rawr!

This weekend I raided with the 25 on my druid, well at least a big part of it. I had a lot of fun, and not only that, it also made me realize that I do like my priest. I just shouldn't get overdoses of priestly raiding.

In our pugtastic raid we one-shot mimiron, and took a look at Vezax. Boy is there a lot of trash to kill. We also gave faction champions another try, and I still hate that fight. Still other raids are managing to beat it fairly easily, so should we. We just need to figure out how.

In our 10s we did manage to kill faction champion, and Twins. And boy are they easy. (Expect a write up soon.) We also got Orbit-uary and Sarth3D down. So yay, 1 closer to our drakes again.

We worked on mimiron firefighter as well, and got it to phase 4! Next week we should get him down, and then it's 1 left to go, Yogg+1 woot!.

So yeah, that was sort of my weekend. Lots and lots of raiding, lots and lots of sleeping and napping. And though the vuelta finished in our little town this weekend, all I saw of it were many helicopters flying over.

I rawred a lot on my kitty druid and let my wild side out. I just have to make sure not to burn myself out on her and change healing off with a healthy dose of whackbangboom!

Sarcastic Shy in a Blergh Mood, beware!

Ever had one of those days where you're hopping from one character to the other? Just because you don't feel like anything, but you feel you should do something?

Yes, it's one of those days.

I just forced myself through Occulus to get my triumph emblems, and yaknowwhat I don't even know for what. Blizzard made it completely impossible for me to switch out to the next tier until I have 4 pieces.

At least a guildie was kind enough to heal so I could go shadow, since I'm even more tired of hearing 'that spells not ready' or 'you can't do that yet' when I'm discipline.

Isn't it sad that I feel guilty when I start doing stuff on an alt though? I mean there's so much left to do on my priest, but I'm just confused with it. I feel like I should get emblems of triumph, but I don't know what to do with them.

I'm not seeing upgrades, but for all I know next patch my stats are hussled about again and I need a mountain of emblems (though I sincerely hope that Blizzard is done shuffling my talents about until the next expansion at least).

Maybe I should just go out and try alting again, this time the favourite of this month...anybody know which class is currently being 'balanced' upwards?

(yes, I held back, I had sentences that would drive my blog to the realm of 18+ in first >_<)

Casualties of Cataclysm

From the bowels of Deepholm, the elemental plane of earth, rose a rumble and the earth shook lightly. Deathwing shook his head and stretched as much as he could. He yawned a little and lazily scratched his chin.

For the first couple of years it had been hard, he had been so weakened. But now, now he felt stronger every day. And the plans that had been formed and molded in his mind would soon become reality...

This could be happening right now. Blizzard has already revealed to us that sometime in the nearby future Deathwing will return and will lay Azeroth to waste. With this horrific deed he will reshape the world as we know it, and while some areas may recover and come out anew, other areas will never be the same.

Lets face it, after Cataclysm, the World of Warcraft as we know it now, is gone. With that a lot of the current quests, factions, and achievements will likely no longer exist. Here's an overview of things that might change forever.

Keep in mind that these are my own speculations, and that they are based purely on information published and on common sense.

Loremaster.
Complete 700 quests in Eastern Kingdoms
Complete 700 quests in Kalimdor
Complete 568 quests in Outlands
Complete 875 quests in Northrend

This is currently a pretty darn big achievement. It gets you a nice title as well. You see the title every now and then, but it still isn't something that most people have done.

With a lot of quests disappearing forever in Azeroth my guess is that this will become a feat of strength and that the title will become rarer and rarer.

Wintersaber Faction.
There is one guy that hands out quests for this faction. If he happens to step the wrong direction when Deathwing comes by, he's dead and wintersaber faction with him. It's very possible that wintersaber mounts might become an even bigger rarity than they already are.

(Wintersaber will now be melted saber?)

Insane and Goblin Factions.
I know not all the goblin races will become horde, but it's well possible that Booty Bay may become Booty Hole, and that goblin factions as they currently are will become rather impossible to get for Alliance.

With this it would also become quite impossible to get the Insane title. Though I've never seen this around, like, ever. It will become quite the title to have once it's no longer even possible to get it.

Dungeons and Raids
The Onyxia quest line as it once was has already disappeared, with Ony going out to get level 80s now, the achievement might be completely gone. And Ony is likely not the only one.

It has already been announced that Ragnaros is back (and pissed), but that would mean that Molten Core is no longer the same. Go see this sort of stuff while you can.

