World of Warcraft XIII: Even Aspects Get Nerfed

[Elm11]

Well, I run a full clear of DS last night with LFR. I presume I got absurdly lucky, because I picked up four bits of gear from 8 bosses (Wyrmstalkers shoulders, chest and legs and the bow that drops from DW). I also managed to finally replace my last 353 staff with a 378 one, but I still have two 359 items left (boots and trinket).

With ilvl 377 I'm currently pulling circa 23.5k in Dungeons, which I hope translates to about 25k or more in a raid environment.

At about what ilvl should I start fishing around for a Normal 10man DS run? I'm obviously not particularly experienced yet, so I'd run a no-loot LFR or two to get re-aquainted.

[Leon]

Yes you did. I really want the 2pc for my Hunter and it continues to elude me. And you got that staff - that dropped when i 1st went in there with my hunter and a bloody Boomkin rolled "OS" on it and won, that had me raging for a long while. Also have not seen it again.


Woot Woot woot - Vishanka, Jaws of the Earth dropped and i won it out of 5 hunters (made even better by the fact that my gun had broken and i hadn't noticed till the fight started and had to melee my way through the whole fight)

[Expf]

Tanks it is the worst for because PvP gear has next to no defensive stats, and it's impossible to get CTC (Chance To be Crit) capped with PvP gear, so some bosses can just one shot you.

CTC represents "Combat Table Coverage", which is when a Paladin or Warrior tank becomes "unhittable" in the technical sense: the tank will either dodge, parry, or block a hit, but can never take the full brunt of an attack without it being blocked. This occurs if the tank has a very high amount of Mastery (increases Block chance for Paladins and Warriors), which is pretty easy to do if your gear is good enough (harder for Warriors unfortunately). This is the precise reason why Paladins and Warriors will almost always try to stack Mastery until:
Dodge chance (%) + Parry chance (%) + Block chance (%) = 102.4%
When this cap is reached, the Paladin or Warrior is said to be Block-capped / have achieved CTC. Druids and Death Knights cannot ever achieve CTC because they cannot Block attacks.

In addition, tanks cannot and do not ever get crit unless they happen to be the wrong Stance/Presence, or they accidentally hit their "sit" key-bind (sitting will cause the next Physical hit received to be a guaranteed crit). (There is an unintended bug that some Blood DKs experience, in which they get crit in Blood Presence.) Defense rating and the defense stat were removed at the end of Wrath and thus all tanks get an automatic 6% crit chance reduction from their specialization.

At about what ilvl should I start fishing around for a Normal 10man DS run? I'm obviously not particularly experienced yet, so I'd run a no-loot LFR or two to get re-aquainted.

My recommendation is to get at least a fair portion of your gear from LFR and/or Valor points, and most of the gear should be at least 378+. There's no hard line to draw though.

[Karoht]

Well, I run a full clear of DS last night with LFR. I presume I got absurdly lucky, because I picked up four bits of gear from 8 bosses (Wyrmstalkers shoulders, chest and legs and the bow that drops from DW). I also managed to finally replace my last 353 staff with a 378 one, but I still have two 359 items left (boots and trinket).

With ilvl 377 I'm currently pulling circa 23.5k in Dungeons, which I hope translates to about 25k or more in a raid environment.

At about what ilvl should I start fishing around for a Normal 10man DS run? I'm obviously not particularly experienced yet, so I'd run a no-loot LFR or two to get re-aquainted.

Grats on all of the above. I would stick with LFR until you are about 380+ geared. Then start looking for DS normals.
There are a few differences to be aware of between LFR and Normal. Mechanical differences, not just 'bosses have more HP and hit harder' but actually different mechanics.
Morchok-I have no idea what is different because I haven't run LFR in a while.
Yorsahj-Green Slimes splash so spread out, slightly different kill priority for slimes
Zonozz-Hits harder, Debuff causes a knockback effect. If used correctly it can double as your Disengage
Hagara-Frost Tombs on regular phase. Focused assault actually hurts now. Ice Lances upgrade from tickle to painful as well. Melee really need to get out if Lances are focused on them.
Ultraxion-Okay, I lied, there's really nothing different here on Normal, but the healing check does go up. From 15K per blast to 30K per blast.
Blackhorn-Drakes have more health, Swirlies hit harder, melee adds need to be faced away from group due to cleave effects, especially when everyone stacks for Barrage.
Spine-Healing Debuff, and a rather signifigant one at that. Burning Grip has to be dealt with by blasting a tendril. Higher DPS check.
Madness-Higher DPS check, higher Healing check, much harder to 1 tank the fight.


