World of Warcraft XIII: Even Aspects Get Nerfed

[Karoht]

Deathknight won a Need roll on MoD's polearm drop.
Wut.

Loot systems are being greatly adjusted for MoP. I've heard good things thus far.

Anyway, I later did a run of SoWRT, starting at boss No.2 after Morchok

No idea what that acronym means, but I know where Morchok is.

Second time was a charm, because most of the poor quality players rage-quitted...

Funny how poor play and rage quit seem to go hand in hand.

Ladies and Gentlemen: FFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU----

Oh. Um. Well, you probably won't be happy with what is coming next.

Lewt Brawg!!!
Heroic Helmet from H Blackhorn. We took him out in 3 pulls, with a relatively new crew of people because half of our core was missing.
Also, got my heroic trinket from Yorsahj. It's output is excellent and it seems to output faster if you have Maw of the Dragonlord equiped. I got some great numbers from H Ultraxion. However I still seem to need my Jaws of Defeat for mana management on certain fights.
405. Just need my gloves from Zonozz and I can actually wear my tier.
The mana bonus from the T12 2pc bonus is really that much better than the stats and 4 pc bonus from T13.


Long Strange Trip? DONE!
What a journey. My gods were PvP'ers butthurt about that. MUST WIN AT ALL THE THINGS! ALL! OF! THE! TIIIIME!!!
My achievement didn't even impact them. I was running a solid defensive strategy that kept the flag out of enemy hands thereby allowing the good players to cap the flag in the first place. Ohz Noez!!!

Honestly, it's players like that who are so tightly wound and full of vitriol that I do hope they have a brain anurism when us "PvE carebares" (yes, thats how he spelled it) dare to so much as breath the same air as them, nevermind actually participating in the same battleground.
For the serious PvP'ers in the room, just go do rated guys. You won't even see these achievement collectors.

[Zeb The Troll]

Loot systems are being greatly adjusted for MoP. I've heard good things thus far.

The only thing I've noticed so far is that there is now AoE looting. Me gusta. I've heard things about how raid/dungeon looting will be different, but I haven't tried doing those (not even sure what you're alluding to has been implemented).

No idea what that acronym means, but I know where Morchok is.

Siege of WormRest Temple, of course.

Lewt Brawg!!!
Heroic Helmet from H Blackhorn.

Long Strange Trip? DONE!

Congo rats!

[Karoht]

The only thing I've noticed so far is that there is now AoE looting. Me gusta. I've heard things about how raid/dungeon looting will be different, but I haven't tried doing those (not even sure what you're alluding to has been implemented).

In LFR, loot doesn't drop and then figure out who it goes to. It figures out who gets it, then it figures out what they get. And they say they are working to ensure that when you get loot, it is less likely to be completely useless to you. Deathknights winning an item they can't even equip shouldn't happen, for example.

Supposedly the Coin of Good Fortune works the same way when you use it on a normal or heroic boss. You have a chance at more loot from the boss (same loot table, I wonder how this will work with shared loot tables), or other rewards like gold, raid consumables, and other junk. I kind of hope this means that one could potentially win a mount in this fashion as well, because that would greatly speed up mount farming. But, maybe not.

Siege of WyrmRest Temple, of course.

Ah, that explains it. Wyrmrest is normally one word, not two.

Congo rats!

Yeah, it wasn't all that hard at all, I just had to get in there and do it. And I was *gasp* having fun doing PvP. I greatly enjoyed knocking 8 people to their deaths with a single mushroom patch + Typhoon. And Warsong Gulch is more fun than I remember it.
Man do I miss Alterac Valley. Due to the farming, going on in there, people were doing turn in's and the like. Buffs, air strikes, and you guessed it, one very big angry elemental. That was awesome to actually see it, I haven't seen it since a group of us went out of our way to spawn him back in Burning Crusade.
If they ever bring out that DotA style battleground, I'm very certain it's going to feel a lot like old AV.

Man. I might actually go and PvP when I get home and try to get some more honor. Almost got my resilience gear up to snuff.

[subanark]

H. Hagara finally done yesterday. Heroic Blackthorn today (and thursday). Hopefully this goes well. Not sure if I should go restro or elemental (I would switch roles with a disc priest). On normal I've mainly done healing since I don't have good multi-dot capabilities, but maybe our dps is high enough. We don't have any DKs to yank, or moonkins to push back those sappers. If I went elemental I might be able to knock them back, but I'm not sure if I could position myself outside of fire to do that.

[Karoht]

H. Hagara finally done yesterday. Heroic Blackthorn today (and thursday). Hopefully this goes well. Not sure if I should go restro or elemental (I would switch roles with a disc priest). On normal I've mainly done healing since I don't have good multi-dot capabilities, but maybe our dps is high enough. We don't have any DKs to yank, or moonkins to push back those sappers. If I went elemental I might be able to knock them back, but I'm not sure if I could position myself outside of fire to do that.

