Monday, November 30, 2009

Rotations, Routine

Do you have a dps toon at max level? Do they have some sort of casting rotation? Thought so.

It gets boring after a while, regardless of the encounter. Despite being physically on a pixel level, in a different location, your button presses remain more or less the same.

Random gripes thats all, maybe I should PVP if I wanted some element of change. Or danger.

I liked levelling up from ground 0. Our spells and abilities are limited and our talents are premature, which allows us to sometimes just randomly attack mobs.

Think back to level 1. You're a warlock. You'd cast shadowbolt then realize spamming it would waste your mana so what do you do? Yeah! Stabbity stab that wolf down!

Soon you gain curses, you can throw curses all over the place, or you can curse and stab, or curse and shadowbolt, optimalistic thoughts out the window.

Enjoy it while it lasts because pretty soon the basic concept comes into play for ALL classes (I think).

1. Make sure your dots are on the target. (Curse, Corruption, Serpent Sting, Death Knight Diseases, Feral Bleeds) See the pattern. Keep them up.

2. Use your one short cooldown ability which boosts your other abilities (Immolate, Mangle, Black Arrow, Keep Blood Runes Busy, etc). Keep them up whenever possible.

3. Fill with your nukes and watch for procs (ok this one is exceptional since its a given), spend your resources wisely while waiting to refill # 1 and 2.

4. Blow Cooldowns, if you have any.

5. Dance.

Sure, we adapt to what's most optimal for what we have but....there isn't much extraneous adapting to do which changes our rotations dramatically like "omg I can only cast Searing Pain cause we have to use only our highest threat abilities".

Even when running around in highly mobile fights we find ourselves trying to stick to our rotations.

But then again I don't see why we wouldn't use our most optimal cast priority...sigh the less you know...

See, that odd person in the group may be doing 800 dps but perhaps....just perhaps they are having the time of their lives being untalented, unglyphed, and autoattacking!

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Rasengan!


Good old Turny and Leshief wreaking some havoc in Zul'Farrak today; Naruto Style!

Friday, November 27, 2009

Warlock Levelling

I did it. I couldn't resist it. I couldn't help it. I made a warlock. Another one. Another Warlock to join my Druid on this new server.

Druny the Human Warlock. Notice her posture, it is perfect. Druny was Truny's former self before she was slaughtered at Lordaeron. Creepy.

*BAM* Level one, let's do these starter zone quests!

Since Shadowbolt is such a mana waste, I would cast one on the wolves and dagger them to death.

No worries, come level 2 we get Corruption! Or is it 3? Whatever. Also, a quest to get our imp!

NOW levelling is no worries.

Druids level really slow. I still find it slow at level 21.

Warlocks are crazy.

Essentially I cast corruption on five or six mobs, and have my imp take on one whilst I happily dagger the rest away.

Usually my imp downs his mob faster than me and proceeds to help me at my target where I then switch to my next target.

Rinse and repeat, BAM BAM BAM level 6!

Corruption is your best friend, that is until you get Curse of Agony, which can help you kill ANOTHER two mobs at a time. For the mana cost it does the most damage compared to Shadowbolt and Immolate.

I left a starter mage bewildered as I downed an entire Kobold colony and just walked away like nothing happened.

I also really missed playing a Warlock!! Sorry druid, looks like the cycle is going to repeat itself, the Warlock will be financing your levelling. Don't worry. It's tried and true.

Druny the Truny Living

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Druid Levelling

Yes good old Turny is almost level 20, sitting at 87%. Something the accrued rested exp for today should fix, granting our famous druid Kitteh Form!

But wait isn't Turny level 80? Hasn't he been level 80 for months?

Ahh yes I have another Turny. On a PVP Server. A druid of course as my main.

Boy do these guys level slow for the first few levels. Bear form is not as sturdy as it seems once you've experienced the actual potential of Teddy Bearing.

Catform with its movement buff will do the trick. And...it's like a rogue! I can go harass people with kitten stealth (in my level range!)

It is funny, starting out with (almost) nothing. I did make a DK on the same server just to supplement any gold which I need...which I have to admit is not enough for my toons rampant spending habits.

See back at home in Turaylon...I had seven maxed professions between my characters at our disposal and enough gold to...well...enough gold.

Now, without the ability to send gold and frostweave bags like it was free to all my newly minted toons I am actually counting my silvers. We are back to the days when TEN gold was a LOT of money! I am upgrading gear every second opportunity (4 levels, which sucks!!).

