Monthly Archive for March, 2008

Healing MrT

Published
by
Yashima
on March 31, 2008
.Tags: 1 Comment

When it was clear patch 2.4 would hit us on Wednesday, I had this idea to repeat something that we had done only once before: a totally spoiler-free run.

Way back when … well about a year ago actually … I was a pretty fresh 70 and somebody asked if I wanted to run Shattered Halls. I had not been there and neither had Teno nor any of the other three group members. We had not seen any guides or read any boss strategies. We had not even seen a map of the instance. I remember that group very well: a durid 4 tank, holy priest, hunter, warlock and kitty-me as damage/off-healer. I remember the gauntlet we didn’t know about, some of the big big pulls and the boss fights, which basically all became the same strategy: “burn it down quickly!” Back than we were not Heroic or Kara equipped. We only wiped once I believe on a large trash pull.

Remembering that, I asked the same tank and Warlock if they wanted to do another spoiler-free run on the new instance. So last Wednesday we assembled to run MrT with nearly the same group. The priest was afk, which wasn’t too bad, because I am skilled Resto currently and was thinking to go in as healer not DPS. So we got ourselves a rogue and set out.

Group Setup: Feral Druid Tank, Resto Druid Healer, Affliction/Demo Warlock, Marksmanship Hunter and a Combat Rogue.

We managed one pull (the 2 guards near the entrance) before we wiped on the second group. The tank was wearing his kitty gear because he thought “this is only a 5 man” and “we don’t need no CC”. Yeah right. We changed to a more serious pace including the right equipment and crowd control.

So how was my experience as a healer?

There are three things that made healing this instance harder than the other 5 mans: large pulls (many 5 mob groups), a lot of magic damage and a lot of area damage to the group. The magic damage might be reduced when going in with a Warrior tank who can mitigate magic damage better (or so I was told) with Spell Reflect? But still I should be able to heal this as only healer with any kind of tank.

So what happened in most fights?

  • I could not start healing early, because of aggro issues with the large pulls
  • HoTs are not enough because of the late start
  • no mana issues (thanks to mp5 changes in 2.4)
  • often needed Healing Touch to catch up with the damage on the tank
  • lots of HoT throwing on everybody in the party
  • keep forgetting to heal myself

Here’s my plan for next time:

  • start fight as tree
  • cast Lifebloom (let the first LB bloom) and Rejuv on tank
  • cast some Rejuvs/Lifeblooms on party members taking damage (which is preferable?)
  • shift out to HT the tank once or twice to get him back up
  • do not forget to shift back to tree
  • create a stack of Lifeblooms and recast Rejuv on tank
  • keep the HoTs rolling, throw in a Regrowth if it becomes too much
  • try not to have to use Tranquility too much

It seems I can’t ignore half of my healing spells anymore. This is an instance I can’t manage with Rejuv+Swiftmend and Lifebloom only. Since I was rarely having mana issues I can finally stop thinking about being mana efficient and instead try to be healing efficient. Maybe my +Heal is still a little low.

The boss fights weren’t that hard on me as a healer.

Selin Fireheart – he’s only hard after he ate a crystal. I remember him doing quite some damage on the group then and needing Tranquility to get them back up. If your group finishes the crystals quickly he should not be a problem.

Vexallus – I have not quite understood him yet. He does a moderate amount of damage on the tank I feel. The problem are the “Pure Energy” adds he spawns. The DPS should cycle the killing of these between them otherwise the one who is doing them quickly becomes un-healable and chaos ensues.

Delrissa – Treat this fight like 5v5 arena and it is not so hard. If not wearing your pvp gear anyway the trinket might still be a good idea as they use fear effects.

Kael’thas Sunstrider – I never used tree form here. I am having a lot of trouble healing the tank and everybody else taking damage from the Phoenix and forgetting to move out of Flamestrike. In Phase 2 I was having trouble avoiding the purple spheres of death and staying in healing range of my party. It seems like everyone is on their own there.

I feel with being about half Kara equipped I should be able to handle this. So I guess it is me and maybe the group that’s having issues here and not my equipment.

I started this post several days ago and then never had time to finish. By now I have completed the instance a second time. Many fights went easier with having some knowledge of what was too come. We had much more trouble with Vexallus though with this second group (Resto Druid, Prot Pala, Fire Mage, Affliction/Demo Warlock and Marksmanship Hunter). Several times I got Healing Aggro from healing to early on in the fight. I find myself using the Tree less and less and if it wasn’t for the 11 feral points I want for pvp and stealth runs I’d be respeccing to Dreamstate right this moment.