Our first kill was without a DK or Boomkin. It's totally doable. You just need range to focus and slow/stun as much as possible.

Also, this week on my stream, I left the stream running for H Blackhorn, and we downed him. I'm considering trying out a 'play by play' video later, we'll see how things go on friday. I'll point out some mistakes and some great moves (None of which will be mine, just for objectivity) and we will see what's what.

[Shishnarfne]

H Blackhorn down (finally). I think this took longer as we lost our main tank (schedule), so instead of having a heroic DK tank, I wound up bringing my druid alt (4p t13 from LFR), while our "eleventh raider" brought his boomkin (better gear than his tankadin).

It was near the end of the raid time when we finished the first five, so we thought we'd give it "just one pull." Since he was down below 1% when he finished us off, we pulled it a few more times and got our first kill.

I'm glad he's down, and glad we were able to adjust to a different comp to down him.

I just hope to have some fun on Heroic Spine before I have to go on hiatus due to my schedule.

[GolemsVoice]

We're down to only Deathwing himself standing between us and the heroic achievement, since we beat his spine this sunday. The last bosses got done with the 10 or 15% debuff, much to our raid leader's disappointment, but down is down, in a way.

[Mutant Sheep]

We're down to only Deathwing himself standing between us and the heroic achievement, since we beat his spine this sunday. The last bosses got done with the 10 or 15% debuff, much to our raid leader's disappointment, but down is down, in a way.

As a complete nonraider and relative WoW outsider, this statement is hilarious and brilliant out of context. And in context. Cuz dragon. (I wish Deathwing would hurry up and breathe on me, I want 'chievemnt.)

[Karoht]

We're down to only Deathwing himself standing between us and the heroic achievement, since we beat his spine this sunday. The last bosses got done with the 10 or 15% debuff, much to our raid leader's disappointment, but down is down, in a way.

Grats.
We would have had Spine down weeks ago if our people would actually show up on raid night, and if we didn't lose a tank, and if we didn't lose 2 legendary staves. Grumble grumble.

Last night I did in fact stream our regular clear down of Spine and Madness. Did my best to talk a bit, provide some tips. It's up for view on my livestream page, as I keep them all.

Now that I've figured out how to isolate my healbot panel with Fraps, I'm going to try and do a video on Resto Druid healing once MoP launches. Possibly sooner, as there aren't any massive and gamechanging differences between the two, though I will discuss some theory regarding healing mushrooms and Cenarion Ward.

[GolemsVoice]

We would have had Spine down weeks ago if our people would actually show up on raid night, and if we didn't lose a tank, and if we didn't lose 2 legendary staves. Grumble grumble.

Man, that's rough, I feel sorry for you!

[subanark]

Well, we tried H. Blackhorn. The primary issue seems to be people dying due to taking a twilight barrage by themselves. We tried the buddy system, and it doesn't seem to always work, and everyone doesn't quite have enough health to always survive one solo. Thinking about trying to use the Broken mirror again, but maybe it is something that will come with practice.

[Karoht]

Well, we tried H. Blackhorn. The primary issue seems to be people dying due to taking a twilight barrage by themselves. We tried the buddy system, and it doesn't seem to always work, and everyone doesn't quite have enough health to always survive one solo. Thinking about trying to use the Broken mirror again, but maybe it is something that will come with practice.

Try the trio method. 3 people can almost always take a small swirly, and can even take a second regardless of the debuff if they stick together. You just need 6-9 people to be extremely mobile.

If you hit the 3rd set of drakes and the ship is above 40% you can ignore small swirlies but still need to deal with big ones and the sapper.

Good luck!

[subanark]

Ok, so instead of 4 groups of 2 each, we should use 2 or 3 groups of 3 each (although I can't see the tanks being able to be part of a group, and we only have 10 players). If a group takes 2 swirls I can't see how they can survive a big swirl.

[Karoht]

Ok, so instead of 4 groups of 2 each, we should use 2 or 3 groups of 3 each (although I can't see the tanks being able to be part of a group, and we only have 10 players). If a group takes 2 swirls I can't see how they can survive a big swirl.

Can =/= Should
But here is how you can do it.
Personal survival cooldowns where possible, tanks with 4pc bonuses should probably be alternating on big swirlies as they have no other use for them in the first half of the fight, and pro healing. Also, this is one of those fights where the talent most classes can take to get some spell damage reduction (usually 6%) is a very solid idea.

Warning, this fight really does test your healers and DPS to breaking points. We two heal it with me (resto druid) and a holy paladin, and it is freaking rough.