Turny also picked up two Production professions. Enchanting (which is going great from dungeons dropping greens like mad), and Jewelcrafting, which is going slow as I save up money to buy the materials. (Even though secretly my DK is a mining slave just in case).

Turny is also levelling in the Alliance starting areas so world PVP is pretty quiet it seems, though there are some people who just LOVE to one-shot lowbies over and over again!

What does this prove? Yes it proves that on a PVP server, and that it would be entertaining to see someone perish at one tick of your dot or auto-attack but...why? That's first degree murder. Now, would you have done the same thing if I was also at level 80? A more difficult target? An unkillable heal-through-anything resto druid? That day is yet to come. Sure I had no business in that area but it was on the way to a dungeon and the flight path would have been nice for future travel. I'll die, res, dance a bit, die, res, dance a bit, die, and nudging my corpse ever so slightly over each time...RUN LIKE THE WIND!

And seriously, one shotting is boring. I like to mess with my target's mind for extra annoyance. This is my inner warlock speaking, whom is sitting at level 1 waiting...I guess I'm just passive when on my druid. Tank and heals. No killing. Protect the innocent.

Ahem anyways....a warlock would Fear people into things. Cast a low level dot that brings people to the verge of death. Cast some useless curses like tongues or weakness. Send in your weakling pet to tickle them. Lure out their mains. Then cast conflagrate...and win!

Or be an Ambush rogue. That stuff is crazy. From what I see in the 50-60 range you can one shot almost all non-plate wearers and disarm any plate users and bleed them to death it is quite entertaining. Vanish, and jumping around like a crazy is your best friend! Off topic. Alterac Valley is EVEN more fun with an exp stream!!

If I were to intentionally kill someone minding their own business with my druid...I would be in tree form. That auto-attack can crit for 700 on heroic mobs dammit!

Someone at or near my own level. Sure why not I can pretty much defend myself if you can't one shot me. Or if I can't hit you. Ever. Wait that sounds like Subtlety Ambushing hehehe

No, must level Druid before Rogue must level Druid before Rogue. Tank and Heals. Mm. Functional before fun. Yes. Ok.

KBAI

Friday, November 20, 2009

Nooby Beginnings

I logged into my Warlock last week and saw a mysterious letter from a friend who said they had changed realms and my first thought was "I wonder who it is", since once they leave your realm, the Sender of the Letter becomes "unknown".

It didn't take long as only one person would contact me about this stuff so I decided to go see how he was doing in his new realm, a PVP one *dun dun dun*

I made a Rogue and named it after my Warlock because my original Rogue name of Runy had been taken already (WTF).

I also made a Druid, named appropriately for my current Druid: Turny.

They are both Night Elves.

Now, levelling as a complete lowbie with no resources and having no idea where I am (my friend is on the Alliance side as we used to be Horde) is quite frustrating!

It shouldn't be frustrating but since I've already had a taste of the end-game, being low levelled is not pleasant at all.

I mean, why can I not take on six or seven mobs of my equal level as a rogue? I was fighting two mobs and thought...oh I can do this but all of a sudden "splat".

WHAT THE HELL where's my dodge??

Oh right, my WHITE gear has no stats boosts...and I'm actually level 5 whilst the two that were beating on me were level 8.

Now that I think back...how did I ever level my druid to 20??

Oh yes, I left him abandoned for months whilst logging in once in a while...slowly inching his exp up.

Right, and each newbie gets an allowance of 1000 gold to upgrade themselves at every possible moment at each level up.

Bad habits.

Yes, having a mana using class at low levels is a pain, running out of mana after three pulls and having to sit and drink for about six to seven minutes every other two minutes is not very productive! I'm impatient, sue me.

On a good note I have accumulated a total of (WOOT) 30 SILVER between my two toons!!

I had been dutifully keeping Gray Items in my two small bags and selling everything at every chance I get and I am hoping once the professions start working up then these humble beginnings shall end.

Through careful stealthing and actually being on even grounds with mobs, I got Truny the Rogue (o,O) to level 10 and joined my first Battleground: Warsong Gulch. I was useless. Everyone in there was level 19 and RED and could see through stealth and HURT. It wasn't like the free exp in AV since I could do nothing to contribute to our achievements so I left and I guess I shall wait HAHA!

I could. I could bring one of my level 80s over, I guess the ones with the most emblems and 10k gold and start a legacy but that's...cheating...let's do this the right way.

