World of Warcraft XIII: Even Aspects Get Nerfed

[subanark]

Yeah, the fight really revolves around bursting down the Amalgs and just controlling the tentacles without killing them. With 4 healers I take it Plasma is clearing off pretty darned quick?


My ilevel was 404 on our first H-Spine kill.

Yea its not an issue, I can break off and dps to get my mana back up right until the end, so even with my very low spirit I don't have mana problems. We just end up getting overwhelmed. The theory of using 4 healers is that we can get the tendon down to about 35% on the first go even with the 4 healers we have. So even if we shift 2 healers to dps we won't have enough to get every tendon down in 1 shot, but we have plenty to do it in 2.

With 3 we could probably get the last one down with lust.

[Karoht]

It actually isn't so much about the tendon as it is about the Amalg and Bloods.

Faster Amalg Burn = Less Bloods = Less Overwhelming.

Also, are you guys stopping to burn some of the excess bloods at some point?

[Dublock]

My guild ran 4 heals on our Spine kill (The guild actually has two spine kills, week before I joined :P).

We stop before each roll and burn down all the bloods with a hunter who is very good, Boomkin with legendary, warlock that is pretty good and then me, (arcane mage with very little AoE :P). We then soak the bloods and roll.

We were not able to get the tendon down in one lift with 3 heals, using CDs, so we went back to the 4 heals and focus on the amalg and it worked well.

[Karoht]

My guild ran 4 heals on our Spine kill (The guild actually has two spine kills, week before I joined :P).

We stop before each roll and burn down all the bloods with a hunter who is very good, Boomkin with legendary, warlock that is pretty good and then me, (arcane mage with very little AoE :P). We then soak the bloods and roll.

We were not able to get the tendon down in one lift with 3 heals, using CDs, so we went back to the 4 heals and focus on the amalg and it worked well.

Yeah, once we did that, life was cake on that fight. Or rather, significantly less non-cake on that last plate.
Also, cooldown management, really really tight cooldown management (healing and defensive) helps a bundle.

OMG, on the recent Beta notes, they are extending Lifebloom to 15 second duration. I suggested that on the forums about 2 patches ago (even if we had to lose some of the thoughput, which IS NOT being cut) to make better 'room' for using Shroom Bloom, got a lukewarm response, and BAM! Idea implimented.

With the Glyph of Lifebloom (any time you cast Lifebloom on a new target, your number of stacks transfers) we're back to having the spot healing functionality we had in Wrath, but still encouraged to provide that tank heal support stream by 'placing it back' on the tank when we're done. Cool.

Now, time to master those mushrooms...

[subanark]

Well spine was less than stelar since we had to pug an ok dps. Due to frustration in finding any good players we are moving to another server, Turalyon.

[Dublock]

w00t!

On our second attempt last night I am a Savior of Azeroth!

We 3 healed it, one tanked it with a hunter taking the impale. I promptly rolled a 6 on the mount, oh well lol.

[Karoht]

@Sub and Dub
Really, you two need to join the same guild or something, with names like that.

@Sub
Sorry to hear that.
Turalyon? How's it ranked on wow-progress.com?
I switched servers due to the lack of skilled players once. Make sure you do your homework. My advice, make a level 1 alt, run into a main city and watch trade chat for a while, around the time you would normally raid at. If you don't see much activity, not many pugs, not many guilds fishing for new people, I would advise caution.

@Dub
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrraats! Welcome to the Savior of Azeroth club! Got your meta mount too, or doing that next week?
The most annoying meta is probably Hagara, but there are some excellent strategies out there for that particular achievement. Easy one is the "C" method. Instead of directly connecting the last two pillars, you have everyone spread out in a C shape between Pillar A and Pillar B, taking a wide arc around. Then have people adjust their positions, and poof, done.
We did the Madness achievement on normal before the nerfs. It's not brutal, it just takes 3 weeks.
And Deck Defender on normal difficulty is a breeze. 2 Druids, run around, take every small swirly they can, stay out for big swirlies. Super easy after you've already got Blackhorn mastered on heroic.

I rolled a 6, 9, and 8 on the mounts. Then I rolled an 89 on the healing mace, guild leader pointed out that it was designated to go to someone else, so he let me keep the 89 for the mount roll, as that was the only time he'd ever seen me roll double digits. Thats how I won my Lifebinder's Handmaiden.