Cooking Recipes.
So while I can actually see it happen that the caravan in Desolace might still be tracking around there after the revamp. I can definitely advice to get your cooking recipes now, it's a fun little thing to do and well...it might not be there afterwards, or at least not in this form.

Base Jumping
Go jump of some mountains, once a big dragon has swept by they might be a tad shorter.

In Feralas there is a nightelf lady at the twin collossals that sends you to the top, and once there you can buy a parachute and jump down. I've once read a post somewhere on basejumping in Azeroth. Here's a video that shows you some really cool places to jump from.

Nostalgia
I might be a little silly about stuff like this, and though I can see how Cataclysm will be a lot of fun, I just have to go and see stuff as it is now. I feel like I should take screenshots of every single great view I see, even though I know I'm being silly, since there are more screenshots out on the internet than my computer would ever have space for.

I can't help it though. This is the WoW I've lived in for years now, and knowing that it will change so radically makes me feel slightly sad.

But hey, Worgen, right?

What Cataclysm will destroy as well

Lots of news out on the new expansion, and before blogging about all of it I wanted to let it sink in with me first. There's going to be many new things, but for the first time we're not only gaining, but also losing a lot of content.

I've already starting working on getting my old content done, I still have much to do, and all of a sudden it feels like I have little time to do it in.

I've gotten my guardian of Cenarius title. The title might stay, but I got it by working on Loremaster. Which, I think, is definitely a title that will go away. It will become a rarity to see someone with the title eventually, and I plan to be one of those people who does have it.

262 quests left to go in Kalimdor...

I'll try to get a full overview in from achievements that I feel might not make it through cataclysm or that will at least be altered a lot. Stay tuned.

Blizzcon opening ceremony, watching live

Yes, I'm watching...

The new expansion is Cataclysm, level cap 85, worgen to alliance, goblins to horde, new trade skill archeology, and yes Azeroth will never be the same.

It seems that MMO-Champion was spot on. Bit of a shame, but hey, woot!

There will be flying mounts in Azeroth, and oh!

Get this: HEROIC DEADMINES AND SHADOWFANG KEEP!

Off to WoW panel soon, gonna have to geek out on all the information at some later time...

Edit: And oh, guild leveling, wonder what that will do.

Blizzard once again rules in clarity

From here and here

You are now chatting with 'support'

support: Hello, how may I help you today?

me: hey

me: i bought blizcon 2009 streaming and i havent got my ''confirmation code'' yet

support: There is no activation/registration code any more, the username and password are what you have provided during the registration

support: You will be able to watch the blizzcon event here http://blizzcon.rayv.com/

support: August 21 – 11:00am to 8:00pm PST (GMT-7)

support: August 22 - 11:00am to 8:00pm PST (GMT-7)

support: http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/

support: If you forgot your user/pass please go to: https://shop.blizzcon.rayv.com/Profile/PasswordRecovery.aspx?ln=en

me: i see, i just wanted to be sure that i will not get delayd today :)

support: There will be several viewing options beside the live stream:

support: 1. VOD (no download required).

support: 2. Time shifted broadcast for different time zones (to be announced).

support: VOD will be available after the event for sufficient time (to be announced).

So no confirmation code required...duh, that information should've come out earlier and should be posted on the Blizzard site. Bad, bad bad support...oh well, lets get the word out people.

Twizzcon

twizzcon: In support of new big announcement: program not included with schwag. To be picked up after opening ceremonies, just as with 2007 and Wrath.

New expansion details ftw? I wish they would finally send out my activation code for the online streaming so I would feel less worried about that.

Go check Twizzcon out here, and come join us.

Dear Auriaya

Pugnacious Priest had a contact add blogged today. I just had to react.

Catchphrase: I'm one of the cooler guys around

Dear Auriaya,

I read about your love for cats, and thought that we may chat about our love for the feline species over a cup of green goo coffee together. I have only one cat, his name is Mr Bigglesworth, but he's a very intelligent one. And to those who would touch a hair on his head; I would curse the interlopers, and the army of the lich king would hunt them down, they would not escape their fate...

As you notice I am in the good books with Arthas, and though I am currently not endgame content, I have been twice before so I can assure you that I'm a pretty big boss.

Back when I was a member of the Council of Six, I used to read books quite a bit. In fact I have tried with all my might to gain access to the guardian library of Medivh, but allas the library was destroyed (and so was I, but that story might be told at a later point).

My special interest went to books about necromancy, do you have any specific subjects you like reading about?