If people aren't surviving small swirlies on this fight, it is typically for two reasons.
-People accidentally solo-ing a swirly (due to hesitation on someone's part)
-People with the debuff taking a swirly too soon without being topped off and no CD to protect them.

The big swirlies can be lethal IF the ship decides to have more fire, and it will sometimes do it under your feet either a fraction of a second before or a fraction of a second after a big swirly. People get battered down to next to no health, and the fire starts under them at the same time, and they die if they don't move fast enough.


Darn Alliance. Curse them for building their ships out of cheese and crackers!
In my day back in ICC the Orgrimms Hammer could take cannon fire and mortars, and barely take a scratch. This Alliance vessel takes one bad Twilight barrage, and it's on fire and breaking apart. Sheesh.

[subanark]

Yea, I think we already convinced people to spec into survivability as much as possible from hagarra. We have 3 mages and I don't think they have passive damage resistance (but they do have cauterize). 1 - 2 warlocks who have their shadow ward. A shadow priest (who can dispersion), and me without survival cooldowns, but I have 12% magic reduction. Our 2 primary healers are also druid and paladin, so that at least matches.

Despite what others have said, we don't seem to have any issue with the sapper. I think its mainly just making sure people move as a group, which requires all of them making the same decision if a small swirl is close enough to run too or not.

We had a short day yesterday so we just finished the instance off. There are a few people in the group who would rather do heroic rags attempts instead of this though. Maybe if we can recruit some people from other guilds or servers we might be able to put something together later.

[Zeb The Troll]

If you see me online while you're trying to form up a Firelands run and have a DPS spot, let me know. I haven't been able to put one together in over a month now and I still don't have my legendary staff.

[Karoht]

Ugh, I got suckered into another Firelands Legendary Farming Group (TM) the other night. At first we were all set to do our usualy 6/7 H clear.
Until people failsauced hard on Beth.
So we went normal for Alysrazor.
Heroic for Rhyolith.
Normal for Bale.
And wiped due to an extremely poor pull on H Majordomo.
And then lost half the people. Aaaaand wasted about an hour and a half in the 'add someone lose someone' trap. Which is approximately where I dropped out.

So if I wasn't saved to that nonsense, I would totally be up for H Rags with you guys.

[Expf]

Soaking the Twilight Barrage is not a "huge" priority. Assuming you kill all 3 drakes in one go, you only need to soak like 2 or 3 to avoid blowing up the ship. Tanks can solo-soak them easily, as well as any melee with decent damage reduction CDs (rogues with Feint, DKs with AMS, Enh w/ SR, Ret with glyphed DP). Moonkins can soak with Barkskin, SPriests can soak with a PW:S on themselves, mages can Cauterize, holy pallies can use DP, etc.

[Karoht]

Soaking the Twilight Barrage is not a "huge" priority. Assuming you kill all 3 drakes in one go, you only need to soak like 2 or 3 to avoid blowing up the ship. Tanks can solo-soak them easily, as well as any melee with decent damage reduction CDs (rogues with Feint, DKs with AMS, Enh w/ SR, Ret with glyphed DP). Moonkins can soak with Barkskin, SPriests can soak with a PW:S on themselves, mages can Cauterize, holy pallies can use DP, etc.

Going to tell you right now, a Resto druid can't solo-soak with Barkskin on heroic. I'm in 405 gear and even with that much stamina and a Barkskin, it just isn't doable. I question the survivability of a Boomkin doing it either.

SPriests can hit Dispersion and laugh at barrages, no matter how many stacks they manage to rack up.

[subanark]

We could try solo soaking with the mirror. As for the above poster, we don't have rogues, or DKs, or enh shamans, or moonkins (which have 15% damage reduction at all times). We do however have 3 fire mages, who could in theory solo soak one per minute.

As for firelands run, if we do it, its just going to be rags. We have a run saved for him, and I don't think most of the guild wants to clear up to him again.

[Karoht]

We just duo up and we get what we can when we can. I usually get one or two from time to time if opportunity presents itself, or the Holy Paladin gets a bunch with some cooldown, sometimes I just combo up with her.

Do you guys start on the back of the boat, get DoTs up on Goriana and the two drakes? It's a considerable boost.

Have you pushed into phase 2 yet? That's a fun and intense bunch of hurdles to jump. Enjoy.

[Expf]

Going to tell you right now, a Resto druid can't solo-soak with Barkskin on heroic. I'm in 405 gear and even with that much stamina and a Barkskin, it just isn't doable. I question the survivability of a Boomkin doing it either.