[subanark]

Yea, our guild leader already research the realm and created some toons a while back there to do raiding on off days. It was chosen with realm rank in mind so we wouldn't be too far behind the best guilds, while keeping a balanced alliance/horde population and still be on a pve server. According to wowprogress the realm is 28th, vs our current server which is 15th... from the bottom.

We might lose our warlock, who always did good damage, but couldn't follow directions at all. It took a few spine attempts telling him to not dps the bloods while stacking and trying to get rid of a hideous (which caused the healers too much stress to handle).

[Karoht]

Yea, our guild leader already research the realm and created some toons a while back there to do raiding on off days. It was chosen with realm rank in mind so we wouldn't be too far behind the best guilds, while keeping a balanced alliance/horde population and still be on a pve server. According to wowprogress the realm is 28th, vs our current server which is 15th... from the bottom.

Yeah, that is the sort of jump we made when we left Kul Tiras (60th or 50th from the bottom) to Area 52 (25th from the top at the time, now 20th).

We might lose our warlock, who always did good damage, but couldn't follow directions at all. It took a few spine attempts telling him to not dps the bloods while stacking and trying to get rid of a hideous (which caused the healers too much stress to handle).

We had a Warlock like that. He would be on vent before the pull, but would then mute vent the second we pulled. Then after the fight was shocked and amazed that we were mad at him for wiping us. Constantly.

He was a... special friend... of the GM of Insomniac. He almost got the first Legendary Staff of the guild, but when we started doing DS progression, he didn't want to come to Firelands night, while our Mage who was nearly done had no qualms at all. He was remarkably upset that the Mage got the stick first, but he was the one who didn't want to put in the work. And after some 30+ clears of 6/7H Firelands, would still somehow be the source of us wiping.

Then he quit the game in a huff shortly before I left Insomniac. Yeah, somehow WE were the bad guys. Right. Oye, the people you meet playing this game...


Well, best of luck moving servers. Moving before or shortly after MoP?

[Dublock]

@Sub and Dub
Really, you two need to join the same guild or something, with names like that.

@Dub
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrraats! Welcome to the Savior of Azeroth club! Got your meta mount too, or doing that next week?
The most annoying meta is probably Hagara, but there are some excellent strategies out there for that particular achievement. Easy one is the "C" method. Instead of directly connecting the last two pillars, you have everyone spread out in a C shape between Pillar A and Pillar B, taking a wide arc around. Then have people adjust their positions, and poof, done.
We did the Madness achievement on normal before the nerfs. It's not brutal, it just takes 3 weeks.
And Deck Defender on normal difficulty is a breeze. 2 Druids, run around, take every small swirly they can, stay out for big swirlies. Super easy after you've already got Blackhorn mastered on heroic.

I rolled a 6, 9, and 8 on the mounts. Then I rolled an 89 on the healing mace, guild leader pointed out that it was designated to go to someone else, so he let me keep the 89 for the mount roll, as that was the only time he'd ever seen me roll double digits. Thats how I won my Lifebinder's Handmaiden.

Lol, well I can't afford to switch realms

We do not have the meta yet, that might be a week or two out(besides DW as I list later). We need Hagara, Warmaster, DW, and Murchok to finish it. I am not worried about us finishing it judging we don't have the release date. Although the DW might be hard...to get people to either do normal or try to change plats up on heroic which sounds like a scary idea lmao (The guild might have done it before I join though).

We definately have two druids that could warmaster that...we normally have 3 :P (two dps and one heals). Actually on our last warmaster kill we only got fire right at the last set of elites, then we got lazy and even let a sapper through got the kill though :P

I want the mount, but I won't be bothered to much if I don't get it. I am slowly working on my mount collection but not critical.

[Karoht]

We do not have the meta yet, that might be a week or two out(besides DW as I list later). We need Hagara, Warmaster, DW, and Murchok to finish it.

The Morchock achievement is actually easier on heroic, because of the split groups. Just assign everyone a direction to run and you're fine.

I am not worried about us finishing it judging we don't have the release date. Although the DW might be hard...to get people to either do normal or try to change plats up on heroic which sounds like a scary idea lmao (The guild might have done it before I join though).

Normal is much easier. If you don't get that done before MoP, I wouldn't worry either, you'll see pugs clearing it for cheevo's in MoP.

We definately have two druids that could warmaster that.