I have been promised immortality, and I bet that if we would get on well and decide that we would like to stay together I could try to strike a deal for you too.

Distance: I would love to show you my necropolis, and I don't move too easily myself, but I one of my minions is quite good in teleporting.

Hobbies: Watching people dance, I don't do much dancing myself, but I do love watching others. If they don't move in time I do get bored quickly and just finish them it off.

Desirable Qualities: I rule Naxxramas, is that not enough?

Contact Options: I'm sending Heigan out with this message, feel free to use him to send your reply back. Just don't mention Noth to him, and he should be willing to help you.

Children: I consider many out there as my minions slaves children.

Picture:

Me when I was still alive.
Me now, quite an improvement, eh?

Coliseum for Dummies: Jaraxxus

Between itemization and Jaraxxus I did a /roll 2 and it has become Jaraxxus. I'll do my best to make it sound exciting, but this fight really is a "as long as you know what to look for" fight.

Jaraxxus is the second boss in the coliseum. When you speak to the guy at the entrance again you will....hmm...wait, lets not spoil this.

But you end up fighting a big red demon called Jaraxxus. If you want the full overview, go here, Matticus did a darn good job describing all the abilities. I will just call out what you need to watch for in the fight, and give you the clear cut answers.

Composition 10s:
- 2 tanks
- 3 healers
- 5 dps
Composition 25s:
- 3 tanks
- 7 healers
- 15 dps

Yes, many healers, it's a very healing intensive fight.

Abililities:
He has many abilities, and most of them you have to counter in a specific way. It's a trick fight, and when you know the tricks you'll do fine.

• Fel fireball - Have someone assigned to interupt this, preferably a dps. It abosulutely has to be interupted. If it's not interupted it leaves a dot on the person who it has hit which can be dispelled, but if you burden your healers with this on top of everything else you're not going to have happy healers, so just make sure to interupt.
  
• Incinerate Flesh - Heal, heal, and heal more. You have to heal a certain amount (depending on instance version) within 15 seconds on the person who has this to make it go away, or you will likely have a wipe on your hands. The person who had it will still take damage after the debuff is removed so keep healing.
  
• Legion Flame - Whoever gets legion flame should run to the outside wooden ring and run it off around the ring. I say to the outside so you're out of the way of others, and running because the fire will follow you for 6 seconds.
• Nether Power - This is a buff on him, dispel or spellsteal it. If you do not, he does more damage.
  
• All the rest can just be healed through. There are other abilities that can be interupted, but they are less critical than what is described above.

Adds should be picked up by the second tank.

• Infernals: only ranged should kill them. They have an aoe pulse every time they stand still.
• Mistress of Pain: all dps can kill her.

Loot lists for the entire Coliseum can be found here, and you can filter a row by clicking on the header.

Jaraxxus vs Itemization and Cars

Been wanting to write a dummies post about Jaraxxus, but because of a comment I also got an idea about itemization points and how to make gear decisions.

I'll fiddle with the ideas some more and one of them should be up by tonight.

On non related wow stuff. Thror and I are looking to buy a new car. Well, not necesarily new, but at least a lot newer than our current car, and for us it would be new.

We found something we liked yesterday, it was a fairly new car (jan '09) of the exact brand and type that we want, with all the extras built in already. But the garage was a bit over an hours drive away from our work. Not something you'd go do when you have limited time in the evening when you're not at least pretty interested in the car.

So I called the garage, and asked some questions. One of them was if the price mentioned online was the complete price, and if that was the end amount. Yes, they said.

So we got in the car, drove for over an hour (darn roadblocks causing me to have to drive into a different direction for a while, and getting half lost), and we finally arrive about 10 minutes before the car dealer would close.

We get greeted by an old geezer, and walk inside. So he points out the car, and starts talking about the price. So it's this and this, and then you have to pay transport costs.

I'm like wha? "Transport costs? What for?"

"Well, to deliver it at your door!"

"Oh, that's ok, I'll pick it up."

"Nono, that's not possible, for a new car transport costs have to be paid."

You can imagine how not happy I was, he starts rambling over transport costs and how they had to be paid. So I sigh and ask him what can be done with the price still. He goes nothing, and tells me to think about it, but that he has to close off. Then he tells me that he has 35 in store still.