As for raiding last night, we spent all night on H Blackhorn. I don't get it. We killed him twice, this is the second week in a row where he has stalled us.
Right now he is this expansions H Sindragosa for us. Grrr.

[Expf]

To add to what has been said:

Morchok-I have no idea what is different because I haven't run LFR in a while.

On normal mode, you can't ignore mechanics. :)

Focused assault actually hurts now. Ice Lances upgrade from tickle to painful as well. Melee really need to get out if Lances are focused on them.

Focused Assault can still be out-ranged by the tank. Ice Lances will reduce Physical attack speed severely if the stacks keep going up, but otherwise still not really a big deal except for the healers.

Ultraxion-Okay, I lied, there's really nothing different here on Normal, but the healing check does go up. From 15K per blast to 30K per blast.

DPS will also get Fading Light from time to time on normal mode. Hour of Twilight requires at least one soaker (the tank), and does 300k damage so you can't really ignore mechanics now.

As for raiding last night, we spent all night on H Blackhorn. I don't get it. We killed him twice, this is the second week in a row where he has stalled us.

He does that a lot actually. It's primarily because the fight is full of RNG and requires people to improvise constantly (and Deck Fire has a tendency to spread out of control), as opposed to Spine where nearly everything happens is predictable.

[Dublock]

Blackhorn-Drakes have more health, Swirlies hit harder, melee adds need to be faced away from group due to cleave effects, especially when everyone stacks for Barrage.

Also don't forget the sappers!

Once per min roughly a goblin sapper falls down in the back, stealth and runs into the cabin and if he reaches it, bye bye 20% of the ship's hull. Best to slow movement speed, death grip, etc and down him asap.

[Karoht]

We had really odd luck with fire. Sometimes it spread unpredictably and went every which way no matter how far away we were. Sometimes we got lucky, if it was by the cabin it would just spread into the cabin and no where else. Sometimes it would be in the same spot and a single patch of fire would take up half the ship.
Then the barrage would fall right in the middle of a fire patch, which all but guarantees a wipe.
Then there's the fact that not all of the fire is actually there.


We have found that standing on the left side stairs means we can drop Goriona by about 3 million health on that initial flyby, and still get some casts and DoTs on the two drakes on their first passes. The first pair of drakes practically evaporates. The second pair flyby the same way, and if we get DoTs on it as it goes overhead (it usually lines up with a barrage but with no adds or sapper to deal with) then the second pair go down pretty quick too.

[Triscuitable]

Okay, I remember getting into WoW in the Summer of '09. I played for about a month, before realizing that I had no decent income, and I had spent my month's money on Mega Man 9 and, well, WoW.

Anyways, I got a bunch of characters up to level 10, and one to level 14. Then I kind of forgot I ever played.

I realize now that I want to start playing again, if not to see just how much it's changed over the course of three years. After getting my account unbanned (unauthorized access from a foreign country) today, I decided to log back in, only to remember that I had to pay to play this game.

Have I ever felt like such a moron before? No. I do now!

But I was wondering if there's really any reason why I should continue. I've got a level 14, but I always remembered how stupid it was that I chose to play a Druid in the first place.

[Derjuin]

Hey, all you other Hordies out there. Anyone feel like accompanying me to the first boss in Black Temple? You can have anything he drops if you'd like, I just need him dead so I can go inside. I need another person (preferably one that can heal themselves) so I can pop his bubble-shield, since he doesn't use the spike on the main tank or pets. You can stay for the rest, if you want, I'd just like the warglaives if they drop.

But I was wondering if there's really any reason why I should continue. I've got a level 14, but I always remembered how stupid it was that I chose to play a Druid in the first place.

Druid is a fun class to play! It was my main for a while until I took a break at the start of Cata. Just try not to play it as a "can do anything" kind of class - they can, but only one thing at a time (restoration = heal, feral = melee damage or tank, balance = ranged damage).