Really just any two who can move fast and have good personal cooldowns. Mages are good, Rogues are good, Druids rock (Travel Form FTW), Shamans rock (Ghost Wolf FTW), Warlocks are really good at moving and DoT'ing and they have a solid cooldown for soaking the swirlies, Paladins have 100 cooldowns which work really well, etc.
Also, reason why you keep two people out during big swirly is you will get small swirlies during a big one or shortly afterward, and they like to put them in the opposite corners of each other, which is a pain.

[subanark]

We are moving tomorrow. There is a 25% discount on realm transfers until Monday, so that pushed us to do it sooner.

[Karoht]

Tuesday. Raid Night. Good luck to everyone!
Ugh, one more week to go (after this current week), then a week of vacation, and I'm back on raiding with my guild. If my guild isn't running stuff, I wouldn't say no to some Real ID raiding again or something. How has the server change gone so far Sub?

Karotfarmer is 2 levels away from being finished Cataclysm. We are WAAAAY ahead of schedule. I completely breezed through Hyjal, then went straight into Deepholm which I've more or less breezed through as well. My secret?
Once I hit 80, I decided to go Bear and not look back. For leveling purposes the DPS is basically the same as Cat, except that I can pull 3-6 mobs and not worry. Taking on groups only increases the time by about 25% for each additional mob by my figuring. In Deepholm the mobs are a bit more spread out, so I'm down to usually only taking on pairs and rarely more. It's sad. Most things can't hurt me enough to get around my shield from Savage Defense, let alone the self-heal I get every 6 seconds from Leader of the Pack. Bear also just has some great survival tools, so even with a big pack, there really wasn't much in the way of downtime between pulls. AoE looting in MoP will speed that up.

Also, for those concerned about BoA gear, worry not. I replaced mine at 82, with green quest rewards (not blues, weird huh?). This was the helmet and cloak which scale to 85 each. It's really not necessary. If anything I would say it makes 1-40 really simple, and 58-65 really simple. 70+ it largely isn't that much of a boost (beyond bonus XP), and Cata content it isn't that much of a help. The choice to level a character without BoA gear is not really an inferior one.

I do however recommend a different approach to stats when leveling. Hit/Expertise are AMAZING while leveling if you are a melee. It was remarkably frustrating building up combo points as a cat, then using a finisher only to miss, and miss, and miss, and then finally have it hit. The minute I had a healthy amount of both, leveling went much smoother.

[Dublock]

f my guild isn't running stuff, I wouldn't say no to some Real ID raiding again or something. How has the server change gone so far Sub?

I will be down for raiding with some of you guys. I don't know about weekends for me as I tend to hang out with r/l friends I got a druid and mage that's geared for anything we can raid.

Hopefully my guild can do 8/8 tonight. I don't know if we can. Although we did pick up an old warrior tank (old as in fell inactive before I joined) who is good, and can handle the bloods on Spine with ease. We did have him last week on DW.

So I have 7 classes level 40+ but only 3 at 85. I am going to aim to finish two of them before MoP. I like my rogue who is at 80, then I have been playing my shaman who just reached 50.

[Karoht]

So I have 7 classes level 40+ but only 3 at 85. I am going to aim to finish two of them before MoP. I like my rogue who is at 80, then I have been playing my shaman who just reached 50.

I should probably check the /played to see how long it took me to get Karotfarmer to 85. I checked it at 60, that was 17 hours, I'm estimating that outland took me 20-30 hours while northrend my guess is between 15-20. Cataclysm? Probably going to clock in under 15 hours at this rate.

My estimate from 1-85?
80-90 hours max.

It's actually not that much when you think about it. And this is with a character that isn't using all BoA's, nor am I getting a full rested bar either.

But I will tell you, if you want to level faster, take Herbing and Mining. The bonus XP you get from those is incredible. It made a huge difference in Northrend, and still quite a noticable difference in Cataclysm.

My Shaman is sitting at 76. I should do something about that. And he's got all the BoA's as well. Hmmm.
Karohtaka-Step 1, Ditch Engineering for Jewelcrafting. Step 2, Get Mining up from 75 to Northrend levels. Step 3, Level to 85. Step 4, Max out Jewelcrafting.

[Alarra]

We haven't raided in ages. I miss it. We'd happily do some real id raiding if something gets set up.

[Dublock]

I was sat for bosses 1-5 to gear a rogue :( I was one of the people that can still use like 5 upgrades. Oh well...

We had one wipe on Spine, then 3 or 4 on DW before the kill. It is nice to finish the raid in one night, leaving free time and older content to be cleared.