Friday, November 13, 2009

Druid T9 Restoration Set Bonuses

The restoration set grants us the following bonuses:

2 Piece: Increases the critical strike chance of Nourish by 5%.

5% is 5%, it is nice to have an increase in ANYTHING but I do not use any of my heals in hopes of them critting. I use Nourish where I know the person is out of consistent damage and may need padding hence Nourish does the trick quickly.

If they do get supplemental damage and may continue to do so then Regrowth is my choice there. (DUHH)

4 Piece: Rejuvenation has a chance for its healing to be critical strikes.

Seriously? In terms of consistent healing I actually do not rely on Rejuvenation regardless of how hard each tick hits, to be padding damage. It acts as a fine soaker, but we have Lifebloom. Lifebloom ticks every second and you can control how much extra padding you need between Rejuvenation ticks. Sure lifebloom is costly but when do we EVER run out of Mana? The only time my mana ran low was when the entire raid seemed to be taking damage and I was throwing Lifebloom on EVERYONE. There is also Wild Growth which by itself is pretty useful and of course if another person is taking damage, the more the better!

Anyways, the critical strike chance of Rejuvenation will come useful to mitigate a LITTLE BIT of health that Swiftmend may not completely cover. Usually it is at this point where Swiftmend is needed that you appreciate the strength of Rejuv, and if it were to crit here then it is quite useful. You know those times where a swiftmend gets absorbed and you resort to Nourish/Regrowth. You know?

However, I find (anything) over-times that can CRIT to be incredibly awesome such as when I found out that my kitty bleeds could crit, it felt nice just to have numbers jumping out at you for no goddamn reason so free big green numbers jumping out at you is for me fairly appealing.

As of now I am half-a-week to a week shy of Trimph emblems to acquire three additional T9 pieces. I have one set-piece equipped and have enough emblems to buy three more but don't feel the need for SO MUCH UPGRADING so I am trying to save until I get the entire set bonus.

If only our faster ticking HoTs such as Lifebloom or Wildgrowth could crit...THEN...../drool

Turny the Restless Tree

Bankai! New Cooldowns

"Blow those cooldowns we're finishing this"

Truny: Err...I'm a destruction warlock...I don't have any cooldowns...

Turby: Umm....I guess Rapid Fire is a cooldown...it won't help THAT much but okay....

Turny: Uhh...the damage is fine so I don't need to blow any healing cooldown aka Tranquility and I will save Nature's Swiftness thank you very much.

ANYTHING WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE??

HOW DO WE HELP OUR FRIENDS PEW PEW MOAR?

Yes, by implementing all new cooldowns for our favourite classes and when I say our I mean MINE.

Hunter: Atomic Shot (Rank 1)
15 minute cooldown.

For 20 seconds, all of the hunter's shots become Atomic Shots dealing 5,352-7,512 fire damage every second for four seconds to all enemies in a 15 yard radius. The explosive charges stack independently so you don't have to do the shoot and wait like Lock'n Load.

There fixed.

Warlock: Cataclysm (Rank 1)
15 minute cooldown.

For 20 seconds, your threat is reduced by 90%, all stats are increased by 100%, haste, and critical chance is increased by 100% and critical bonus damage is increased by 100% and your Conflagrate spell now deals damage based on every negative debuff on the mob.

Ok good!

Druid: Life Sear Presence(Rank 1)
10 minute cooldown.

For 30 seconds, for every point of damage that you heal on your allies, 100% of the health healed (including overheal) damages the target of your ally.

Think about it, pop this cooldown throw your hots on everyone and start channeling Tranquility.

MUCH better.

Turny the DPS Tree

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Healing Trial of the Crusader

This week has been a raiding week for Turny. Yes the one who says he doesn't raid is now inadvertantly saved to five raid instances.


The nublets ones of course.


First off there was Onyxia 25, I run this on all my toons once the opportunity comes but Turny takes precedence. And of course once we murder this poor dragon, ten of us decide to stay behind wait for her to resurrect and murder her again.


Two down.


Vaults of Archavon.


Nothing really interesting here save for the lottery-like feel of the bosses, run it whenever it is up. Healing this place is just lolwildgrowthatflamecircle. I never take for granted a Druid's healing mobility.


And again, ten of us will stay behind and murder the bosses a second time.

Four down.


Badges of Triumph. I have no more use of Conquest badges amazingly, save to buy gems or BOA gear. Interesting.