[Triscuitable]

Druid is a fun class to play! It was my main for a while until I took a break at the start of Cata. Just try not to play it as a "can do anything" kind of class - they can, but only one thing at a time (restoration = heal, feral = melee damage or tank, balance = ranged damage).

I tend to focus on the feral playstyle. Sucked, changed to a restoration Druid. But my biggest issue is that I haven't played in years. It may sound lame, but if somebody could send me a scroll of resurrection, that'd be awesome. Derjunin gave me the wonderful gift of a scroll, and I've finally abandoned the hell-hole of a server that was Velen. Thank you very much.

EDIT: I may drop the money to get two months for the duration of Summer, which may also constitute a trip to Hawaii, dating, and some other stuff. Not that $25 ever was an issue.

[Zherog]

Hey, all you other Hordies out there. Anyone feel like accompanying me to the first boss in Black Temple? You can have anything he drops if you'd like, I just need him dead so I can go inside. I need another person (preferably one that can heal themselves) so I can pop his bubble-shield, since he doesn't use the spike on the main tank or pets. You can stay for the rest, if you want, I'd just like the warglaives if they drop.

I'd love to, though as a rogue my "self heals" are awfully limited. I've never been there, so there's that "hurdle" to overcome as well.

Speaking of limited, my free time is super-limited right now. And that's almost certainly the biggest factor. Between my day job, my penchant for taking on way too much freelance work, and soccer season (my daughter and I have season tickets for the Philadelphia Union), my available time to play right now is pretty low. I was going to try to hop on late tomorrow (Saturday) night. Probably somewhere between 11 and midnight eastern.

If my schedule sucks for your attempt at this, no worries.

*

Speaking of this weekend... does Children's Week start Sunday? Or does it start next week?

[Hullabaloo]

Speaking of this weekend... does Children's Week start Sunday? Or does it start next week?

Children's Week begins.Sun (04/29) 12:00 AM - Sat (05/05) 11:59 PM
Show an orphan what the hero's life is like! Visit Orphan Matron Nightingale in Stormwind, Orphan Matron Battlewail in Orgrimmar, Orphan Matron Mercy in Shattrath, or Orphan Matron Aria in Dalaran and make a child's dream come true.


Children's Week ends. Sun (04/29) 12:00 AM - Sat (05/05) 11:59 PM

[Zherog]

Thanks .

[Mutant Sheep]

I somehow got two free 10-day Wrath trials, one back in August and the other in February, and I just barely got past the Dark Portal when I realized it was 1:00 in the morning and my 10 days ran out. So if anyone wants the weird glowey pegasus/the Horde flying mount whatever-its-name-is-I-don't-remember, there's a Hordie over here who would appreciate some help. (I coulda gotten to Outlands faster on my cowadin, but I went to Southern Kalimdor instead of the Plaguelands and such where there's convenient undead for me to get crits on. I facepalmed hard when I realized I coulda done that. But then I wont know which guy to buff to eight-oh yeah, my druid. I left him at 35 because cat leveling was too slow. I FEEL ASHAMED I COULD HAVE FLOWN BY NOW.)

[Dublock]

...there's a Hordie over here who would appreciate some help. (

I would love to help you, help me :p

I would need character name and realm to send the invite, or whoever you want to help :).

[Mutant Sheep]

I would love to help you, help me :p

I would need character name and realm to send the invite, or whoever you want to help :).

Zeb's already offered, sorry. (Oh, Zeb, I've been trying to remember my bnet email's password all day. Haven't used it in ages. Will PM you the email address when I know I can access it.)

[Zeb The Troll]

Huzzah! Alarra and I got [School of Hard Knocks] today, in turn giving us both [For the Children], in turn giving us both [What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been]!

We were very fortunate that, for our last step, the one in Warsong Gulch, there was a warlock who was kind enough to pick up and drop the flag repeatedly. Oddly, when we tried to return the favor for their side, we got blasted to smithereens. Oh well, it's done!

[GolemsVoice]

Children's week is harvesting season for any PvP fan. I really feel bad, but it is.