I did get two queens from the 3 clusters I got...

[Krazzman]

A few weeks ago I "started over" after a break of ~5 months. We switched over to Antonidas and I pulled my Paladin (Krezdorim) and my Mage (Kossuth) with me.

Now I have a average itemscore of 394 with 4 things that I like to change but somehow are unwilling to because as a RetPaladin I think the 378 Bracers are better than the 397 ones. additionally I got 2 Trinkets yesterday, instead of the hero chest token but I was able to change one mediocre 397 trinket (Bone-link fetish) and the Vessel of acceleration (Raggi nHc). But DW does not seem to like me. In the time I killed him he dropped Guthalak once...which went to the DK Tank, that now has managed to break his laptop so he'll be missing for 2 ID's.

The thing's I want to change badly with Krezdorim are his Chest, Ring (both LFR), Wrist and Neck (both 378).

The most shocking moment in my life was this sunday. We tried Hagara HC and 3 % left, Tank down, Hagara sees me, as I have dealt most of the Damage to her... Divine Protection, dropping low... Lay on Hands, survived with 1% HP left and Hagara down. And then she drops the usual crap... Rogue, Druid, Mage, Deathknigh... and DW Madness yesterday? Died on the third platform because my judgement overaggroed the two warritanks, strike, dead pala.... then he drops 2 Intellect daggers.

[delphinae]

Mists of Pandaria's release date has been announced as September 25, 2012. Blizzard is accepting pre-purchases for digital standard ($40) and deluxe ($60) versions. The digital versions allow you to play as soon as the servers are live. The deluxe includes the pet and mount as well as some digital items for Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2. There are also standard retail versions ($40) and the collector's edition box ($80), which includes the digital items from the deluxe version as well as the soundtrack, behind-the-scenes DVD, artbook, and Master Chen mousepad.

[Dublock]

Two months....Well I guess I got a list of things that I want to do.

1) Figure out who I want as my main, guild dependent

2) Finish leveling up another two toon to 85, going to be my DK and my rogue I think.

3) Work on professions, trying to get BS on my DK and LW on my rogue...those are painful -.-

4) Condense gold on whoever is my main and start saving up for MoP

5) Finish up/do a few rep grinds on Dublock for mounts, mainly talking about BC rep grinds currently.

[Hullabaloo]

Hum almost exactly 1 month after GW2 comes out. I gotta say WoW has not gotten its hooks into as much as I thought. I've prepurchased GW2 and have my current WoW sub running out right about the same time, so I will probably be taking a WoW break while I test out GW2.

On a happier WoW note. Got Riptide the other day. Oh My! I love it! Only been doing Random PvPs lately due to houseguests living in my office/guest room (so I randomly have to log off on very short notice, and wont do that as a healer in a dungeon).

Makes it very easy to keep up any decent players in random PvP, and really adds a great new dynamic with an instant HoT with so many other interactions with the class mechanics.

[Karoht]

Karotfarmer is 84 and a half.

As for time played?
3 days, 17 hours last time I checked. So my estimate of finishing under 90 hours isn't too likely. Probably 95-100 afterall.
But that isn't bad. It's still an hour and a bit per level as an average.

As for me missing raids (likely to continue for a while) my raid leader begged me to show up for raid tonight. Said I should just quit my job and look for a new one. It's nice feeling wanted.

@MoP release date.
Okay, so it says September 25 right? Why the heck are so many people on forums and game sites saying it's September 12? I'm lost.
As for the Pre-MoP patch, I would expect it pretty soon.

[subanark]

@MoP release date
I remember hearing that the prepatch will only be 2 weeks long for this xpac, so that puts the date at September 11th.

@Raids
Our server move worked out pretty well, all in all it seems like 1 raider didn't transfer (and a few non-raiders did). It was very easy to find a couple pugs to take up spots (seeing as another raider couldn't make the time slot) and when one DCed due to storms we easily found a replacement who didn't care about gear from previous bosses. 1-shot everything up to spine and spent some time working on that. Ultimately we need a strat to reduce the number of bloods that come out, either by keeping more hideous's around or moving up to 5 dps to push through the phases faster.

I never realized how easy it was to find people on larger servers until now. I feel a lot of pity for those left on smaller ones (and don't really like the fact that by moving we made the problem on our old server worse).

[Dublock]

For us we roll for each plate and right before we roll we kill and then soak up all the bloods with the amag, popping Tranq and when we stack, Spirit link. That helps a bit if you are not doing that already.