Now this is usually what I run, the easy peasy stuff and maybe some random incomplete Naxx's sprinkled in for fun.


However after one of our Onyxia 25's and 10's, some of our group was like "Let's do TOC 10" and my first thought was "oh like ...with me as heals? HAHA never been!"


But everyone was quite accomodating and ensured some of us who have never been in there that "don't worry its easy that place is cake".


Still, I quickly tabbed out and wiki'd up Trial of the Champion and was trying read as fast as possible all of the boss strategies. I had read up on them a LONG time ago and the only one I really remember was Gormok the Impaler T_T

And actually...the raid was kind of easy. For a healer anyways. For a tree anyways.


First Boss: Gormok the Impaler


Who caught him to begin with anyways? Why are we killing him?


He stacks debuffs on the tank and APPARENTLY kobolds are supposed to spawn and attack people however I never got attacked. Nor did any fire spawn under my feet (it hasn't been spawning on me for a LONG time, having run VOA on three toons...hmm...)


When the tanks switch...err...heal the other tank and spam hots on the rest of the party who are wrestling Kobolds off their faces.


Ok..


Second Boss: Giant Jormungars (Spellcheck)


Two worms that have poison, if you have a paralysing poison get cleansed by someone with a fire poison, make sure to also be healing said fire-poisoned person and....that's it. Again, for a tree anyways.


Right..


Third Boss: Icehowl


A giant Yeti which is more or less a tank and spank except when he knocks everyone back to the wall and will charge and one shot you. However at that time everyone has a movement speed debuff and should probably just be running around in circles to avoid him.


I failed to do that. I got stuck in the crook of the doorway and sometimes my camera likes to completely FLIP itself so by the time I realized he chose me as the target I went splat.

(Like that time some idiotic paladin bubble taunted Emalon and as he changed his aggro to me just as I reached the instance exit my camera flips itself and I charge right into him..)


He went down anyways.


Riiiight. So next time, RUN and maybe pre-set the Camera somehow.


Fourth Boss: Lord Jarraxxus (Spelling)


AMG DEMONZ. The soul of my inner warlock burned with an envious frenzy as I saw that little gnome summon a Demon of Awesomeness out of a Portal of Awesomeness!


He has a debuff that absorbs healing (30k) and if not healed through apparently will explode and damage everyone. We managed to get rid of it everytime. He also has portals which summon other demons and those should be picked up.


And apparently there is another fire type debuff that whereever you run around it leaves patches of fire on the ground and once you realize this is similar to the Grobbulus fight then its pretty much GTF away from everyone and heal yourself.


Otherwise with the fires, easy peasy.

And I think one of the succubi that spawned did a WRESTLING MOVE on me o_O

Fifth Boss: Faction Champions


WTF? Those allies look...funky. The only class I could distinguish was the Restoration Druid because it was in tree form.


PVP? I know how to decimate people with a hunter or a warlock in a PVP situation and as a Resto Druid...I just heal through the damage of five of six people until they got bored...and this fight was...annoying.


It wasn't even a fight per se. I was cleansing curses, healing people lightly, barkskinning, had to use cyclone once though to no avail and...by the time it was all over it didn't really feel ....right. Not exactly challenging but just ..a big mess of people running around.


I guess it'll be different when I regain access to Shadowcrash!

Still, waste of a boss fight but easy gear which fits with the theme of this current patch so I'm not complaining.


Sixth Boss: Vrykul Twins


I almost typed Vrykul Twinks (hahahaa *cough*...) ok ok. So this fight I had read and glanced bits and pieces of info on other blogs and what-not but I really had no idea what the hell was going on as it was probably around 3 a.m. when we reached them since this was a late run and my brain was just like "WTFBBQ?"


So apparently most of the information did not apply to me. It was DPS and tanks who had certain debuffs could utilize buffz to do what they do best but as a healer it didn't really matter...sort of.


When the battle starts we did the "two groups on two colours" things and I clicked the first portal I saw: Dark Portal.


As a Druid healer, it didn't really matter what color I started with as long as I :


a) Dodged white balls (err..white orbs...err...white spheres)

b) Clicked to the colour of whatever Twin was Channelling

c) Kept everyone alive


..then everything was good. I didn't need to attack them, so I am assuming there are certain damage buffs. And once again, MOBILITY was awesome. I was jumping around dodging balls and grabbing balls (err..) and just...being a Druid!

