Monday, May 30, 2011

Is Firelands Going to be Really Really Big?

Let's take a look at Patch 4.1: Lots of good changes, two (seemingly) huge dungeons and tons of STFU 353 gear for us all to replace our heroic 346s and make us feel a little bit better that that raid upgrade never ever ever drops.

I know this sounds really really elitist, but despite all the efforts put into helping players gear up, we are still observing "PVP Cheaters" sneaking their way into the Zandalari dungeons with their 9K dps by using the 352 pvp items. It's at the point where I don't think you're really ready for these dungeons yet, perhaps go hone your button presses in regular heroics first, and even with the upgrades...I don't think it'll help you much. That's the dirty honest truth.

This also got me thinking: "What's the overall focus of this game?"

Are these Zandalari upgrades made for "raiders" to supplement their gear, or made towards "not raiders" to retain their quiescence?

Perhaps 4.1 is just the "Great Gear Up Patch" for 4.2, and 4.3 will be the Gearing Patch for 4.4 Tidehunter's Wrath.

This should mean that the Firelands Raid is going to be mind-blowingly-difficult! The sad thing is, I don't think or One-Day-a-Week raiding guild can even finish all of the current raids before the new patch hits, though I do see us clearing more with the upcoming nerfs.

What are the nerfs focused towards? Current raiders, or upcoming raiders? I have to admit, I'm looking forward to them since our raid times only allow us to get up to Maloriak any given week and with everyone's real life human schedules we can't make raids consistently. Magmaw and Omnomtron are getting really boring.

Though I should make an appeal for us to actually fully Defend the Shattered World before attempting Firelands, just for the sake of keeping our "timelines" in check. OMG I'm Nozdormu!

Anyways, will 4.2 give us enough "stuff" to keep us busy? I hear something about "Daily Quests"..../shudder

Really? Remember Tol Barad? I got exalted on them on two toons and I refuse to even walk onto that Island again if only to strut into Baradin Hold. I just....can't! I have 92 extra commendations on Turby. He had aspired to purchase the two Tol Barad mounts where my Warlock had purchased her trinket and given up out of boredom.

Perhaps....perhaps make everyone rage and allow Reputation to be BOA for the Tabardless Factions. Or all. Who knows. I'm working on getting both my DK's specs raid ready, Blood Tank and Frost Three Button Mashing.

Has anyone realized how boring Frost DK'ing has become? I only realized how boring it was after a few dungeons when its essentially feels like a Push the Lighted Up Button game and interrupt when appropriate game. The dynamics are essentially how each of your lighted up buttons can light up other buttons and how they can light up the previous buttons etc. I guess the only brain power required is to decide if you want to hit Obliterate or Frost Strike based on how much focus (or whatever the hell that resource is) you have at any given time.

Enough talk of 4.2 let's talk patch 4.4: Wrath of the Tidehunter. We couldn't just let Neptulon go out with such an anti-climatic bang. So we pushed away the Kraken, but the Naga's treachery has left the Tidehunter in a vengeful wrath. Also he's been hearing fel whispers within his watery domain, an Old God is trying to turn the tides (OMG HAHAHAHA).

What I am really excited about is the addition of a new "Dalaran"-type Sanctuary in Vash'jir, an underwater hub where Horde and Alliance can once again see each other! Vash'jir will be revamped and we can finally add in the Shark and Baby Whale mounts.

I know I'm being silly, but I seriously thought that with the release of Cataclysm, that the new "Dalaran" hub would have been in either Vash'jir or Deepholm, one of the new cool regions but no we were reduced back to our revamped Home Cities. Sigh.

Turby the Hunter

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

What WAS the Old Druid Healing?

Let's see...

1. I *think* Rejuv lasted longer.
2. Lifebloom could be cast on as many targets as we please, and the "bloom" returned mana. And Lifebloom lasted longer as well?
3. Regrowth was the go to "casted" heal, and the HOT lasted FOREVER.
4. Nourish was used like....never
5. Healing Touch was only used with Nature's Swiftness (still is)

The MAJOR change I think was that before, we didn't NEED to spam Nourishes to keep Lifebloom refreshed, as all our HOTs on our target would actually do the trick, Lifeblooms, Rejuv, Regrowth would always be on our main target, and anyone else could feed off of Wildgrowths and what have you.