How I select new gear

Published
by
Yashima
on March 26, 2008
.Tags: , 0 Comments

Teno asked me to find him a new chest piece for his Hunter who is still wearing green which embarrasses every time he meets another Hunter. So by the example of his chest piece I am going to show how I go about finding my upgrades.

First thing I go to WoWHead – currently my favorite item search engine: WoWHead

Then I create a basic search for the item(s) in question. This time we want a Mail Chest, at least blue, usable by Hunters, with a level requirement of 70 and a maximum Item-Level of 130 which includes Zul Aman and Karazahn. I have also added a filter to include only chest pieces that include Agility, Teno’s favorite stat.

Then I go through the short list of results to find out where each piece drops.

For a first quick upgrade anything that can be bought through factions or crafted without Primal nether qualifies.

Epics:

Rares:

First strike out anything from the above list, that will be nearly impossible to obtain within guild events. Next check for more Chest Pieces that may not necessarily have Agi on them. Kara is suspiciously missing from the list so far. So here’s some more, this time “No Agi, with Ranged AP“:

Again strike out everything that does not qualify, in this case special crafter gear. Now look for a few more pieces by checking if I missed anything by relying on Agi or AP as primary stats. Does not look that way. No Hit or Crit Rating gear without either Agi or AP ;)

So now we can go through the choices and find a good upgrade path that includes as little farming or randomness as possible and yet nets us the best results in terms of stats.

My first choice of upgrades would be pieces that can be bought from a faction or crafted without a Primal Nether. If the crafting involves a lot of farming I would first run two to three normal or heroic instances and hope for luck.

Next on my personal list would be to check the stuff to be bought for Honor. S1 does not cost too much and usually provides a nice upgrade that will certainly be better even in PvE than anything green.

Finally there may be some pieces from Raid instances that might be the best possible upgrades or even from Heroics. After getting a first easy upgrade I would keep these pieces in mind and try to get on runs to those places. If there are no such pieces from bosses we can and will down more or less regularly (Nightbane does not qualify as regular, as we have not downed him yet to my knowledge), I would got for the Primal Nether and try to find a crafter or even buy someone from our guild the recipe.

So if you’re a Hunter looking for a new chest piece consider your options and choose from above.

I usually choose several slots I may want to upgrade and “work” on them parallel by hoarding BoJs from Heroic runs for one slot and hoping for drops for another while farming a bit of Honor, Arena Points or materials on the side. I left out S2 and S3 for a reason: farming Arena Points takes a really long time for a chest piece if you are not very good …

Good Luck with upgrading.

Btw the Armory Upgrade function gets similar results much faster ;) Doesn’t work out every time though.

Our guild’s Gruul Event

Published
by
Yashima
on March 26, 2008
.Tags: , 0 Comments

We had tried to get a group together for this around Christmas and just didn’t find enough people. We do big events like this with another guild usually.

This time the GM of our allied guild had asked if we wanted to try and down Gruul together. I agreed it was a good idea to get something big going again for a change and started organizing immediately.

While we have many capable organizers for Kara by now, it still falls to some special people to organize the bigger things, the one time special events. Gruul certainly qualifies for “special” in our little guild. Last time I checked we were at 36 accounts about 2 thirds of which are active players who join in such events.

So the biggest accomplishment really is getting a group together with 4 capable tanks, 8 healers and 13 DPS. It ended up being 17 guildies, 2 ex-guildies, 2 future guildies and 4 miscellaneous helpers from 2 friendly guilds. Only one was actually from our allied guild and he only came because he’s a friend to one of our members. Somehow our allies chickened out or didn’t have the time.

But I am proud to see that we had such a huge turnout from our guild.

Only one person was sad. A warlock who had worked hard on his equipment had to log onto his Holy Priest to give us the last healer we were lacking in the end. But the other choice would have been for someone to respec. One of those people offering to respec was our main tank (a druid ^^) and raid leader.

We ended up with 4 warlocks and 5 mages for dps. We are a weird guild I think ;)

It took us forever to get ready. We are doing fine in 10-mans by now and are going through the preparation phase much quicker than in the beginning. But 25 is a completely different story. Getting buffed up, fixing every one with the correct blessings and explaining the Maulgar pull yet again … took time.

We then proceeded to repeat the preparation phase about 5 times, each time messing up the pull. On the fifth try he and his cronies just went down …. easily. I spammed Lifebloom on the tank like there was no other button on my interface. Ok I handed out a few Lifeblooms on a few raid members as well ;)

We were quite happy to get down our first 25-man boss as a guild! There were cheers in Teamspeak and guild chat.

Then we went to take down the trash before Gruul and finally stood there before the big guy:

More preparations and explanations.