And I had to reconfirm that if I had a dark aura up that I would not damage people with light aura cause...yes I prance around!


Final Boss: Anub'arak (Ice Style)


Styling a new skin, Anub'arak was easier than I thought.

He has a frost type DOT that is easily offset by a rejuv and some lifeblooms, the adds should be killed off and run away from his spikes while not trailing it into your party members. Basic stuff.

Until the third phase.

In his third phase, he does a super style Leeching Swarm which damages the entire raid ticking for a minimum of 250 hp per second and it heals him for the amount it damages.

So it is best to keep everyone except the tank at fairly low health.

But actually, this was pretty simple: Wildgrowthlol, lifebloomlol, rejuvlol, go watch a movie, bake some pastries, wildgrowthlol.

I wonder, how do Paladins heal this place? Their heals recover like 353k HP per hit...do you just use a level 1 flash of light?

Constant damage offset by constant heals gotta love it.

So there we have it, easy peasy 15 emblems of Triumph...I wonder how the 25 man version then the heroic 10 man version and the heroic 25 man version is like ...so many versions.

I have enough emblems to buy two more pieces of ghetto ilvl 232 T9 but....why do I need it?

Turny the Restless Tree

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Fail Pally

I got home real late last night but decided that there was still time to run the daily on my Druid as being a healer/tank makes finding groups VERY easy.

Luckily, both of the Emblem-Rain dailies was Heroic Culling of Stratholme yay I love that instance save for the drama and insanely long dialogue!

As no one needed a healer I started up my own group and off we went!

Our group consisted of a Warrior Tank, who I reassured that even though I was healing while equipping my skinning knife, that I would skin our foes alive!

Two mages and a paladin.

Our Mr. Paladin was concerned if we would make the timed-run requirement and I said "DPS Hard?"

Come on, nowadays most people make it to the bonus boss with about 4 minutes left. (Though the fastest run I've seen was with 8 minutes left, jeez these new tier items make for some crazy AOE damage)

He then said "I don't know..we have two mages...."

Meaning what? Mages have bad DPS? I dont' think so. Meaning what? That his super awesome DPS was too good for mages?

It wasn't until about Wave 4 that I realized on my trusty little recount meter that the results thus far looked like this:

Warrior 1500
Mage 1600
Mage 1800
Paladin 700
Turny 60 (With a skinning knife! I RULE! AND Keeping you all alive! *Cough*)

What the-....I do what I do best and that is click into our Mr. Paladin's damage details.

I saw lots of exorcism, some righteous something, lots of consecrate (almost all consecrate)...err where was melee?

Oh there it is...9th most damaging factor was melee...and...they were hitting for 200?

Err..

Inspect.

He had on an ilvl 245 Breastplate, ilvl 245 Wrist, some H TOC gear, and an ilvl200 weapon.

That should warrant enough numbers to pull off 2400 dps. I know.

"I don't think we're making the timer" he says. No shit look at what you're (not) doing?

I observed him for the next pull and I saw some movement and ...having no knowledge of how Pally dps works I reset my recount and tried again.

Nope, still 700 dps.

Weird!

It wasn't until after the Spinny Boss in the Room that the tank said "stop sucking and going afk, I am not carrying someone through this" that was when I went "ahhh afking". I have seen this before back in the levelling days an overgeared Rogue joined us for Maraudon and was just autoattacking while afk for each pull......ugh.

We all stayed quiet and missed the last boss by a couple minutes no thanks to you know who because even if everyone averages just over 1400 to 1500 dps, we usually make the boss, that's how it is.

700? No, that is for Outlands.

Afterwards he seemed to have woken up and did contribute 1800 dps for Mal'ganis which is I guess okay right?

Maybe he was working up his weapon skill too who knows.

Or I hate to think this: Ebay?

Vault of Archavon Competency

VoA 25, free loot rain. I always get pugged to run this as I have mentioned before the only members of my guild are my friend and my own's alts.

ANYWAYS. I ran this a total of three times this weekend.

Run 1: Turny the Healer. This run went smoothly, everyone stayed out of fire for Koralon and I received a pair of godly boots. Yes.

Emalon was trouble. People began leaving when a premature pull of one of the exploding adds in front of his hallway killed everyone.

Whatever. We kill Archavon with our eyes closed.

Overall: People, don't leave so fast a-holes!