I think the best way to get into the "flow" or "How The Designers Intended Druid Healing To Be Now", is to try to heal by using the bare minimum amount of mana while keeping everyone alive, but not particularly topped up in health. Try it. Be cheap.

I'm so used to the "new" druid healing now that I'm even almost over the fact that Tree of Life isn't permanent, and I've been training myself to ONLY use it in very very emergency type situations (It takes a lot of effort to press an extra button y'know). Turny's mana regen is so high now that in heroics, after stacking Lifelbooms and spamming Nourish non-stop does not even make a dent on my mana, heck I regain the amount of mana it costs to cast a Nourish in the time it takes to cast it (@_@). As long as everyone is competent, other than the fact that Regrowth is only used during Clearcasting...cause I'm cheap and that not everyone can get a taste of Lifebloom I think....the new healing is fine now!

Also popping Tree of Life and having ALL our Lifelbooms proc Clearcasting makes for some crazy emergency heals, since Regrowth then becomes mana-free and instant cast!

I would be making a healing attempt on Chimaeron or Atramedes this weekend but alas I am busy so....maybe next next week!

Turny the Not So Tree

Truny is a Sexy Slang

Ok this has been bugging me for quite a while and I can't really put my finger on it (or CAN you?), I've had a few weird search terms leading people to this blog, and they all involve doing explicit acts with a "Truny" or a "Truny" is being well...done.

So I would like to ask: "What is Truny slang for and in what country?" Germany?

Is it another word for Transvestite? Oh god just this post is going to generate more odd search results, but perhaps it shall provide me with more clues!

Truny the What?

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Silly Warlock, You Don't Suck!

I secretly knew this all along, but I knew if I admitted it I'd have to maintain and manage a third toon. Blah!

Unlike bursty classes who can excel in "old" content, I've found that Demo Locks excel in "current" content, to make the best use of all our seventeen spells. I went into some Zandalari's over the weekend and topped the meters and did not die as usual, though I would have to say that my hunter's output trumps my Warlock's. On Turby the Hunter, I usually do around 38-41% of the entire group's damage (usually when pugged), but Truny was only doing 36%.

So what who cares about damage anyways? Well we don't...but I'm just here to reassure everyone that we can still dish out the deaths.

Rotation Updates: So you know how I said I'd try putting Corruption back into our list of spells to use during teh fite? Uhh well scrap that idea. I would say unless you have lots of free time during a raid to do so, then do so every little bit helps but for anything else...uhh just don't.

Truny the Warlock

Monday, May 16, 2011

Generic Progress Post & Archaeology!

We said last week "Let's down Maloriak next week", and hell we did down Maloriak this Saturday! I would have to say that healing this guy is actually pretty simple as I was assigned to be the "adds tank healer". There were parts of the fight where I could just stand there and do nothing but regenerate mana...that is until P2 when all hell breaks loose and I bust out tree form to feed everyone some lifeblooms! Despite our progress, I have yet to see a resto druid upgrade drop from the first three bosses in BWD even though there are just only like...five? So BWD is dismissed. Lame.

We also made an attempt at Al'akir yesterday. Oh god. Wait did I say Al'akir? Yes! That's because we two-shot the Conclave of Wind! I guess its a pretty simple fight really made even simpler with my very useful instructions to the raid:

Ok guys: Ice, Nature, Wind, 70,80,90, switch, don't switch, stack, Rohash.

Al'akir was a different beast, we did manage to get him into P2 but......we really needed a lot more Tornado Hole awareness in P1 to actually HAVE enough people come into P2. Essentially we would endup with the 3 healers and a random person who didn't die. Great times.

What I like about To4W is the epic music! The moment you step in you are greeted with an epic score that compliments the windy'ness and Uldum-ness of the whole raid. Too bad BWD doesn't have any epic mountain music......