We didn’t down him. After about 5 or 6 tries we ran out of time as it was past 11p.m. and part of our raiding style is going to bed early and not forcing anything. After all we just do this “casually”. For many of us being there the first time we did quite well. Our best try got him down to 14% before the last few people died.

Too many people died to the Shatters I think. I have not yet found out how to evade the others during that phase and I do have Boss Mods installed that give me the helper that tells me who is too close to me.

Our final try only got him to 34%, we were a bit tired. We did well, and people were proud we got there at all!

WoW Diary: What happened …

Published
by
Yashima
on March 22, 2008
.Tags: 0 Comments

The last “major” happening in WoW for me was to complete Thalya’s and two guildies’ Kara Attunement on Tuesday with a really nice group. We did both Caverns of Time instances on one evening and everything went fine. Not one dead groupmember. The setup was nearly the same as on Friday for the Fragments. Warrior for tank, Druid as healer and Warlock … this time there were two Mages. My Hunter came home late and could not participate. The second Mage was only 69 but we still did fine.

I did the adds in Black Morast. It was the hardest thing I did with Thalya in any instance so far. I went through nearly 3 stacks of Water and at least 2 complete Manastones. I managed most of the time. The worst were the little groups of three. I have no points in Arcane. I think that would have been a good idea and more use of my pet and Icy Veins.

Besides that I did some dailies with Yashima and became Honored with the Netherwing which gave me a few more quests to do for them. I like that about the Netherwing Dailies. There seems so much more purpose to it than Skettis and Ogri’la. I think I’ll like the Sunwell stuff.

One more thing I did: I leveled Lakshmi to 31 and she’s going strong on 32. I was told by our guild’s Shamans to look out for Wirt’s Third Leg to carry at level 40. Two of them with a Crusader enchant. So right at this moment I am checking the Auctionhouse … again.

Recipe Completionist

Published
by
Yashima
on March 18, 2008
.Tags: 2 Comments

Yes Yashima still is a Master Transmuter. I was motivated to stay one after one of my first transmutes after the specialty was a 4 piece proc on Primal Might. For a while I had pretty regular procs and tried to do my transmute on a daily basis. I still do it about every other day and so have a steady supply of all kinds of primals.

As of this morning I am only missing one final transmutation: Fire->Mana. While transmuting Primal Water to Primal Air this morning I discovered how to transmute from Water to Shadow which has become much more valuable since Shadow has become so rare. At about the same time as I am staring at the “You made a discovery” line I saw that I had a nice 4 piece proc on the transmute. Yay me. Finally a proc on something else than Earth->Water.

Now I need only 3 more Flask Discoveries and then I have them all.

I am still missing a bunch of recipes. I have yet to learn a single of the biggest Protection Potions and of course I don’t know any of the Cauldron recipes … I am missing three World Drop recipes and have not yet made it to Exalted with any of the factions I can get “classic” Flasks from.

Not to forget that there are old-world recipes I don’t know. My plan is to go back when I made level 80 and get them solo.

Sonntagsfahrer – the first matches

Published
by
Yashima
on March 17, 2008
.Tags: 0 Comments

So yesterday we founded our brand new 2v2 team and had our first two matches. We that is Yashima, Restoration Druid and Tenobaal, Marksmanship Hunter. Our team is named “Sonntagsfahrer” for lack of a better idea. This translates to “Sunday Drivers” – a term that in German designates people who drive badly because they are supposedly only driving on week-ends. Since we are only starting with Arena it seemed fitting and was as good as all the other ideas we had which were actually close to none at all.

We had 2 matches. The first was against two Shamans. Ouch. One of them was healing the other looked like Enhancement. I got to heal a lot but then suddenly Teno was gone … he had tried to kill the Melee Shaman. Well we lost. But it was a first match …

The second match was against a Priest and a Warlock. We might have had a chance at winning that. Except the Priest never went down and the Warlock pet kept me quite busy. We should have gotten rid of the pet first, then the Priest. I managed to heal both of us quite a bit and keep the Warlock busy. I used a lot of mana and needed an Innervate half way through. Teno got mad though because everytime he had the Priest to 10% he would heal himself back up to full while he was feared.

Well those were only two matches :) This week I’ll be getting my Arena Points from our 3v3 matches last Friday. We did win some of them though often I’d get focus fired and not get to heal a lot. I hope I’ll finally have enough points for the S3 chest. I would be really really good to have that as we are going to Gruul before the next points and I could so use that chest.

WoW Diary: Weekends

Published
by
Yashima
on March 16, 2008
.Tags: 2 Comments

On Friday I had a most wonderful Shadowlab run with 4 other guildies. We got through it in 90 minutes with only one death. Group Setup: Warrior for tank, Druid for heal and Hunter, Warlock and Thalya (Mage) for DPS. It went so smooth and I had lots of fun. It’s just great to play with a group where you never have to worry about anyone not doing his job. The drops were lame though. Doesn’t help that I have the tailoring epics ;) Thalya is now up to about 600+ spell damage and about 60 Spell Hit.