Run 2: Truny the DPS Warlock. This run was INSANELY competent. I did not stop to check if I was part of a guild run or anything but Koralon went down INSANELY fast with no one dying. Emalon went down INSANELY fast (adds were dead by the time FOUR stacks of explode were going on), everyone spaced out and switched to kill the add, and Archavon died in probably 30 seconds and that was the super quick 10-minute Vault of Archavon. Oh and by the way not ONE piece of fire spawned under my feet for the entire Koralon run WEWTS.

Overall: Insanely Competent HOLY CRAP

Run 3: Turby the DPS Hunter. I don't really run with Turby anymore but the potential for hunter damage is too good to pass up and he's my very first toon and all so yeah...
Koralon was one shotted but it was kind of iffy, our tank had died when Koralon was at about 100k and Koralon was running amock the people taking them all down and I thought "no, we are too close", so as he approaches me I feign death and as he leaves shoot him with a kill shot to help take down his HP a bit more (that thing crits like a warlock) and he goes down. No loot but who cares, got the achievement after all this time neglecting me hunters.

Emalon was fail. We seemed to have an excessive amount of melee dps and said melee were dying to lightning nova and chain lightning or what-not and from my general experience with how fast the exploding adds would die in comparising to how much their exploding buff would stack, we would always barely make it for each time Emalon charges his minion. If we lost any more people, we'd die. And die we did.

We tried again and this time...Emalon enraged at 500k HP and killed everyone.

Come on, where's the DPS? You know there IS a minimum amount required to kill him? And come on, who nowadays can NOT do over 3k (while on the premise that you felt you could perform well enough to JOIN a VOA group). Come on!

It's ok, got the Triumph badge and achievement and all was good.

But come on Emalon's SOO last tier!

BYE!

Koralon

Friday, November 6, 2009

Healing Onyxia 25

Oh my god we did it! I was going to save this post for until I had picture but I can add them later for no one to see..

The truth of it is: Last night as I had logged and was about to go take a shower I remembered that Turny was still in his Feral gear and I wanted to check my Wowheroes score (don't laugh at me) while in my Healy Gear so I logged back in just to do that one simple click to switch clothes but I got a whisper from a friend "Want to heal Ony 25" and it was getting kind of late but how long can Onyxia take anyways. So I said sure.

(By the way Turny's healing Gear Score is FINALLY..FINALLY higher than my Hunter's (Who still has some non-epic gems making him my "strongest" toon)

Up to this point I had only completed this raid on my Warlock two times as ranged DPS is all the rage and Truny is the preferred DPS toon I log into.

Heals hey? So I turn on my GRID and pop pop pop pop all the little squares fill up my screen and we get rolling.

First piece of trash I mean drake we encounter, I am not sure what those silly melee people were doing but we all die.

Not very good prospects.

We gather our composure and try again and this time we almost make it to third phase and we all die again.

Is it just me or does Onyxia only Deep Breath when I ACTUALLY have to stand still to cast my Nourish? Of all times!

We try again and I think a hunter in spite sent his pet onto Onyxia and wiped us as we were waiting by her cave. He didn't join us afterwards.

People are leaving, heals and dps, ugh. I go take my shower as we complete the group.

More people are dropping but we replace them with more familiar names and the group was good to go.

This time I set Onyxia as my Focus since I tended to gloss over the "Onyxia Takes a Deep Breath" text smack dab in the middle of the screen since that is NOT where I am looking. I am looking at everyone's greeny bars!

We get really close to the third phase this time and one of our Adds-tanks dies ack, but no worries Rebirth saves the day and as he resurrects his health is at full. Good job for our healing team, three priests a shaman and myself (I think)

THIS time as she casts Breath I can clearly see when she casts it and I frantically turn my camera around going "Where the fff is she??" and dodge her Tree-burning flames. I try to save Swiftmend for this moment, as its usually at this moment the person I am trying to save is losing their health and I know that if I stand around nourishing that it'll be all over so I take advantage of the Druid's mobility and dodge and heal as usual. Something I am so used to. Kudos to everyone for actually dodging the fire!

*Now is it just me or when a situation arises where I panic, I tend to push Rejuv over and over as if it would do any good?

Onyxia lands and its chaos because of the existing adds and what not and everyone's bars are dropping and I'm running around like a crazy throwing Lifeblooms and Rejuvenations on everyone and throwing Wild Growth like its free and everything calms down and other than the occasional fears (warded by our one Shaman) Onyxia goes down. I used my Tranquility here because...well......since its there and we didn't really need it for the other phase....