I was specifically referring to moonkins because of their passive 15% reduction. Before the 10% nerf this wasn't guaranteed (required lucky resists, or a PW:S), but with the 20% nerf moonkins can do that easily with Barkskin: 280k (base) x 90% (min. resist) x 80% (DS nerf) x 85% (passive) x 80% (Barkskin) = 137k.

I wouldn't really recommend using Mirror for this fight -- as I've said, you will only need to soak a handful of barrages. Fire mages are good for soaking too if you can make use of Cauterize (they are also amazing for this fight in general, with Blink for mobility and potent multi-target damage), and so if you have 3 Fire mages you can cover the soaking part quite easily. What other classes do you have? Remember tanks can help soaking too since they have quite a few CDs handy.

Our strategy for soaking (other than solo-soakings the ones they can), is to have two different groups to assist soaking and we only look for "easy soaks", so to speak. In other words, if the Barrage is "right next to us" and both of us can "easily make it in time" then we will soak it. It requires a bit of coordination and "mind-reading" by looking at whether other people are moving towards the Barrage or not. We also call out on Mumble if it looks sketchy or to remind people to soak or not soak the Barrage.

Phase 2 is fairly simple once you get Goriona out of the way -- popping BL/Hero at the start of phase to clean up adds and to get extra nukes on Goriona is one option. As long as nobody gets hit by Shockwave it should be a pretty smooth ride. The healers are taxed during this phase, but the primary recipient of damage is the tank so be sure to keep the tank topped off at all times. His Devastate and melee strikes can hit back-to-back for 200k if you're unlucky, so careful use of CDs would simplify things.

---

So I've been messing around on Beta lately, and quite a few of the quests are just frustrating: the spawn rate seems to be a little bugged for some mobs. I would expect them to spawn faster given the # of people that were questing in the area, but apparently not. There's still a lot of DCs on the server, from just being idle for 15 sec to turning in quests.

The mount bug is pretty hilarious -- you can get Horde and class-specific mounts on just about any character. I copied over my DK just so I could ride on the Deathcharger. :P

Not sure why but I was actually quite excited to find obvious Chinese references in the various names -- not that I know about the language much these days.

[Elm11]

Well, I managed to kite and (after half an hour of burning) tame Deth'tilac and.. that green spider in the Firelands. They're both cool, but a thought occurred to me: Is it actually possible to rename pets you've already renamed? My arctic fox is currently named Cerberus, but I'm thinking of renaming him Nordwind, if it's possible.

Also, what's a good name for a giant purple flame-spider?

Also also, what're the names of those cookies that make your pet bigger?

Cheers.

[Leon]

Well, I managed to kite and (after half an hour of burning) tame Deth'tilac and.. that green spider in the Firelands. They're both cool, but a thought occurred to me: Is it actually possible to rename pets you've already renamed? My arctic fox is currently named Cerberus, but I'm thinking of renaming him Nordwind, if it's possible.

Also, what's a good name for a giant purple flame-spider?

Also also, what're the names of those cookies that make your pet bigger?

Cheers.

Papa Hummel's Old-Fashioned Pet Biscuit and Certificate of Ownership (Inscription 200, 2 celestial ink, 1 common parchment)


Had a Odd occurrence tonight in DS - lagged out badly on Madness to the point where Deathwing was dead (i know this as someone got the the achievement and people were being mass rezed) while i still fought it for a further 3 mins.

That has happened once before in LotRO when fighting the Watcher, that time i was still fighting for 5mins after everyone else stopped and they barely made it as i was the one who had to remove corruptions

[Mutant Sheep]

Papa Hummel's Old-Fashioned Pet Biscuit and Certificate of Ownership (Inscription 200, 2 celestial ink, 1 common parchment)


Had a Odd occurrence tonight in DS - lagged out badly on Madness to the point where Deathwing was dead (i know this as someone got the the achievement and people were being mass rezed) while i still fought it for a further 3 mins.

That has happened once before in LotRO when fighting the Watcher, that time i was still fighting for 5mins after everyone else stopped and they barely made it as i was the one who had to remove corruptions

That is some epic lag drops. Did you miss out on any loot rolls?

[Leon]

No, but it didn't matter anyway - no hunter loot

[TechnoScrabble]

My father finally convinced me to play with him, but I was wondering if the playground's got any RP guilds or whatever on any servers?

[Mutant Sheep]

My father finally convinced me to play with him, but I was wondering if the playground's got any RP guilds or whatever on any servers?

Well, Zeb's on an RP server. So you could RP around and have him roll his eyes at your lack of faith raid gear. And then he'll fly away on his warbear and cry.

[Alarra]

Don't be silly, warbears don't fly.

[Zeb The Troll]

Honestly, while I'm on an RP server, we don't do so much of the RP. Our guild (formed well before I joined, which I did because of RL friends) chose to go there because the maturity level on RP servers tends to be higher.