I have a dirty secret. Turny has been healing our raids while still using a 316 and a 333 trinket! ACK OMG NOOB RIGHT? Whatever, the nature of the resto druid is that we can still "top" heals and not run out of mana! However, I have good news everyone:

I've been doing archaeology! It gets "better" after the Northrend digsites get unlocked and more rare digs pop up. I had intended to do a picture adventure showcase of all the random weird pets and useless items Turby's found but...yeah too lazy I'll do that perhaps tonight. As of now he's found a little skeleton raptor pet, a mecha-gnome pet, a troll sentinel pet, a baby pterrodax, some very lame BOA low level epic gear, almost all of the useless 20 second transformation items, and just before I logged I opened up another THREE rare digs, one of which I was actually looking for:

1. Tyrande's Favorite Doll - I was quite delighted to see this pop up in my digging panel since my druid REALLY needs a better trinket...not that he really "needs" it as he heals just fine but ...you know what I mean!

2. Fossilized Raptor - It's about time some sort of mount dropped!

3. Ring of the Boy Emperor - This dig actually makes me said. It reminds me of the time when I thought I would be playing my Warlock to the very end. Though my druid could make use of it as well as a healing ring!

And...yeah that's it!

Turny the Not So Tree

Friday, May 13, 2011

Patch 4.2

/ignore ignore ignore ignore ignore

For all I know the next patch is something to do with Fire and Tarecgos Legendary Staff of Blue Dragons, ignore ignore blah blah blah

T.M.I.!

Change the culture! I remember a couple days after 4.1 hit there was all this talk about 4.2 already! WHAT? Why can't we just enjoy what we have, instead of always looking forward to what's next what's next? I bet when 4.2 hits there'll be all this new info on 4.3 and all the new things to look forward to so we don't have to "enjoy" what we already have right? That's the culture we're "supposed" to be set into right?

It's this "let's get to the end" mentality that's been bugging me. Why not just Release Deathwing now, and have him SMS all his loot to us. There done. Success. Happy now? No actually have him SMS the gear to my assisstant as I am too busy complaining.

I also would like to propose a NEW FUNCTION for LFD. The "Disband Button" or "Leave Group Button". If someone wants to leave the group at any given time, they must be given permission from the rest of the group before doing so....otherwise they will LOSE all Justice points and items received from the dungeon. Items will be returned to the loot pool and will be rolled on by the remaining party members. I have seen a LOT of players randomly leave after a certain boss that drops a certain tanking item. Or people who leave when their item doesn't drop. This is a sad situation for me since my BOW drops off of the last boss so I have to endure through an average of about a dozen party members before even ATTEMPTING to kill Jindo, let alone see a group that won't mess up and disband. So if your tank finally got their ITEM (I don't remember what it was) and leaves/ninja logs they will lose the item and everyone will roll for it. This might need some time to be thought out thoroughly though....

Zandalari Mental Notes

Since I have tanked, healed, and dps'd both of the new Zandalari dungeons with no DBM, here are some quick tips on some of the bosses that I think could pose a challenge on unprepared groups. In no particular order:

Venoxis: Venoxis is my favourite boss, he's a PUG KILLER. Usually when the group does well on this boss my confidence for later bosses increases greatly.

When you first encounter him you probably think "WHAT THE HELLLLL?".

I did too, until I broke down all the elements of the fight. First of all, he'll start tracing a "maze" out of green goo during the fight. Ignore it other than know its general layout for now. He will never draw it ONTO someone. (Not that I've seen anyways). He has a channeled spell that can be interrupted. Interrupt it. He casts Toxic Link. Make sure that everyone is either far enough apart that the link instantly breaks OR that you are positioned so that you can run away from the linked person while also not having to touch the maze. Near the end of P1, he will start to cast poison spouts on the ground, I have no idea what they do as I have never touched them, but once he starts doing this and you see two or three on the ground, start paying attention to the MAZE. You want to slowly inch your way to a "safe" area of the maze that will allow you to run along a good length of path. If you're at the dead-end of a path, the poison spouts will start to block you in so you would want to slowly walk towards the beginning of this path.

