Kingslayer

First title I've worn, ever, that was not "Corporal." Also, for those of you who don't know, that floating tree body is me. I didn't get enough heals through the Lich King's Harvest Soul ability, and when I died my soul floated outside my body. After Tirion raised us up, it was still there.

I wonder if this is how a Death Knight feels?

I can't wait for 10 man hardmodes.

The Secret is to Complain

I have found that as soon as I start whining about something, life comes back and slaps me upside the head to go "Why did you moan and cry about this? It's all better now and you just look stupid."

Vigilant downed Twin Val'kyr in 25 man Heroic last night!


If you'd like to watch our kill video, there's a link to Filefront here where you can download or stream it, recorded from the view of one of our Ret Paladins, Comandantes. I'm the tree in the bottom right you can barely see, who is soaking.



That's right, I was still soaking, but this time, way less stress and much more fun.

Why?

Well, when I'm able to get up the strategies (which we switched up a bit), all will be revealed! Unfortunately, I have some papers to write that are due today (one at one, one at midnight)...so you'll just have to be patient!

Flame Proof

Vigilant has been going through some changes. GM changes, officer changes, people leaving and coming in...it's been a roller-coaster ride, and it hasn't helped that people both in and out of the guild were counting us out, airing our dirty laundry on the boards and predicting our disband.

Yeah, things were tough. For a week.

Our new GM and officers picked us up, dusted us off, and kicked our asses into high gear. We went back into hardmodes, and on a whim we said "Let's do Firefighter."

The guild had been working on him for a while. Nights of wipes, problems with disconnects and replacements kept the nasty machine from going down like he should have. I wasn't involved; at the time, I was still an applicant and they wanted to keep it to the main group that had been pounding him.

Then, we lost people, including healers. I was promoted to main raider (I guess I forgot to mention that, huh?), and we hopped in. We spent a couple hours on Mimi on Wednesday, pushing the button and teaching all us nubs what to do to dodge fire and stay alive. I learned how to kite my fires and stick with my group, and though my HPS tanked in the first few attempts, it steadily climbed with each try. We were improving. We packed it up at the end of the raid time, Mimiron saved for the next scheduled date.

Last night, we were worried. We had a few no-shows, and so we brought in some applicants, one of which had only ever seen Mimiron once on 10-man. We had to re-explain the fight, and set up new groups. We were also down a healer. So, what happened?


Second pull. That's it. It only took one pull to acclimate the people who had never done it before, and the next try he went down. It was a harrowing adventure, with a badly-placed Frost Bomb taking out around 8 people in the last phase. Yet we refused to call the wipe, and with fifteen seconds left, we gained the Alliance first, server second Firefighter kill. I am so happy for everyone involved, and proud of my guild for weathering the storm.

And to you brats who think it's cute to trash us, keep flaming. I've gotten pretty good at kiting those fires.

The Five Amber Oculus Run

A lot of people don't want to be in Oculus more than they have to, yet they dearly want that Red Proto-Drake Mount from the Glory of the Hero achievement. And a good way to knock out two void achievements at once (Emerald and Ruby) is to do Oculus with all five people riding an Amber Drake.

This strategy, though not overly difficult by any means, does require communication, so you might wish to be on a voice chat program with your group. Also realize it can take a few wipes to get the hang of it. Since these are not Ulduar vehicles and they do not gain any benefit from your gear, there's nothing stopping you from stripping to your skivvies and enjoying repair-free deaths. It's best, as well, if you've done Oculus on normal, first, so you have an idea of what to expect.

The first thing to do is make sure you understand what your Amber Drake can do. They have three moves: Shock Lance, Stop Time, and Temporal Rift. Temporal Rift is not available to you until the third boss dies and you are on to Eregos. Shock Lance is your basic damaging spell. When combined with Shock Charges generated by Temporal Rift, it detonates them, causing extra damage to Eregos. Time Stop freezes all enemies in place with a diminishing return. And Temporal Rift builds up your shock charges so long as while you are channeling it, other drakes (in this case, other Ambers) are doing damage.

Setting up Jobs and Rotations

Alright, so you're ready to go, have all mounted up on your Amber Drakes and are waiting to pull. It's time to assign jobs. You should split the group into two groups. The first group is composed of three Ambers. Their initial job is to channel Temporal Rift at the start of the fight. Channeling Temporal Rift does not pull the boss, so it's definitely doable to have all three channeling before the fight. The second group is composed of two Ambers who will be firing Shock Lance in the beginning. This builds up the other Ambers' Shock Charges. As soon as the other groups' Shock Charges are up to a stack of ten, groups switch jobs, so the ones who were channeling to begin are now firing Shock Lances (thus detonating their charges) and the ones who were firing Lances are now channeling, creating more Charges. As long as this rotation is kept up properly, no one drake should have to fire more than two Lances before switching to channeling.