After Shadowlab we decided to get the other 2 fragments with nearly the same group. So now I only need to do the two Caverns of Time runs for my prequest. So nice.

The rest of the week-end I did not play a lot. I leveled Lakshmi from 27 to 29 and crafted her some new clothes with my Leatherworker. Maybe I’ll get her to 30 tonight so she can wear some more of them. So far playing a (Enhancement) Shaman seems like a lot of action compared to the “Frostbolt! Frostbolt! Frostbolt! Oops Ice Lance! Frostbolt!” I’ve been doing with Thalya lately.

Well got to go back to cooking ;)

Need Arena Team Name

Published
by
Yashima
on March 13, 2008
.Tags: , 0 Comments

I seem to be having name-creation-block. I have been thinking about a possible name for a 2v2 arena team for about three days now. I am hoping to convince Teno to make a team with me. My 2v2 has not been happening as my current Arena partner and I do not have the same online times right now.

So anybody got a good idea what to name an Arena team consisting of a Druid and a Hunter? We’re night-elves, both of us. Potentially I’ll add Thalya to the equation to get her a few Arena Points, too. If Teno’s Priest ever makes 70 we’d have a Holy/Disc priest to add to the team.

Just can’t think of anything.

Altaholism

Published
by
Yashima
on March 13, 2008
.Tags: , 2 Comments

Now that Thalya is 70 I will try to farm some gold to get her a fast mount as well. On the other hand I’ll still play Yashima … but I am going to level another character … I know it.

Here’s my selection of alts:

The last few days I haven’t played a lot. Which I always consider good. Because I do play too much *g* I only managed to finish a single questline on Thalya this morning (the one in Death’s Door where you get the ‘Natasha’ amulets as reward … was quite fun, too!).

So I am thinking of leveling the Shaman. My reasons:

  1. While I enjoy playing a pure damage class like the mage, I also need a second healing class so I can play Yashima more as tank. We are always looking for tanks and I can tank. I am just not willing to respec more than once every other week or so.
  2. She is a Jewelcrafter and while expensiv to level it might end up saving gold in the long run being very profitable at the high-end of the profession. She’s also mining and I don’t have a high-level mining character and it is a very profitable gathering profession.
  3. She’s a Draenei, I already have a Nelf and a Gnome up to 70. I don’t like Dwarfs and Humans. Purely optical reasons, too.
  4. She’s not a cloth wearer, way too many of those on every run.

For now she’s only 27. I plan on getting her to 35 quickly to be able to continue leveling Jewelcrafting.

Equipping a fresh 70 Mage

Published
by
Yashima
on March 11, 2008
.Tags: , 2 Comments

I just made it to 70 with Thalya and so I guess there may be a couple more Mage related posts instead of the usual Druid fare I am posting.

I have not really looked for a guide to equipping my mage. It is far easier to plan her equipment than it was for Yashima. After all a Mage needs DPS equipment and since I don’t plan on leaving my frost spec and I am pretty sure PvP equipment is not what I want for PvE purposes it becomes even easier.

Of course I started out at 70 with my Tailoring crafter set Shadows Embrace. So there go 3 slots (shoulder, chest and feet):

I’ve already ordered a Battlecast Hood to accompany the 3 piece Ice Mage set. Spellstrike would be better, but having a crafter with a Nether ready and the optical fit just trumps the Spellstrike. So much for the head slot: Battlecast Hood.

I also managed to snitch a nice set of pants from Botanica on Sunday: Devil-Stitched Leggings.

All the rest of my gear is totally outdated. I am looking for gear with Spell-Hit, Spelldamage, Intelligence and Stamina possibly. I think Spellcrit is nice, too but I think as an Ice Mage the other stats are more important (tell me if I am wrong).

I’ll try to minimize the random drop luck I need and so I prefer going with crafted or quest items:

To complete the list, I will now list alternatives for the slots I already managed to fill with luck or tailoring:

So a lot of Questing and a few instances you will want to run anyway should get you ready to tackle Heroics and eventually Karazhan with your Mage. Do not forget to enchant the items you are pretty sure will not see an upgrade in the next week and put in some gems if you have sockets. For Heroics you may not need Hit Rating maxed out but if you want to go to Kara try and get it close to the cap. Everything you need to know about Spell-Hit can be found at WoWWiki.

At 70 most content will require 5 people to advance your equipment in a significant way. This is the game at 70. There are a few solo-able things but if you want to get into PvE group play, you will need to practive PvE group play.