P2, he'll channel this one-shot poison stream that follows I think three random people. The poison spouts disappear by now. If one of his streams is following you, start running along your pre-emptively planned path, all while avoiding green. After he finishes channelling he'll be "exhausted" and take additional damage for something around ten seconds. Easy peasy.

Special Role Notes: None.

Akil'zon: The lightning birds boss in Zul'aman. Everyone should spread out in this fight, but be in range of the healer to receive dispels off of the boss' Static Disruption cast on random players. He'll call down a White Bird to kidnap a random DPS/Heal and sell attempt to sell them to the Zandalari Black Market. Kill the White Bird! The person in its clutches can still cast their spells to dps or to heal the group.

A bunch of smaller brown birds will fly around harassing the group, ignore 'em and heal through their annoying damage!

Akil'zon will summon an "Electrical Storm" on a random group member and everyone MUST run to the shadow of the group member being lifted into the air or DIE to a storm. The shadow means RIGHT under the group member!

Special Role Notes: Healers, dispel the Static Disruption, its a blue icon.

Nalorakk: Take turns being the farthest from him when he's in Troll form. 1, 2, 3. Win.

Daakara: The final boss of Zul'aman is a tricky pony if one is not aware! From what I've seen he has two animal combinations. Bear/Eagle, or Lynx/Dragonhawk. I might be wrong but here are the tips for each of the animals:

--Bear: The bear fight is almost the same as Nalorakk but he charges people while in bear form and casts a nasty CREEPING PARALYSIS on all group members which can be dispelled! What I tend to do is dispel myself, then the tank, then the highest DPS if there's time. There's only six seconds to try to dispel everyone in the group, once they are hit with the paralysis they take something around 50K damage which should be topped off ASAP. This fight is mainly in the healer's hands to dispel the paralysis as quickly as possible while keeping everyone alive!

--Lynx: Dakkara's lynx form comes with two annoying lynx kittehs who will run around scratching everyone, depending on the group situation its up to you to decide if you would rather endure the cats and burn Daakara out of his Lynx phase or to kill the kittehs to save the healer some grief. CLAW RAGE is the "wipe" mechanic for this fight, healer you should communicate with your tank if he is going to taunt the boss back onto himself or let the boss ravage a random player so you know who to focus heals on. That ability hurts!

--Dragonhawk: Avoid ALL fire, with his fire-damage-debuff, anyone getting hit by his fire breath is pretty much a goner late into the fight. You'll see fire columns in the battlefield, avoid 'em and pay attention to when he casts fire breath! AVOID ALL FIRE!!

--Eagle: KILL THE LIGHTNING TOTEM. I hadn't even realized this thing was being summoned by the boss until someone mentioned killing it. The fight is SO much easier with the incdental damage from the totem out of the way. Tab around until you see it and KILL it! Oh and dodge cyclones!

High Priestess Kilnara: The "Cat Troll Lady". What I have seen is effective is to engage the boss and pull the packs of sleeping cats around her one kennel at a time, depending on how the healing situation is. Why do we kill the cats? At 50%, the boss will summon ALL remaining cats to attack the party so its in your best interest to kill them all slowly before she hits 50%. She has an interruptable channeled AOE "Tears of Blood", which affect everyone in melee range and also a dispellable Lash of Anguish which...should be dispelled ASAP! One key thing to this fight is to manage the packs of adds and also running behind the boss when she casts her Big Purple Wave (You'll know it when you see it). Once all four cat packs are dead you've essentially won the fight.

Healers: Dispel the Lash of Anguish

Jindo the Never Drops My Freakin' Bow: Heck while I haven't pressed the "Publish Now" button I might as well put him on here as well. Jindo is the last boss of Zul'gurub and he never drops my bow. That's about it. If you see the bow, please ninja it and mail it to Turby. Thanks!

Anyways. Jindo has two phases. In Phase 1, stand inside the bubble he creates until he hits 5,750,000 HP. That's it.

In P2 you get transported into the spirit realm and this is where things COULD get hectic. The tank will pull up one of the berserkers that you killed earlier, and it is with the berserker's Body Slam that will lead you to success.