[Skios]

I had one of the most tense moments of my WoW career ever last night. After weeks of progression on Hagara HC (mostly due to shifts in the raid team) we had finally reached the point where we were 99% sure that we would kill her. After three hours however we still hadn't gotten that kill. Everything always seemed to come apart at the final intermission phase, whether it was ice or lightning. On our final pull we got the ice phase first, then lightning. By the time she hit the second ice phase she was at about 1:30 from her enrage timer while we had five people left alive: a bear tank, a subtlety rogue, a destruction warlock, a holy priest and myself (ret paladin). She was at about 8% health, and the raid leader actually made the call to stall the ice phase for as long as possible to get our cooldowns back for the few seconds we had to burst her down before the feedback phase ended. Running those laps for two minutes with the hopes of the entire guild riding on our shoulders was downright scary. Still, the feeling we got after finally downing a new HC boss after two months was incredible. Now we're moving on to Yor'sahj and Ultraxion HC.

[Leon]

Almost Perfect LfR - Only one other Hunter and a Warrior to compete with for loot tokens and only two dropped one of which i didn't want (gloves) but i somehow manged to out roll 5 druids, 3 rogues and the other hunter on the Ring from Hagra (which was more a side grade than a upgrade)

Discovered tonight that the 5 Instances an Hour lockout (which i have always know about) is account wide.

[Alarra]

I'm hoping our raid will start working toward some more heroics now. We finished our raid leader's daggers last night, so maybe he'll be more amenable to spending more time on each boss, extending lockouts, etc.

[Zeb The Troll]

Children's week is harvesting season for any PvP fan. I really feel bad, but it is.

I wouldn't feel bad about it if I was a PvP'er. All us fools in there with no resilience, no idea what the map looks like, and no clue how PvP is different than PvE? Yeah, fish in a barrel. I mean, if you're even trying to be nice while still trying to win the BG, we just fall over without much effort.

In related news, our Warsong Gulch was hilarious almost. Pretty much everyone on both teams was just there for the achieve, which meant that we were probably six or seven minutes in when we realized why no one was coming to claim our flag. Because they were doing the same thing we were, sitting in their flag room waiting for one of us to go get theirs. Shortly after that realization was when the warlock showed up, made some friendly gestures, picked up our flag, then dropped it five feet away while we all took turns getting the achieve. Pity their team wouldn't let us return the favor.

[subanark]

Another week goes by. We tried hard to get Hagara down, but no luck. Our best attempt was 3% before the next ice phase, and people started dying. We tried so hard that we didn't end up clearing on Thursday and had to pug a couple for the rest of the instance. We didn't manage to get Ultraxion done due to various stupid mistakes that went around, and since we were short on time, we just turned it to normal and cleared.

Next week is the 20% so hopefully we will do better. The alliance guild we are up against is up to 6/8 so we really are behind. It's just one of those things where we could get it done, if we just had more time to try the encounter. As it is we usually get about 6 hours in a week, which just isn't enough to do a good solid round of attempts on new bosses.

[Karoht]

Huzzah! Alarra and I got [School of Hard Knocks] today, in turn giving us both [For the Children], in turn giving us both [What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been]!

I'm 3 steps of that achievement away from getting it. It should push me to 12800 achievement points. I'm hoping to find a good bit of quiet time in the next few days where it may be more feasible.

You could tell everyone in Eye of the Storm was there for the achievement. All of them fighting for the flag and not a single base capped. Yeah. Brilliant. We somehow won the match but I didn't get the flag ever, so I still have that to get under control. Also, the number of people who were pushed off and fell to their deaths (sometimes with the flag) was rather high.
Arathi Basin was incredibly difficult to get done. I could never make it to farm first (someone was always moving faster on their mount by a tiny margin), and ended up stealthing to stables and waiting patiently to cap that. Oh Alliance, why you never defend stables and always zerg Lumber Mill at the slightest provocation?

I was busy volunteering down at Calgary Expo (CCEE) this weekend so I got no time in whatsoever. For this week, Friday night/saturday morning are looking like my best chances. It might be another year where this achievement passes me by. Oh well, I'm not too concerned. I picked myself up some PvP gear with my piles of Justice Points converted over to honor. So I'm not completely without some resilience. Yay. I might live for 5 whole seconds. Boomkin has lots of fun tools in PvP and I rather enjoy it. PvP healing takes some getting used to, more about spamming anyone getting burst but keeping HoTs on everyone else who isn't being burst. Lifebloom is best used on yourself, save Swiftmend for any time you are being focused on so you have more heals to use without being locked out/silenced.