I would have to say that was pretty intense. Especially when just for a moment you forget that there are three other healers ALSO padding up the raid, that things weren't that intense but it sure as hell felt like it. And maybe because I was hella sleepy!

I think it was also at the third phase where my heals put me at the top of the healing meters (and the overheals, but not by percent) and a real appreciation for how "smart" Wild Growth is set in.

Also guess what dropped? And guess who was the only Resto Druid in there? Dun dun dun no pics yet but ......I'll be back!

Turny the Restless Tree

T10 Gear Preview/Review

I see that all but the Shaman T10 gear has been released on the blizzard site for us all to ..witness. Here are my thoughts on each of the sets (giggles).

Death Knight: Uhh, have we not seen that before? Spiky helms? Well, it does deviate from T9 and it is pure Death Knightish so...good enough.

Druid: Oh my god. The natural look is nice but uhh, the helmet is umm...antlers of thorns! I see that Druids are really meant to be Game Animals (more on this when I get home to post the next post about Turny), but I am excited to get this ridiculous helmet as it will keep me entertained for probably two weeks! I still prefer it more to the T8 Priestess of the Moon crap.

Hunter: Ok I am sorry but Hunters from what I know wear mail. That is not mail that is wood and leather once again. And what's with the hooves? The helmet may look pretty kick-ass on my Troll...as I always grab the new helms for my toons whenever possible. (The human looks lame)

Mage: Whoa someone took a dip in nuclear waste no?? Nothing really special save for the radioactive gems.

Paladin: Everything seems cool here, befitting of the upcoming Cataclysm with the hint of brimstone but I guess they ran out of PLATE armor and Paladins now have to wear ROBES. OR that is actually a PLATE robe and we are all just waaaayyy behind on armor technology. *Cough*

Priest: What the hell this looks like gear you get at level 20? Done.

Rogue: Biohazard is the word that comes to mind for no reason at all. See for T9 we get free eyes, now for T10 those eyes converge to become one powerful roguey-cyclops eye because depth perception is for noobs! Nice spaulders though.

Shaman: ??. Of course, Shamans ALWAYS get the coolest gear, I remember levelling up and always seeing someone in super ornate gear and knew right away :Shaman. I bet the Shaman gear is made out of pure lightning, it summons bolts of lightning to smite your enemies. The helmet is a swirl of lava and nether essence putting even Warlock gears to shame. The spaulders, oh the spaulders are THIRTY FEET high totem poles with Thrall's face etched onto each section and they rally your party members with the power of the horde every 15 seconds.

Warlock: This set reminds me of an evil Jack-O-Lantern turned alive. Looks more like a Hallowe'en costume I think. It is pretty malicious hwoever. I think everything should be in a beautiful swathe of perpetual flame, though the helmet would look better on my Undead Female rather than this lame Human (yes you can tell)

Warrior: Nice and runic and earthy. The bullhorns for their charging or whatever it is they do in melee fits perfect. Though I just deleted my warrior yesterday to remake a priest (again)...we shall see! (How was that relevant?)

In conclusion, nothing mindblowing but I can just imagine the 200 SP helmets already *drool*

Turny/Truny/Turby/Klupty

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Tanking Heroic Trial of the Champion

Yesterday was a quiet day. I logged onto my Death Knight to finish maxing out his Mining Skill to grab some titanium ores to prospect them into the fabled Epic Gems. I had put myself in LFG for the daily and the regular Trial of the Champion as well, since this DK is sadly under-geared and my inner Warlock is saying he is weak.

I managed to find enough ores for three epic gems and three titanium powders and having no groups I logged onto Turny.

As I log onto my druid I receive whispers left right and centre "Wanna heal this or wanna heal that". Uhh sure! Though the person who invited me disbanded the group randomly so whatever I threw myself into LFG once again and immediately got invited for the daily heroic.

People were discussing roles and someone said that they were healing and I said "But I'm a healer". This was because I thought I had put myself in LFG as a PLUS SIGN only but apparently I had changed my default to SHIELD and PLUS. I had not realized this until later but I said "Well I can tank (whatever)" and I'd have to say that that was probably a fairly fast Utgarde Keep with my chain pulling with no stops all the way until the last boss!

To all discipline priests out there I am not sure what is going on but I really appreciate your shields.

I always set the healer as my focus when I am tanking and our healer didn't seem to use any mana throughout the entire dungeon, which from my own experience as a Restless Tree is a very good thing, the tank is pretty solid.