Ghosts and Shadow Crashes. Kill, and avoid. In P2, you will see three chains "bubbled" down, stand by one of these bubbles and kill ghosts until the Berserker Body Slams someone. Hopefully that someone is standing by a chain and the body slam will have "freed" the chain. Burn down the chain, while picking off ghosts and avoiding shadow crashes. Rinse and repeat. You can sometimes get 2 Body Slams from one berserker, they do hit hard though so you will want to kill them once you are done with them.

When all three chains are broken you win.

Tips: Avoid Shadow Crashes. Stand by a chain and keep ghosts off the healer. And Avoid Shadow Crashes.

Turny the Not So Tree

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Catering to the Elite Hardcores

How would the game be like had it not been so called "Dumbed Down" from the very start? Remember, if a game is "hardcore", it doesn't denote it as "difficult" but perhaps "tedious".

Sign Up!: You must first signup for a game account and also a corporate profile under the company of the game. These are not linked and require two separate user IDs and passwords, both with different name and password requirements. You must then attempt to active your corporate account and your game account by linking your game account via sending an email through a special link in your game account to your corporate account.

Most people would have quit by now.

Create Your Character: You are only allowed two characters to start off with. To create your character you must have the attunement key to get to the character selection screen via doing an epic quest chain using your corporate account, then linking the fact that you finished the chain onto your game account, which will take up to 48 hours to process.

Play! Level! Explore!: All experience requirements have been reset to their original amounts back in Vanilla times twelve. Yes, you will need approximately 1.2 million experience to level from 1 - 2. Mobs at your level will give about 5 exp, a level 4 mob will give about 15 exp. Group exp has been reduced by 75% to discourage socials. But before you even begin to level from 1- 2 you must do an attunement quest to actually get your first weapon and first skill. Yes, players no longer start out with basic skills, back in the day you'd have to travel halfway across the world just to train your skills and now we can re-experience this! Players must gather 50 Kael'thas' Hair Strands from Tempest Keep to create the item to start their attunement quest to get their level 1 weapon. Afterwards, the player must ALREADY have every dungeon achievement before the second part of the quest begins.

Remember interrupts? I had mentioned this a while ago. Right as you log in, you're not faced with the initial quest giver but a mob that will start casting "Apply Death" to you and you must figure out how to open up your spellbook through a series of complicated menu sequences, find the spell, equip it to your bar and cast your interrupt on the mob or else you die and get sent off to the opposite continent. If you do die, you have 2 hours to WALK back to your corpse. In walking speed.

And CC. With the "nerf" to CC in 4.2, a CC component will satisfy the elites. When you create your toon, not only is the INTERRUPTABLE mob casting its 10 second spell, but FIVE other mobs are chasing you. You MUST CC four of them or you will die. How do you CC four? Well, we start you off with ONE CC spell you must then spam the general channel to get a group to help you CC the other four before you die. You must then kite the last mob, as that is now actually a requirement to start your epic grey weapon quest. Since CC is so easy the elites will love this.

Uhh Play!: If you managed to find a group to help you CC, kite, and find your interupt spell all at the same itme you must now head into Tempest Keep.

Get back to me when you do.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Return of the Druid

Bah, I should really switch my header bar and update my blog description to no longer be a Warlock blog but once again the random random all-around blog that Kluptomentum started out as.

I have picked up my Warlock again. It's not THAT bad, we are still a force to be reckoned with for AOE or ADD fights. I dropped my Destruction spec and picked up Affliction as my Demonology preffered stats compliment Affliction way more than Destruction. I was pulling 9K with Destruction and about 12k affliction so I think I'll stick with that for now, though I am still Demonology at heart.

Speaking of dropping things, I dropped two professions. LW on my Druid, and Herbalism on Truny. In place, I gave Turny the Druid herbalism (flying + cultivation is so OP), and let my Warlock be an inscriptionist. Yadda yadda.

Burnout - Updates

I can not has. I finally...FINALLY picked up doing Archaeology on my Hunter Main as his 430 skill shows, once you break out of the Old World and start digging in Outlands and Northrend its a nice nice refreshing change indeed, despite being bored of the actual content in those two expansion areas. I am doing what is most optimal for my Hunter and that is queuing straight into ZG in hopes of finding a group that will actually stay together for more than 10 minutes for Jindo's Bow to drop. That's about it. Until we recruit more healers, my Hunter is on the sidelines.