Pre-patch only two weeks long? So its going to be on the PTR for a month and half? That seems long....

[Karoht]

@MoP release date
I remember hearing that the prepatch will only be 2 weeks long for this xpac, so that puts the date at September 11th.

Ah. That more or less explains it.

@Raids
Our server move worked out pretty well, all in all it seems like 1 raider didn't transfer (and a few non-raiders did). It was very easy to find a couple pugs to take up spots (seeing as another raider couldn't make the time slot) and when one DCed due to storms we easily found a replacement who didn't care about gear from previous bosses. 1-shot everything up to spine and spent some time working on that. Ultimately we need a strat to reduce the number of bloods that come out, either by keeping more hideous's around or moving up to 5 dps to push through the phases faster.

My vote has already been stated. Grats on the server move working out for you.

I never realized how easy it was to find people on larger servers until now. I feel a lot of pity for those left on smaller ones (and don't really like the fact that by moving we made the problem on our old server worse).

When I moved from Kul Tiras to Area 52 I was completely blown away by how active trade channel was and how many pugs were rolling all the time.


@Small Population Servers
People tell me all the time that they prefer small-pop servers because it has "more of a community feeling" but then complain that they can't fill spots in their raids. I really don't know what that community feeling is. I personally enjoy an active pugging community and raiding community, that feels more like community to me, rather than just a bunch of people talking about life in trade chat. That activity is the key thing for me. That feels like a community to me, not an inactive group of people who can't or don't pug or raid much.
RP servers notwithstanding of course.

For us we roll for each plate and right before we roll we kill and then soak up all the bloods with the amag, popping Tranq and when we stack, Spirit link. That helps a bit if you are not doing that already.

This. Very much this.

Pre-patch only two weeks long? So its going to be on the PTR for a month and half? That seems long....

It's only one event, they don't want it around for months and months. Odds are it's already good to go.

[Krazzman]

From what I read the Prepatch should start somewhat near the end of August.

My Plans before the release are:
1.) Make more money with my Paladin (21k are too small)
2.) Getting my mage his Elementium Rune Staff back so he can enchant again (was somehow lost, GM couldn't help...he's at Fel Iron Rod so far)
3.) Bringing my DK to 85 (currently 80/81 not sure)
4.) Getting guild Rep to exalted.


Anyhow does anyone know something about the changes for ret's? Are they still the same gameplay wise? I love it how first you are a prio-list class then popping cooldowns and suddenly 2 key class.

[delphinae]

From what I read the Prepatch should start somewhat near the end of August.

My Plans before the release are:
2.) Getting my mage his Elementium Rune Staff back so he can enchant again (was somehow lost, GM couldn't help...he's at Fel Iron Rod so far)

They're changing Enchanting so that all recipes only use a Runed Copper Rod. If you have one of the later rods, it will remain in your bags and continue to count for Enchanting purposes.

[subanark]

Guess I spoke too soon. We had 1 missing person tonight and couldn't find a replacement (he eventually came, and said sorry, but it was a bit late by that point). Instead we did a few attempts on heroic rags. 2nd attempt we got to P4 with half the raid dead, but it looks like we probably have the dps to only get 1 meteor and kill it during the transition. We didn't get to P4 again though, a few mistakes with world of flames, and a bit of miscommunication on who goes where for the sons of flames.

[Karoht]

World in Flames is dicey at the best of times. The damage extends out from the graphic a bit. My advice, "max melee range" is what my raid leader calls it. Rags has a massive hitbox, melee can hit him from quite a ways away. You straddle the line, and only move a tiny bit when World in Flames occurs. Most times you will only have to move twice. Once away from Rags, once back towards, maybe repeat that exact process again. It's about as hard to manage as playing double dutch (with skipping rope that is).
My other advice for World in Flames, DO NOT use movement speed powers. It seems to screw everyone up. They move that little bit more than they should, then they try to correct, they stop watching their feet, boom dead. Especially do not use Stampeding Roar.

[Dublock]

Completely random but I was shocked

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/to...0970129?page=1

This person has spent over 10k on haircuts....

Edit: Another gem in WoW General, this is a thread talking about how to know if someone plays WoW/how to find out and a person said this:

Well, I myself have the Felreaver noise as my ringtone, and I play it in crowded areas. I can always tell who plays WoW by whose heads start shooting around with terrified looks on their faces.

Brilliant.