% phase he gains a wind ability which is moot. Keep moving to stay on the platform, continue to mind the mechanics in phase 1 and dodge his whip.

Additional Info (Probably not necessary for LFR purposes):

One of the conduits in the room will become inactive if they have the highest charge during the two intermission phases, I believe no adds/mechanics happen in that quadrant and you only have to deal with 3. Also, each conduit gains power the more you charge them. For example, the northern conduit will begin to target additional players, requiring smaller groups to stack up to split damage.

That should cover the brunt of the fight hopefully I did not miss anything but I must go eat lunch now, goodbye and have fun.

Turny the Helpful Tree