I've been playing my druid more now. He's become one of our main healers in our little raids. WE ALMOST ONE SHOT MALORIAK. Though we hadn't realized that on P2 that we shouldn't stack and all got killed by his fire breath. Speaking of "knowing"....I just realized I have have been doing completely fine healing/tanking without (dun dun dun) Deadly Boss Mods.

Enjoyment. I don't know if its just me, but I found the game to be more "enjoyable" when there wasn't this "thing" telling me what to do exactly when it happens. Take for example Magmaw's Slump. During the DBM days, it would be all like "OMFG MOVE" right when he casts Slump. But now, just from that 0.2 second delay of me actually having to SEE slump while I'm in a healing fervour makes things much more interesting. I actually avoided Slump, not a machine that told me to. I also really like how the new raid frame thingers work, I don't even need to use Grid anymore, god was that a messy addon. It shows who has any of my HOTs...and...well that's all I really need I'm fairly attentive otherwise.

Since last week most of us weren't able to make our "extra raid day", I am sure that this week we will get Maloriak down and start working on....err that other boss on the other side of the room.

Turny the Not So Tree

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

THAT Achievement

Y'know, I'm not even going to link it: School of Hard Knocks.

Had I have completed this achievement last year, Truny would probably have completed Winter Veil as well, and would have made the Generic Strange Trip Post last December. But I didn't. I used to PVP a lot on my Hunter then I kind of stopped. I tried it again on my Warlock and it was fun but it wasn't so fun being bursted down with no way out.

Now that the Child Event is up again this year, I said to myself "Just do the damn thing!" Despite all the rage and hate going on in Battlegrounds, I made up my mind to ignore all the chat, just do my thing and try to accomplish what this achievement wants me to do.

So I queued into Alterac Valley yesterday. On my hunter. I decided that I would attempt to capture Ice Wing Bunker since I knew that a lot of people would rush Stonehearth. I was successful despite thinking that this would be an impossible feat with 32532 other people wanting to capture a tower. Did I leave after clicking the flag? Hell no there's allies to slay!

I stayed behind with a priest to defend the tower then as the tower burned to the ground we headed north to finish off the BG. An ally rode by, a paladin or DK or something, and I sent my pet onto him. 2 GCDs he was at 50% health, I'm surprised no one is QQ'ing about BM hunter burst. I continued to attack him while I was still mobile and moving. So cheap.

We captured two more towers and raided whatshisfaceboss for an easy win. Turby topped the damage charts as usual, since using PVE "rotations" in a PVP environment is pretty much a win.

So my question is: Did the "PVP'er's" hate me, an achievement seeker? Desecrating their sacred battlegrounds with my innocent whims of Orphan Glory? I did help to attack and defend completely two whole towers and sped up our boss killing process?

Three more to go. I reckon I'd do one BG a day for a maximum of one hour.

Truny in Zul'Gurub

Creative titles are for the weak!

I finally took my warlock Truny, remember her, to one of them new dungeons. I was really lucky, it was a semi-completed Zul'Gurub, I didn't have to suffer with my lack of burst damage for more than 30 minutes.

The group was a solid group, and they were standing in front of Zanzil when I arrived.

Easy peasy, thought I think I was the only one left alive near the end of the fight spamming Fel Fire to whittle the boss down.

Jindo we easily one shot. Got some achievement and some points then logged out.

There's something...."wrong" about the feeling to our class I think. Maybe I should never have picked back up my hunter. I think we're stuck somewhere between a "pet class" and a "pure damage class". Well of course, but what I mean is....well our "pet" demon isn't REALLY that strong. I'm pretty sure my Felguard didn't do 8K dps. We're not "really" a warlock, as in we don't "really" rely on dots, we "kind of" rely on dots, but we rely more on our nukes. Nukes, our nukes are slow and not THAT good, if we wanted to Nuke, we'd go Destruction. If we wanted to DOT, we'd do Affliction. If we wanted some OKAY AOE.....now I'm not sure how good our AOE is anymore as most of the "strong phase" of our AOE is during a long cooldown. My hunter can spam multi-shots in Bestial wrath every 71 seconds.