So he basically double-screwed with me:
1. This car was not new. 6 months old is not new in the car world over here, in fact a pretty big chunk should be taken off over the first 6 monhts.
2. Transport costs when you have 35 of them in store is a bit odd. Even then, it's pretty standard to have some additional costs over the price, but when I call ahead and ask specifically if the price online is the price, explain it will take me an hours drive, and they just screw me over, I get pissed.

I hate buying cars.

I love driving a new one, but I hate buying them.

I wonder if all car dealers are pricks and out to screw you over, I have to say I've not met many who weren't.

Commenting on Others

Almaster If you really changed Illidan's hammer at lvl 76, you did something wrong.
if you really changed Illidan's hanner with a blue, you should pretty much un-install wow.

This was a comment on my previous post in which I was venting about loot crazy people.

Since I don't like people who start shouting this sort of stuff, but really have no idea what they're talking about, I was about to just ignore this message and moderate it out of being

But then I changed my mind.

It's really rather silly to shout stuff like this without knowing the situation. The spec, the rest of the gear. Almaster here had no idea about any of this, and the last sentence, of course, makes absolutely no sense anyway.

In general I try to ignore people like this, but since I value all of my readers and commenters, even the ones who shout nonsense (hey you can learn different things from different people, even if it is how not to go about something).

If you comment on something, or someone, I have experienced the following to often be of good advice:

• Make sure you have your facts straight
• Make sure you have a good view of the entire situation
• Know what you're talking about yourself
  
• If the comment is not factual, but an opinion, best make sure to express so in one way or the other
• Don't ever try to make someone else look bad, in the end you generally end up looking the ass yourself
• If you do absolutely feel like you have to say something try to do this in a respectful manner, especially when you feel that you have to comment in a negative way or have a negative message
  

This is of course not only true for WoW, but also for a lot of other situations.

Now to get back to this specific comment.

I changed the Crystal Spire of Karabor out for a blue, I think it might've been a staff of some kind.

The mace was nice for throughput, but I was constantly oom, so I needed regen. The staff I picked up (I think it might've been earlier than 76 even, it's been a while), provided more regen.

So while crystal spire of karabor gave me nice healing and a bit of extra healing on targets below 50% health, when oom you can't really heal much, can you?

And I am not the type of healer that lets her targets drop to below 50% health. So the amount of times the mace procced was to be counted on one hand.

Besides this I was disc already back then and regen was based on crit and manapool (this was true until rapture changes). As you probably know the hammer has no crit (only from int) and only 8mp/5.

All in all I lost minimal spellpower (like 15 or so) and a hot that would only proc when I was letting my targets drop below 50% health, but I gained a lot of regen and manapoool. I needed the mana more then the throughput.

I am a good healer. Don't take my word for it if you don't want to, feel free to ask the people that I work with on a daily basis, or check the world of logs. (this one is from Ulduar 25 last night)

I know what I'm doing, I did my research, and I know which gear goes with my playstyle and spec.

You, mister or miss Almaster, on the other hand, adviced someone to unintstall the game based on 1 single sentence.

That sort of negativity (especially when used regularly) will probably put your own health at risk, not to mention your social life. I suggest to think next time before posting this sort of stuff, and I sure hope that no newbies run into you when you feel like shouting out this sort of stuff.

Loot Idiotics

Kay, so I just got out of ToC heroic, and while I just posted, I have something to say.

LOOT IS FRICKING NOT IMPORTANT!

It is a means to an end, not a goal. And all the lootcrazy idiots out there need to start putting things in perspective. You can go again tomorrow if it's an instance, you can go again next week if it's a raid.

And you know what?

You will replace that piece of gear sooner than that it is worth fighting over. I have Illidan's hammer in the bank, best in slot way back when. I replaced it with a blue at level 76.

It is not worth it. Stop alienating people over purple pixels.

CC and Ony

The news is out, Ony is making a comeback! I am so looking forward to it. Since my dad has started playing after WotLK was in, he never even knew the story of Ony, and even though I have tried explaining, it's not the same. But now we get to fight her again, and even have the tiniest of chances to ride her!

*bouncebounce* woops, must be the inner nightelf in me...

And to jump from one thought to the next, Thror and I were discussing how raid bosses were set up, and they seem to be a lot of the same in Lich King. Avoid this, don't stand here, don't stand there, stabbety stab, pewpew.

It's a bit of a shame that the current content is not allowing for much use of the different abilities that classes have. And especially a fight that would need stuff to be CCed would be pretty cool.

Back in SSC for example I thought it was rather fun that you just had to CC stuff otherwise you would die. Of course this wasn't entirely a raid boss. But I think the places where CC is used can be counted on one hand, and that's a bit sad.

But not only CC is neglected as a PVE ability, also other things like mortal strike abilities, and mana draining would be fun in raid bosses. I've only ever done the bat lady in ZG once when I was at 60, but I thought it was a pretty cool way of fighting a boss, having to drain the mana.

(and woot, I just got the deviate hatchling, cute little bugger)

I guess we're all of the mindset now that we cannot possibly run the risk that a raid group might not have the ability needed to do the fight. Many players were already upset when Blizzard figured you should have 2 priests in a 25 on Razuvius.

As a way around this they're trying to come up with tricks like the machine fights and all that, but some abilities should be safe to assume they're available in a raid, right? I mean CC would be pretty cool, and as long as they make it so all types of CC would function it would surely be safe to assume that there is enough CC in a 25 to have some targets that need CCing?

I have to admit, I miss it a bit, how bout you?

Coliseum for Dummies: Northrend Beasts Encounter

As I mentioned before I did Northrend Beasts Encounter twice last weekend, once on 10s and once on 25s. It's most definitely a challenging fight that requires quite a bit of coordination, but a lot of it comes once again down to knowing what to do when.

Since the Ulduar for Dummies guides keep getting good visitor numbers (meaning they must be useful to people), I figured that I would throw one in for the first encounter of the Coliseum.

General
Other sites have gotten way deeper into the structure of the fight and have gone way deeper into the different abilities that you will meet in this encounter. I will however not, and will only give you the short rundown of what you need to pay attention to.

If you do wish to get the full view, I would suggest to skip over to world of matticus, where it says that it's for healers, but every role can find the information here laid out in a pretty neat way.

Phase 1: Gormok the Impaler

• He does an impale, tanks need to switch after 2 or 3 impales. On 10s we switched between 2 tanks, on 25s we rotated between 3 tanks.(it can be done with 2, but 3 is safer).
  
• He also does a stomp which does damage to everybody in melee range and prevents spell casting for 8 seconds. Melee will need healing, and ranged should simply stay out of it.
• Don't stand in the fire.

Most important in this phase is to kill the snobolds. Whoever gets the snobold should call out that they have it, and all dps should switch to kill it. It's less important to dps the boss than it is to kill the snobolds!

Phase 2: Acidmaw and Dreadscale

• On 10s we have a tank per worm, on 25s we had 1 tank on the poison worm (Acidmaw) and 2 tanks on the fire worm (Dreadscale)
• The worms alternate between being movable, and being stuck in the ground
• The poison worm sprays poison that paralyses
• The fire worm sticks a fire dot on people (called Burning Bile).
  
• The Burning Bile frees the paralysed people, but also damages the people around you. Only 1 person should be freeing paralyzed people otherwise multiple fire dots will kill people instead of free them.
• On 25s the tank who got the fire dot went to free the paralyzed people while the second tank took over tanking the fire worm for the time being. On 10s a melee should carry the fire dot to the paralyzed tank.
• Don't stand in poison clouds, and if possible you move the worm out of them.
• Both worms should be faced away from the raid at all times, all attacks are frontal attacks.
• Some nature and fire resistance may help, especially in 25s where you should have the classes to spare to stick these resists up

You kill the poison worm first! When he is dead you kill the fire worm who then does more damage since he enrages, but this you should easily be able to heal through.

When you've gotten through phase 2 with enough people alive, you win.

Phase 3: Icehowl

• Tank him away from the raid, preferably facing a wall (he has a knockback, annoying for the tank to have to run back every time)
  
• Spread out in a half circle behind him. He does an ice breath thing that causes damage and prevents you from casting while it's on you, and you don't want all your healers to be caught in this thing at the same time.
  
• Frequently he runs to the middle, stomps everybody to the side, and people take some damage. Make sure they are over 80% health when he does the stomp.
  
• After the stomp he focuses someone.
  
• He then jumps back a little and storms to that person.
  
• When he hits anybody he enrages, and his damage increases enormously
• When he doesn't hit people he knocks against the wall, knocking himself out, and then takes increased damage himself.
  
• After focusing someone everybody gets a fast running buff, allowing you to run away from where he will charge.
  

Most important here is to run away from where he will charge and make sure nobody gets hit by the charge. On 25s if he does hit someone his damage goes up so enormously that he starts one-shotting tanks.

Not good to kill tanks, you really want to make sure you're away from where he was focusing.

He does have an enrage timer, but if you come through phase 2 with enough people you should not run into it.

One last general advice, don't give up if a lot of people are dead in phase 2 and you've never seen phase 3. Try to at least get into phase 3 so everybody can see what I mean with the focusing and charging. There are videos out there, but it really helps to just see it once. So keep at it, even though you're thinking wipe recovery will be faster when you just wipe it.

Congrats!

• I might have forgotten some abilities, but if I did it means that they are all fairly easy to deal with
  
• One of many loot tables for the Coliseum can be found at MMO-Champion.
• At 25s and heroic 10s the bosses drop a Trophy of the Crusade. These are needed for your tier 9 sets, and can be traded in together with a pile of Emblems of Triump to get tier pieces.At heroic 25 the bosses seem to drop an item that you can trade in for a tier piece without needing emblems of triumph.

Cataclysm

I'm feeling much better. (sorry Rivs, didn't drink whiskey, don't think that would've gone well) I do feel a bit tired still, even though I must've slept twice as much as normal in the past couple of days.

I've finally found the energy yesterday to read up on most of the blogs and wow.com of the last few days and ran into quite some interesting stuff. But I still felt like falling over at 8:30 PM. I pushed it just that little bit further however since going to bed at that hour would only have caused me to wake up at 4 am or so.

So by the time that I did go to bed an hour later I think I was hallucinating pink elephants. Took about .3 seconds to fall asleep. All in all it took me till today to get back to posting. Pigsniffles, as Tamarind calls it, sucks.

Honored in Game
One of the articles that I thought was very interesting to read, and had some pretty cool comments was this one at wow.com.

(if you don't want to jump to the link, it speaks about how you would want to be honored in the game).

I have to admit, I've fantasized about this question before. About how cool it would be to see my characters name somewhere in the game as an NPC. And after reading that today I did some more fantasizing about it.

I think I would want to be a raid boss. I don't mean that my character should become a raid boss, nono, I want a raid boss based on my class and spec. A healing raid boss.

I imagine her (yes, it has to be a her, sorry) to be a gorgeous character like Sylvanas character model, but with a very mean twist. She would be a gimmicky fight, and you would have to use your abilities as they're supposed to be used.

If she has mana she will heal quite consistently through renew or flash heal, so she would have to be mana drained. She would also have to be mortal striked or similar ability to prevent her from healing too much.

She would not have shadowfiends, but ravens that need CCing because they cannot be killed, but they do give her mana and health and that do damage. So they need to be taken away from her and CCed. Oh, and she debuffs by mass dispell, so buffing is not needed since buffs will be dispelled about 2 seconds into the fight.

She would be like a bunny rabit in jumping around, just to annoy the melee, but she can be stunned into place (unless PWS is up) so everybody with a stun would have to work together to keep her where she is. Just to make it less boring for the healers, she would holy nova every now and then to deal out some raid damage.

She also has PWS so offensive dispellers or spell steal would have to keep an eye out for that, and she would throw out a must heal through or you die dot into the raid.

Yah, lots and lots of abilities, just like my priest. But hey, like my priest she would not have an enormous amount of health, you just need to pin her down and do everything right.

It would be a 'do it right, and you win fight'. Why? Because I love those myself.

Raiding
We did raid Ulduar 10 and 25 last weekend, and we killed the northrend beasts on 10 and 25 as well.

In our Ulduar 10 we got knockknockknock and I love the smell of saronite, so only 3 achievements left and we'll be riding a drake! I'm so proud of our team :)

We also did the northrend beasts encounter and got that down in 3 tries. Will have to write a quick overview since all the guides that I've seen so far make it all sound a lot more difficult than it is. Which they unfortunately often do.

In our Pugtastic raid we took Northrend Beasts down on Saturday, and went through Ulduar 25 on Sunday. We ended up one-shotting Hodir, and we had never even done that fight before. People did really well, and it all came together.

We have remarkable players in that PuG and coordination is so well done. People just listen to what is said, and when I talk them through the flash freeze even people who had never seen it before managed to get through just by following the running instructions.

I'm proud of both groups for achieving what we are achieving. These are not the hardcore raiders, they are just people with a good head on their shoulders, and who know when it's time to simply do what needs to be done.

Extending Lockout
I've heard and seen discussions all around about extending, and I have to say that I've asked my own 10 man and they said they didn't want to extend yet. We clear the instance in a weekend, and people are still needing too many upgrades from earlier hard modes.

I have to say that I don't understand most raids who do extend lockouts. Fights generally ramp up in difficulty, and you can often use the gear you get from earlier fights to gear up your raiders to be able to beat those harder fights.

I think that only in the situation where you need hardly any gear anymore and you're really only working on achievements for the last couple of bosses in an instance would you extend your raid lockout. But I see guilds extending it, just to be able to work on later bosses.

Well...if you're not ready, you're not ready. More time isn't going to change anything in that. If it really just takes you too long to get to that fight, and you wipe many times on earlier fights (which is how you end up needing the lockout due to time restraints) I would say don't extend.

Just do the earlier bosses again, get the gear, and extend at a later point. It can be frustrating I know, but there still is a certain progression within this game (luckily!). And you cannot just skip half of the gearing up and go to the harder bosses.

Catclysm
And finally the last subject I wanted to touch upon. It seems that wow.com has gotten some information somewhere that the next expansion really is called Cataclysm and that worgen and goblins will indeed be the new races.

Goblins for the Horde, and Worgen for the Alliance. I wonder if they're going to also allow these races to start at 55 or so, since I would not want to start at 1 all over x_X

What would be grand is if they would deal with it the same way as they've dealt with cold weather flying. They could have a tome to level your alt to 55 or so immediately, or even different ones to level to 55 or 65, one being more expensive than the other of course.

The name Cataclysm does seem to indicate the end of the world as we know it. I wonder what the hell they will destroy in the wake of this..

feeling so hot!

I hadn't been feeling too dandy this week already, but today it just completely broke down. I'm running a frigging fever of 39C while it's boiling hot outside x_x

Not a happy camper today.

Moar sleep is needed...

I wanna be there too!

So while the patch is out, and everybody is working on different new things, I'm stuck at work. And due to maintenance taking so long yesterday we couldn't play in our evening anymore either.

Well, we did play on our EU characters a little (close to 77 now yay!), but it's not the same.

This morning I went to grab my raptor pet, picked up an orphan and flew around like mad to try and get that done before I had to leave for work....no chance.

The saddest part is that I can't even take time off since my schedule at work today is just too busy and I unfortunately have too much sense of responsibility.

Darn, I want to play so badly and go into that new dungeon, darn, darn!

PS: Don't expect a post tonight, I'll be playing!

Your fault, our fault, my fault

Matticus has a post up to see who or what is to blame when someone dies. And while he's accurately pointing out possible causes of raid deaths and wipes, I really cannot advice the blame game that comes with your fault, our fault.

Now I have to say that I hate pointing fingers anyways. I also don't like fail mods too much. If you're in a guild raid you should be able to expect people to do the best they possibly can. And people simply make mistakes sometimes, it happens.

And there are much better ways to discuss what happened, and how to prevent it in the future. Ways that will keep your raid motivated, because once you start pointing fingers there is always someone who will play less good afterward. Either because that pointed finger is aimed at you, or because it is aimed at someone you need to trust to do your own job properly and a little seed of doubt is planted.

What to do instead?
There are several ways to handle these situations. Some are a bit more general, while others are definitely a bit more direct. Depending on the situation, the how manniest wipe it was, and how often this player has already been the cause of wiping you can use one (or combination of) the following.

1. Analyze the raid in general terms. If you saw 3 or 4 people die to void zones mention that everybody should be more careful to not stand in void zones. The people who did die to void zones do know it was them, really they do.
   
   And that without you needing to point them out, sticking a hunter's mark above their heads with neon signage and saying that so and so should not be standing in the void zone. People are left feeling a lot more comfortable with this.
   
   
2. If with the general discussion people don't seem to grasp that they need to pick it up because it was them screwing up, whisper them.
   
   Yes, this may take a moment away from spending the time to your entire raid. But, if your entire raid can profit from a 5 minute whispered conversation, there is nothing wrong with doing so. By not calling this person out publically they get to keep their dignity, and you can actually give out tips specifically to this person.
   
   
3. If people are still not clear on what they should do it is generally best to wait until after raid and go over the fight with them and explain what they did wrong.

I realize very well that these tactics aren't always possible for a progression guild, but raiders in a progression guild also normally get the hint at step 1 or step 2.

For non fight related issues I would almost always take step 3. Talk it over with the person and ask if it's ok to discuss it with them after raid. You generally don't want to make your entire raid wait for some non-raid related issue.

What Matticus list is good for
Matticus has lined out perfectly the sources of damage that should be avoided at all cost since there is simply no repair possible from them. They are the abilities that you should recognize immediately and stamp them in your head the first.

The red rockets from Mimi is an example. Everybody in the raid should run like hell when the red square is under their feet. It should be your first priority, over preventing other sources of damage.

A lot of damage is preventable or repairable, but these are the things you should recognize instantly and and just get the hell out of them.

So I would suggest to use his list, not as a guideline to find where you can put the blame, but as a guideline to which priorities the 'getting out of the fire' crap has. If you run out of a red rocket into a napalm...well darn, that stinks, a lot. And ideally you should run out of the red rocket and the napalm, but of two bads you at least chose the least bad.

Patch Today?

So WoW.com is indicating that the patch will be dropping today after all. Either way there's extended maintenance today on the US servers.

I guess season 7 won't be coming at the same time as the patch then? At least this isn't too surprising, it happened before that this didn't come at the same time.

Jaina the fortune cookie?

Hrm...so yah, it does indeed seem no patch yet this week, at least no news has gone out at all yet, and the PTR was working just 5 minutes ago.

Soooo..I went over to the EU servers and poked my priest there a little. Currently waiting for the others in my pug to show up for a violet hold run. (and of course once I start writing they're all there within 20 seconds).

Thror and I did the wrathgate event earlier. We went through the Undercity and everything, and one of the things Jaina said made me think about some things. Thror and myself got into a heated discussion about it, where he started telling me what could and could not happen according to lore.

But I say, forget about lore! Forget about what the world of warcraft has taught us so far, and lets think out of the box.

I bet you're wondering now what it was that Jaina said, heh?

This was in the throne room of Thrall.

Lady Jaina Proudmoore says: "I fear that the rage will consume him, Thrall. I remain hopeful that reason will prevail, but we must prepare for the worst... for war."

Lady Jaina Proudmoore says: "Farewell, Warchief. I pray that the next time we meet it will be as allies."

But what if? What if for some odd reason Alliance and Horde would become allies? Maybe the undead would split off, I cannot ever see them working together with alliance, but I can see the other races work on it.

And then the next thought came...what if all those masks that we've seen now, are not new races for either faction, but what if they were a faction?

What if the new factions are Horde teamed up with Alliance against the rest?

It would be such an epic tale to tell, and such an epic story to follow. And somewhere deep down (I don't care what lore says) it sort of makes sense as well that people come to see reason.

The whole world is at war. Horde and Alliance have common enemies, and the only reason that Alliance is still not working with the horde is that idiot Wrynn it seems. Well I say lets bump him off the throne, have Jaina and Thrall marry, and start a new kingdom!

Horde and Alliance unite!

PS: I'll personally come mail you a copper for the best description of what their kids would look like, as long as you're on EU or USA servers somewhere!

PSS: Patch is next week, confirmed by blue poster in French, here. (Yes, I do speak French.)

Back from Away

I'm back! I've had a great weekend, we've even been fairly lucky with the weather.

If you want to see pictures, have a look here and here. Not my pictures, but they do give a good impression of what the festival is like. And yes, I too was 'in costume', like most other visitors. I have to admit that wearing a hoop skirt and a corset does somehow feel very feminine.

I was nowhere near as pretty as the girl in the picture though, and I don't even think she was an entertainer, I think she really was just a visitor who worked her ass off on her costomer (though I did see her score several cards from photographers that day).

The wicker man (beast) was set on fire on Saturday evening, and the atmosphere was amazing once again. So yeah, next year I'll be back there once more.

PugTastic!
I heard Xphile pulled it off to get a group together, and they even managed to kill Auriaya. Well done! They had a rough start on Saturday, but Sunday they pulled through and managed to get a few one shots!

I have to say that I'm still proud that a randomly grabbed together group can do so well. And almost everybody in the raid handles the loot pretty well as well. And almost all of the people in pugtastic understand that loot isn't a goal, loot is a means to an end.

Loot is only there in the game to help you get to the next level. To progress and beat the next encounter. It will be obsolete in the next two months again anyway.

Thanks Xphile for taking over in my absence, and doing such a good job. Raidleading isn't easy, and though we both know that as a leader you always try to do your best; there are always some who feel they know better. I'll be back this coming weekend to relieve you from the stressy job of herding cats ;)

Patch 3.2.
I have a little addon in iGoogle that shows me the server status of both my EU and US server. And this little addon has been going berserk all day already. Would this be a sign of patch tomorrow?

I'll have a closer look at some of the highlights of this patch later on today when I get home from work. So see you alls later!