What? I am solid?

So after this quick run we decided to try out H TOC. Dun dun dun!

Our circumstances were special.

I had never tanked this before on heroic mode. Our healer had never healed this on their specific toon, and one of our damagers was used to tanking instead of damaging. A very virgin run, sort of.

The bosses were declared and we get:

Lana Stouthammer: Aoe and poison bitch.
Marc Jacob Alerias (Spellcheck): GTFO Whirlwind Man
Colossos: LMAO What is he?

On the first pull I tried to focus on the rogue while maintaining my AOE Maul and Swipe aggro on the other two all while trying to avoid the poison pools and trying to avoid walking through the poison pools when the Warrior throws me and I think I failed to avoid his whirlwind as this damage was too much for our healer ...we wiped.

Everyone fly back and try again.

Same method. Make sure everything is aggroing me. Stack some Lacerates on the warrior and Colossos and focus fire on the rogue lady. This time I paid more attention to back away from Whirlwind and BAM they died one by one.

Everything after that was cake.

Eadric the Pure: Tank, turn around, tank, throw his hammer at him if you have a priest healer (which we did).

Black Knight: Easy peasy. Tank until he's dead. On second phase aoe aggro all the ghouls and move around if needed to avoid his Desecration and move away from any ghouls about the explode and dead. Last phase, just kill.

So in conclusion: Stay away from whirlwind! And this is probably a more healer intensive instance than anything.

Laters

Monday, November 2, 2009

Klupty the Dual-Wielding DK

Oh Klupty. Of all toons I think my Death Knight has had it the roughest. He started out at 55, got a little bit of attention and sat around at 58 for months. For a long time he was the second highest level toon on my list, sad hey?

It wasn't until many months later I decided to level said Death Knight again, having poured thousands of gold maxing out his Jewelcrafting before even finishing outlands, this character should be of some use but melee just wasn't my thing.

Months later, fast-forwarding to yesterday. Klupty hits 80! He had hit 80 at the exact same quest-giver as my Druid, Blackwatch in Icecrown ha! Positive association to said gnome lady!

Klupty. Frost DK. He had all the tanking specs with the major tree in Frost. I like ice!

Now the only way to work on Klupty's tanking gear was to *dun dun dun* dps dungeons and try to collect all the tanking stuff the actual tank does not need and pray for no other plate wearers cause I suck at the Roll For It Game.

I had grown accustomed to my Frost Tanking spec, passing it off as a "dps" spec but it just felt....really slow. Though when the tank died as is common running around with random scary lowbies, I could always switch to Frost Presence and save the day.

So as not to embarass myself and to appease my inner Warlock, Klupty heads off to his favourite trainer the Ice Lich (or maybe because he's the closest one) and spends his parent's hard earned money to Dual Spec into an ACTUAL DPS spec.

I had tried blood, didn't like it, and unholy seemed...not interesting, but Dual Wielding...I am obsessed with Dual Wielding (yeah I'm talking about YOU Shunsui Kyouraku) so I looked up a viable Dual Wielding talent spec and bought myself two of them Reaper of Dark Souls (which seems to be more or less the best swords out there save for an Ulduar sword or the Krol Cleaver, which is great, less worries for upgrades), and started to test it out at TOC!

WOW. It's so much faster! Threat of Thaurissan (spellcheck) is so cool! At first I was wondering why I would see two yellow numbers side by side but when they crit it was kind of satisfying! My howling blasts are critting for over 6,000 and in Klupty's first heroic he pushed 1800 dps in random plate gear I picked up throughout Northrend.

The potential is huge! My rotations were fine, essentially it was:

Set up Diseases (Oh I hate you Plague Strike or whatever button '3' is called)
Keep Blood Runes on cooldown.
Obliterate
Dump Runic Power via Froststrike (very cool, rogues need this)
Look for Rime. Rime is when Howling Blast becomes free. Use it!
Look for Killing Machine. Howling Blast takes priority over a free crit Frost Strike. It hits harder.

The damage comes so fast I couldn't really see everything to be honest.

In a solo environment I think mobs tended to die....way faster than in tanking spec. It was crazy.
I was killing some Protodrakes for the JC Daily and they just....went splat whereas I was SO USED TO my tanking spec DPS as "the way it is" I never realized that...wow....

Ok Straying off Topic again so BAI!

Klupty the Death Knight