I don't know, something just feels wrong. It's fun being strong in demon-mode, but without it, even in our "decimation" phase, Soul Fire is kind of weak. I have a feeling that Affliction's "executve" phase is stronger?

Maybe I'm being biased having felt how much more mobile and in control a BM hunter is GRRR.

Monday, May 2, 2011

Varietal Weekend

My druid really got a workout this weekend, he tanked some of the Zul'New Stuff, healed some of the Zul'New Stuff, and also healed our weekly Blackwing Descent! Or no Bastion of Blackwing err..the one with Magmaw and Omnom!

According to the elitists, he's considered "undergeared", well probably "just right" but I like to relish in having common sense and moderate skill prevail over raw gear. I'd have to say, seeing the fight from a healer's perspective really changes things. It's a good thing that I had started to "practise" healing like what I thought the new encounters would "want" me to heal starting from level 81 onwards. Rather than sticking to the old comfortable "spam whatever" Wrath Dungeon/Raid style healing, I started practising healing with just one Rejuv and one Lifebloom and being very very very very cheap on mana. I'd have to say that the dungeons from 1-85 (Regular mode) don't really teach us much about mana conservation (from 1-60 if you spend more than 2% of your mana in the entire dungeon something is wrong).

Omnom-tron was definitely hectic-er for heals and I was really really hoping that everyone was clicking the priest's Lightwell and hoping that Arcanotron would drop his Blue Pool more. We called it a night after the two bosses were downed, though we are trying to add an extra new day to our raiding schedule just to progress more into this place.

Uhh, Warlock Blog? Warlock Progress?

Uhh yeah so uhh...I haven't managed to log onto Truny. I don't know why. Just the thought of knowing that in the time it takes to cast my two or three setup spells, everyone else has already done half a million points of damage isn't very encouraging or fun-sounding. There are lots of upgrades that I've seen drop, a helmet, shoulders, bracers, wand, offhand...but....then again, these dungeons are at a higher tier which means they won't be dead in 5 seconds.

I've been opting to bring my hunters to raid over my warlock, and when I don't feel like playing my hunter I think I would rather heal.

Speaking of damage dealing....

What Is With This?

Now I believe when one's "gear level" (hahahaha) is at an average of 346, one should be able to pull at least 10K just from the raw numbers of their gear which affect the raw numbers of their spells. Please do not cheat the system with PVP gear, especially for the new dungeons. It'll make things way easier for the healer, the tank, and everyone else. In that order. The Zuls were designed to be a tier above current heroics, meaning if you're pretty much 346 in every slot. I'll give a grace-slot for the bracers that never drop.

I've found that Random Dropping of Group has become more prevalent than ever? People seem to leave at the most random times? Or maybe the group I joined had wiped for hours on end. Who knows.

Jindo Story

Not a very interesting story, not really a FailPUG story, we downed him in three tries, I explained the boss, everyone understood, did a great job dodging shadow crashes and managing ghosts and killing chains all at the same time...despite what I thought the outcome would have been.

Why? Well, our combined group damage wasn't as high as one would like but it would seem that this is the bare minimum required (along with great awareness) to clear Jindo's Chains.

Now I said I stopped using recount, but I didn't uninstall it, I just shut off the window. So it was still running in the background. I got curious, since our boss and trash kills have been tediously slow the entire run, and some group members had made some remarks about it as well. I thought "what, eff you it can't be me!"

So I opened recount for Jindo. Oh my.

Turby: 8k
Jerry (Turby): 8k
Person: 7.5k
Tank: 7k
Person: 6.5k

Yes, I pulled 8K dps...but see right under my name? Jerry was my loque'nahak. He also pulled 8k dps (He's grown so much now!), bringing us to a total of 16k! That's 44% of the group's total and we still managed and kill Jindo, so no one's allowed to complain!

Ok I'll shut up now.