Now it's time for Stop Time assignments. You will have two drakes assigned to the first active fight phase, and two more for the next active fight phase when he comes out of banish after kiting. The first Stop Time caster should always be one of the drakes in group two, who start with the Shock Lance. This enables the channelers to be channeling before the pull without interruption, and an Amber can pull with a Lance, then use Time Stop, and then resume Lancing. The second Time Stop should be used when he comes out of the first. Be careful not to clip the first Time Stop, as two Time Stops cast on top of each other makes it run short (weird but true).

If this sounds rather complicated, it's all right. I have created a simple time-line that shows Time Stop order. Here are the assignments:

D1 = First Time Stop (Lancer)
D2 = Second Time Stop (Channeler)
D3 = Third Time Stop (Lancer)
D4 = Fourth Time Stop (Channeler)
D5 = Back-up Time Stop (Channeler)

Eregos is Pulled
D1 casts Time Stop
Eregos comes out of Time Stop
D2 casts Time Stop
Eregos comes out of Time Stop
Eregos Banishes
Kite Phase
Eregos returns from Banish
D3 casts Time Stop
Eregos comes out of Time Stop
D4 casts Time Stop
Eregos comes out of Time Stop
Eregos Banishes
Kite Phase
D1 dies
Eregos returns from Banish
D5 casts Time Stop
(and so on)

If Eregos seems to be coming out of the second Time Stop too early and your Ambers are taking massive damage from his enrage, wait a few moments before casting Time Stop until he actually is announced as becoming enraged.

Setting up the Pull and How to Kite

It's best to start the pull from in front of Eregos's path. He flys counter-clockwise, so when he is directly opposite you on the map is the best time to move into position. The Channelers should begin channeling before the pull, and they have good enough range that all three should be able to do so before the first Shock Lance to aggro the boss. This ensures immediately high DPS.

When Eregos banishes, he summons orbs that chase the Drakes and must be kited. They can be outflown so long as you immediately fly away when he banishes. Sticking together also means that there is less of a chance of one drake dragging an orb into others. If you set up the pull as shown in the first diagram (and explained to the side) then the first kiting direction will be counter-clockwise.

The next time, when you engage the boss again, you will be on the opposite side. This is exactly like pulling the boss in terms of starting jobs, though there will be different drakes on Time Stops due to cooldowns. This also means if he banishes himself again, you will need to kite clockwise away from him to get away from the orbs.

It sounds more complicated than it really is. It may take some trial and error, and requires some communication. You will lose drakes during even a successful fight, but it is very doable so long as people focus and understand how to use their mounts and their abilities, and keep to the rotation. And, well, if you took off all your armor, there's no reason to get stressed over repair bills. Just do your best, see what works, and soon you'll be two steps closer to a menacing red mount.

The Reasons for Hating Oculus

That poor, lonely instance Oculus. Its looking for group channel is always dusty and vacant, its loot is scarcely touched. The bosses chill out with impunity, which is rather a difficult task to master (but they've had the time). The drakes have plenty of time to make more whelps. The empty holes in Glory of the Hero mock those looking for a group, even as their friends respond to their requests for help with whispered obscenities and PTSD-like symptoms.

So what is it about Oculus that inspires such horror and loathing?

The first could be the requirements for Heroic achievements. You'll need to go no less than three times, and perhaps more depending upon the lifespan of your drakes and if you can get from the first boss's dying throes to the last boss's dramatic collapse in under 20 minutes. Not a single boss in the instance besides the last has any achievement attached to it. And there is simply no way to get all the achievements done in less than three runs with the inclusion of Experienced Drake Rider (and your drake must be alive at the end of the fight to receive credit).

Another issue would be that this instance, at least on the final boss, relies heavily upon coordination and competency. It also requires adaptation and understanding of your mount's abilities. You have to have five people working together with an understanding of how to function in varying levels of various drakes, and it takes a lot of trial and error. Last night I was in a five Amber Drake group (to get Ruby Void and Emerald Void in one go) and though we eventually got the boss down, it took some coordination, failed strategies, and consultation with those who had done it before (thanks Aegus and Iliana). We rode our drakes naked so we didn't rack up too much of a repair bill, and tweaked our strategy until we had it. But even with experienced raiders along, there were deaths and adjustments until we got used to the strategy and our drakes.

I suppose the main reason people dislike Oculus ("dislike" being used in its most extreme form here) is that, no matter how geared you are, how far you have progressed, or how you spec, it won't matter for the final boss fight. Your Drake will never have more health than your party can buff it (at the expense of buffing their own Drake), your moves will never do more damage than they do, you will never heal for more than you do, you will never shield from more than you do, at the first moment you step into Oculus to your last run. The Drakes are an equalizer, so that a healer can DPS, a tank can heal and the DPS can tank. Your spec can be terrible, and you can ride a Drake and win.


In some ways this is good. While the first three bosses need some decent DPS, they are manageable with people under 2k. While not all the achievements can be completed with low DPS, many of them can because on Drakes it just doesn't matter. All that matters is that you understand how to use the Drake in coordination with the other people (and therefore that they understand how to use their Drake as well).

However, people dislike Oculus because they have no control over improving their Drake. They do not get to choose what their Drake can do past color, and sometimes not even then (due to group makeup requirements or achievement purposes). This lack of control is frustrating and puts a lot of people off. They do not like having to "learn a new class" while riding a Drake, because, for all intents and purposes, that's what you are doing. It's impossible to cover for someone; if the only Emerald Drake dies, then you're SOL where healing is concerned. No one can off-heal. This rigidity can be irritating.

I personally enjoy Oculus. The first three bosses are just complicated enough to require environmental awareness and precision, while not completely blocking you from the rest of the instance. Also, since your own gear does not affect your Drake's performance at all, you are free to remove the gear and eliminate a lot of the penalty for wiping. It's unique and fun to learn different strategies and Drakes, in my opinion, and I look forward to going back.

A Weekend of Achievements

This weekend was a roller coaster of awesome and not-so-awesome, highs and lows. Luckily, it ended at a high point and only started at a low point.

The problems included being locked for heroic groups that bugged out (Skadi despawning at about 20% health for no reason) or replaced me with their "original healer" who was camping the instance anyway, or a very rude mage telling me I was a horrible healer because I didn't heal him for 30 seconds while dodging around the center to avoid Loken's AoE thing. His guildmates apologized for him, but never going to run anything with him again, that's for sure.

But, the awesome part...

Achievement Extravaganza!

This weekend I received:
On the Rocks, Split Personality, Chaos Theory, Share the Love, Abuse the Ooze, What the Eck?, Lodi Dodi We Loves the Skadi, Heroic: The Oculus, Timely Death, Zombiefest, Shatter Resistant, and Lightning Struck. This led to Champion of the Frozen Wastes. I also ended up getting The Argent Crusade, The Argent Champion, Second that Emotion, 1000 Fish, and 500 Stone Keeper's Shards, and Sugarcake got Level 60, and Bellbell finished Veteran of Wrathgate.

Perhaps the one I'm most excited about is Heroic: Twilight Duo!


I hope you can understand why there's no continuation of the PTR Lifebloom today; it will be up soon, I promise!

Best part of the achievements was that, at the end of Abuse the Ooze, only me and the ret paladin who bubble taunted were alive. I got a whisper from one of the shadow priests along for the ride about how good a job I did healing. I was feeling miserable at that point because three people had died! How could that be a good job? But he assured me that with his other groups he couldn't even get close.

So I went from being trashed at the beginning of the weekend to being praised at the end.

Thanks, Araiti. You're a kickass Shadow Priest as well.

Months Behind...

...but I did it!

And immediately following were:
And, now...

to rest.

/sleep

Meet My New/Old Friends and the Only Achievement I'm Working On

There are two new additions to the blogosphere, and one old addition who has returned with a new name!

First off, we have Spam Moonfare, a brand-new druid blog. The author of this blog contacted me via e-mail about a link exchange, and I wandered over there to check out his site. He's off to a spectacular start for people who like big reads, as the vast majority of his posts are meaty. And it's not just filler; this moonkin's got stuff to say! And I'd suggest you pay attention, or you may just be Typhoon spammed to death!

Next up we have the priest blog Starshards FTW! by my friend Bellezza. That's right, I'm not the only blogging Bell anymore (and she's even on my server! The confusion!). My blogging is apparantly a sort of communicable disease, as this would make the sixth or seventh person who has decided to start a blog, is one of my friends, and said to me something along the lines of "omg I want to blog too!" after reading some of my posts. She's off to an excellent start, and I'd encourage anyone, even if you've only slightly considered rolling a priest, to check her out.

And finally, we have Alts for One, a renamed blog by my friend Harl. This guy is harcore into the levelling of toons, and I don't even remember the final count of 70's he has. The great thing is, he's pretty knowledgeable about all of them, and take the time to do his homework. Currently, he's levelling a warrior, and odds are he's going to catch up to Bellbell in a matter of weeks.

Now, what's the only achievement I'm working on actively pre-Wrath?

Pets. Pets, pets, pets. "Shop Smart, Shop Pet...Smart" is an achievement for owning 50 pets, and with it you get what is called a Reeking Pet Carrier. And in said smelly box is a skunk, a skunk named Stinker. And ever since I first saw the little buggers roaming around Azuremyst, I have squeed and cooed and gone "that. must. be. a. pet."

And now it is and now I will have it.

I have 42 pets so far, and I have a plan for the rest (and they'll be relatively easy to get). However, there's a Dark Whelpling up on the AH for 800g I'm just...so tempted to get. So tempted. However, 800g is a lot for one pet, especially when the others will be cheaper and larger in quantity.

But, seriously...a Dark Whelpling!

/indecision