[Alarra]

For Horde anyway... Something that worked for us in Arathi Basin, and made it pretty easy to get... Don't try for the farm, someone will invariably beat you. Don't go to the lumber mill, alliance that run past the stables will beat you there. Run straight from the gates to the mine. You should have no problem beating any alliance that happen to run that way (for some reason few do, they usually start at lumber mill, probably because they're a fraction of a smidge closer to it than Horde is).

[GolemsVoice]

Few people of any side go to the mine, strangely, so visiting it every once in a while to see if it is defended at all isn't a bad idea.

[Dublock]

I got all the Children's Week mini pets on my various toons now :)

My guild run last week fell apart, had 4 people on and ready and couldn't find a single pug interested in 3/8 HM run who was capable of it. Most guilds arn't even 3/8 at least it feels like on my server so at least I know why, just annoying to be limited due to lack of people either on or from /2 and not from boss mechanics or what not.

[Karoht]

So, Livestream tonight. 7 hours from now.
www.livestream.com/Karoht

We're down a body (again) so if anyone has a healer with a good DPS off-spec (ilevel 400 prefered, 3/8 HM experience prefered) I might have a raid spot for you in 7 hours.

[Derjuin]

Few people of any side go to the mine, strangely, so visiting it every once in a while to see if it is defended at all isn't a bad idea.

Main reason is that it's very difficult to get out of the mine, and simultaneously, you can't monitor any other location - they're all out of line of sight. With Lumber Mill, you can jump off the cliff (engineering, mage/priest/rogue/DK/pally bubble) and can view the others. It's very easy to get from the Lumber Mill flag to the Blacksmith flag, which is one reason why Farm/Stables, Blacksmith and Lumber Mill is typically a winning combination. The Lumber Mill is also much more difficult to attack than the Mine - you can enter the mine from the cliff above, but with the Lumber Mill, you have to run up the paths they give to you.

*pvp overanalysis over*

Hydross and Kael continue to be stingy with their drops! I yearn for the day when I see [Pauldrons of the Wardancer] and [Royal Gauntlets of Silvermoon] drop...

I can kind of understand though, out of their normal drops, they're both the lowest on their respective lists with the phoenix and patterns being exceptions...though I have seen the twinblade drop 3 times now. grumblegrumblegrumble...

Also, update on BT: Probably not soloable the whole way through. Reliquary definitely isn't, Gurtogg is very difficult to solo (need lots of luck) and that's about as far as I got before dying repeatedly.

[Elm11]

Well, apparently the universe decided to make up for my good luck with drops last week, and proceeded to laugh in my face all day today. I started off accidently queuing for MoD, getting into a 3/4 progression. I got the first sign things would go poorly when a Deathknight won a Need roll on MoD's polearm drop. I didn't even think they could roll for that. Regardless, he then immediately said 'WTS POLEARM 20K!'.

Wut.

Those of us who actually needed it collectively told him where he could stick that polearm, and left the group. Especially since we're talking about the LFR polearm here. He'd be lucky to sell it for 2k, bugger 20.

Anyway, I later did a run of SoWRT, starting at boss No.2 after Morchok (Haven't done him this week). We came very close to wiping, thanks to nobody (myself included) knowing how to play ping-pong, and then he dropped the gear I was after. Didn't win it. Darn.
Then came the second old god dude. We wiped on trash (Woohoo!) because people didn't focus on the purple dude, and after one or two heal-asplosions, one of the healers pretty much derped, and started spamming mass heals. The result: 23 people all dealt everyone 50,000 damage at once. Oops.
He technically did drop something I wanted, but I had better, so I greeded. Stormcaller dropped the gloves! Didn't win.

About 20 minutes later, ran another MoD LFR. Wiped on trash before Ult. Uhoh. Got em second time around, Then wiped on Ult thanks to one healer Dcing and the others having no idea what to do. Second time was a charm, because most of the poor quality players rage-quitted and were replaced with decent characters. Helmet AND gloves drop, and somehow there're only three people rolling on both! Aweso-- nevermind...

Lootship: Easy, trinket drops! Maybe this time I'll NOPE.

...

Alright, here comes spine, my final chance to get something: It dropped! Woot, combined roll of 193! I got thi -- someone took it out with a total of 195.

Ladies and Gentlemen: FFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU----