Damn, They Don't Half Hit Hard.

I have started adding links to the appropriate pages on Bosskillers.com for each boss I mention in the post. This will allow those of you who have never done these fights to gain a better understanding of them.

Today I logged on to do a few dailies before going to SSC. Instead I got whisped by a friend of mine asking if I'd help him get his karazhan key fragment from normal Shadow Labs. I slapped on my pvp gear and tanked the hell out of that place. I had to do it in just over an hour to be ready for SSC. We made it with time to spare.

Anyway I was on my way to the meeting stone in Coilfang Reservoir (I like to arrive early) when the guild leader whisps me saying that they would be bringing two pally tanks with them to make Morogrim Tidewalker easier, and that I would be on back up for this one. I said it was no problem, which is true since I've been brought to every 25 man raid since I got the raider rank and was more than happy to sit one out if needs be. He then whisps me again saying that K the other protection warrior would not be able to make it. My brain did a bit of work and came up with the frightening thought if we were bringing 2 pally tanks to deal with the murlocks on Morogrim, that only left me to tank him *Gulp*.

Morogrim Tidewalker.

As I have stated before I hate Murlocks, and the trash pulls before Morogrim only reinforced my opinion of them. We managed to pull two groups of Murlocks ... not once, but twice. Thats what I don't like about them, they just don't play fair. /grumble

Then it was crunch time. Time to see what I was made of tankwise and go head to head (or head to lower ankle) with Morogrim himself.


Man this guy hits like a runaway train, fortunately it's all physical damage that I receive so I was chain chugging Ironshield Potions to mitigate the damage, the rest of the time I spent trying to maximize my threat while keeping shield block up. Oh any having a little panic attack every time Lady B. was set to a watery grave, I think she got targeted for it something like 3 times in that fight, This was nor reassuring considering that she was one of my healers.

Just as he hit 25% and the raid had to move into the tunnel I used Shieldwall to make the transition easier on the healers and moved big 'n ugly over to one side so that it was easier for the raid to see what was going on. Of course this meant that I could now see nothing but boss foot, my awareness of what was going on wasn't helped at all by the AoE explosion fest that was now happening right on top of Morogrim. But in the end we prevailed, I popped last stand when he got to about 5% since the last thing I wanted to see happen was me die in the last few percent of the fight and have the giant farting dwarf wipe the raid. Also a cooldown not used on a boss is a cooldown wasted.



Loetherass The Blind.

We move on to Loe with a few minor problems on the trash that I won't go into right now, and I'm thinking that the hardest part of my night is over, and all I'll have to do is act as debuff b#### for the next fight. Imagine my horror when I find out that I will be tanking Leo in his human form.

Horror because I had not mentally prepared myself for tanking this guy, and when I reviewed the strategy guides and movies the night before I had not even considered the possibility that I might be tanking him. I like to plan exactly what I will be doing in each stage of a fight befoe I even set foot in the dungeon. This doesn't mean I wont change my plans based on changing circumstances, but I like to have a plan going into any boss fight. The thought of going in blind is anathema to me. Also this fight has a lot of aggro dumps in it, and creating that instant aggro is one of my weak points as a tank.

I made my reservations clear to the raid leader pointing out that VP (one of the pally tanks) was much better at creating that instant aggro than I was, something I had noticed during trash pulls. I could only hold a mob off him if I had enough initial rage to power through that first part of the aggro fight and overtake his aggro after several seconds. It was however pointed out to me that there was the fear of him going OOM late in the fight, and so by virtue of the mechanics of my class I became de facto main tank for this fight.

Sure enough my lack of preparation for this aspect of the fight soon became apparent as I ended up tanking him in the wrong area causing the raid to take too much damage while running from the whirlwind. We have too many death's so we move down to a safe area for being reserected and let him finish us off.

Take Two.

This time things go better with me tanking him in generally the right spot. I however get an inner demon, but oh ho I was prepared for this, I flick into berserker stance and pop recklessness which allowed me to kill my demon with time to spare.

Then it came time for phase three where both of Leotherass's forms are out at the same time. Aaaaaaaaargh! The frustration of it. As long as Loe wasn't heading right for them the dps just would not stop and let me grab him. I could only get him under control after he had killed one or two of the people topping the threat meter. However yet again we prevailed and killed him, killed him good I tells ya.

I also found out something about mages during that fight. When Loe charged straight at Lau he yelled "Oh S##t!" into vent, then ice blocked. This lead the raid to believe that this was a mage term for that particular skill.

So until next time this is Stuntyone the Incompetent Warrior signing off.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!

Lately I've been telling you of my sucesses in Tier 5 cintent, Today I'm going to tell you about my failure in Tier 4 content. Specifically Prince in Karazhan.

I have never killed the hyperactive demon fugger, and tonight was no different. I'd been playing a great game and was feeling confident about this run. I'd been topping the damage meter all night (I checked it after every boss, I don't keep it visible at any other time), and others were giving me a run for the top spot.

My group one shotted Illhoof, wiped 3 times on The Shade of Aran before killing him (a warlock would really have helped on that one) did the Chess Event (lets hear it for free epics) and then proceeded to wipe 4 times on prince before calling it a night.

On the first attempt we came the closest we would to killing him that night, he must have realized that it was me in the pirate costume when at 10% he decided to drop an infernal right on top of the raid, even then we managed to get him down to 3% ... 3 Frikin' %, Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!

I'm starting to think I'm cursed, every time I see that guy we get the worst infernal drops you could imagine. I hear others who go at different times to me say how easy he is and that it's all about getting lucky on the infernal drops.

Well you know what?

I just ain't got no luck.

Did I offend some witch? One of the many gaming gods? Someone sure as hell seems to have insured that I will never kill Prince.

Enough of that, I just found out I'm listed as a tank in tomorrows SSC run, so I'd better go respec and get the right consumables.

So until next time this is Stuntyone the Incompetent Warrior signing off.

Uuuuuuummmmm

Damn, damn, damn. I have nothing interesting to post about. Oh well I guess I'll just ramble a bit and see what comes out. Hmm ... I think I might just break this ramble down into a list so I'm not restricted to any one topic.

1) For you authors on my bloggroll, you do get read by me ... every day. So post more, I demand it.

2) Summer rain really sucks when you walk home from work. It means you get wet and sweaty :(

3) I've been doing a lot of raid posts lately, this is mainly because it's all so new and shiny to me. So don't worry this wont become a raid only blog.

4) Only 6 people have voted on my poll ... and one of them was me :(. I voted no because I'm lazy.

5) I hate writers block with a passion, it has become the bane of my life ever since I promised that I would post daily.

6) This isn't so much a ramble as it is a list of random thoughts, oh well you'll just have to make do.

So until next time (when I hopefully will have something interesting to say) this is Stuntyone the Incompetent Warrior signing off

WoWcohol

I don't drink very often, but yesterday I had a couple too many glasses at dinner, so on my way home I stopped off at the shop for another bottle of wine to finish the job off.

At the moment I'm gathering the matts for The Iceguard Set, and I needed another 12 primal water. I logged on to my warlock alt and started grinding those eels in the lake near Shatthrat City. The little 'lock needed some leveling and Stuntyone needed primals this achieved both goals at the same time. I've never been one for grinding (I get bored of it very quickly), but sitting there already nicely toasted and working my way through another bottle of wine I managed to grind out 6 primal water and 6 motes of water, without ever getting bored (is this how the gold farmers manage it?).

At this point someone mentions a PuG raid on Tempest Keep, so I log over to Stuntyone and join up. There were only five of us and they were going to start asking in general chat so it wasn't looking good. Then I get a whisper asking if I want to do a quick run in heroic slave pens as dps, I let them know I'm drunk (at least I think I did) but they seem to still want me so I go and respec (I haven't looked at my spec yet to see if I got it right in my inebriated state). In the group there was a holy priest, an enhancement shaman, a hunter, a feral druid tank and me.

Slave Pens.

We storm through the place (at least I think we did, it got harder and harder to tell) with the priest pausing occasionally to resurrect me more often as I became more and more drunk eventually reaching the end of my wine bottle. The omen threat meter became merely a list of coloured bars on the left of my screen. We down the final boss and collect the last of our 3 badges, we hearth stone out and I go for a quick toilet brake.

At some point it turns out we had decided to go do heroic Black Morass, so when I get back I receive a summons to the caverns of time.

Black Morass.

Now I have never managed to complete heroic BM, even while sober. This however did not deter me one bit in my drunken state. We dived right in, I was wailing on the adds (I'm not sure how I did or even how I managed to move in the right direction) while the others were downing rift lord after rift lord and nuking bosses into oblivion. I ignored the adds during the second boss and joined in the nuking. I was in drunken dps heaven.

We one shotted that place ... even though I forgot to use my beacon. Whats even more amazing though is that I managed to remember to pick up all the badges.

In conclusion I would like to say to those I ran with ... sorry I don't usually type like that, it was the alcohol not me. Also I don't think I'm going to drink and wow again anytime soon. I stayed up far too late and I'm suffering from the hangover still.

So until next time this is Stuntyone the Incompetent Warrior signing off.

Back Behind The Shield.

Yesterday I tanked for the first time in tier five content. It was only a quick run to The Lurker Below, but still it was nice to be back behind the shield. One of the guild tanks had gone off for some fun in real life for a couple of weeks so we were short a tank for the run. A quick respec and brushing the dust off my tanking set was all I needed to fill the spot. Oh and making sure that I had rearranged my user interface properly, I've had some bad experiences with that one.

It was some nice stress free tanking. All I had to do was tank my marked trash mob on the way to the Lurker, and on the lurker himself (whom I caught with my imba fishing skills) all I had to do was keep the warrior debuffs on Lurker and tank the inner ring add near my island.

We one shot the fishy with only two death's. One being a mage new to the fight eating a spout, and the other being Lady B, we still can't quite figure out how she died.

The Important Bit.

None of that is really important. The thing I want to talk about it the refreshing perspective it gave me on the game. I've been dps in the raids for a while now and it's seemed to become more and more about the numbers behind the game rather than the feel of the game that I've been concentrating on. During the trash pulls I felt something I had not felt in a long time, I felt I was part of a battle, part of an adventure.

Standing out in front with the other tanks, flanking the main tank to the right while the prot pally flanked him to the left as he leads the charge at the enemy, the melee class following close behind. It felt more like the start of an epic fight rather than just another trash pull.

The enemy would see us and start to counter charge, and we would clash together in a swirling melee, then separating out into it's separate duels. I could almost see it as you would see a movie. The melee fighting for their lives in the thick of it while the mages and other casters crackling with power, raining destruction upon the foe. The willy hunters unleashing their pets and firing volley after volley into the enemy ranks, using their traps and tricks to slow any loose foe that managed to make it to their position. The healers calling upon their patron gods or the forces of nature to heal the wounded and protect those around them.

At that moment I could understand why people like to play on RP servers. It was a very refreshing moment and if I can continue to see the game in this light I could very well avoid burn out indefinitely.

So my advice for today would be that the next time your in a raid, while continuing to concentrate on your role within the raid also think about your role within the game :). Also try thinking about it less as a raid and more as an army. Who knows you might just enjoy it a little more.

The Mistake.

Damn, I nearly wrote a full post without mentioning an incompetent moment. What ever you do don't start tanking a loose sheeped mob unless the raid leader tells you too. The resulting reattempts the sheep the mob could very well sent the mage into fits (at least that's what I imagined him having behind the computer screen). I only did it once, but once was more than enough.

Oh and I got a nice piece of loot too. A shiny new thrown weapon, and many many thank you's to the fury warrior who passed on it for me. I love it to bits :)

So until next time this is Stuntyone the Incompetent Warrior signing off.

Karathrass and Heroic Hyjinks.

As promised here is the more detailed break down of my latest adventures in Serpentshrine Cavern.

The Preperation.

The night before I'd heard from Lady B that she was going to do some heroics early the next day with Steb the pally who'd respecced protection (sorry to the others who came along but I'd had 3 hours sleep and couldn't remember you all, If you came leave an "I was there" in the comments and I'll add you in). I begged and pleaded until I was allowed to go along with them. I needed to get whirlwinding out of my system for the raid later that night.

We did four heroics and all in the school of CC is overrated. We did Slave Pens, Underbog, Hellfire Ramparts, and Shattered Halls. Here's a little warning for you, no matter how good you think you are never underestimate heroic Slave Pens, we did and we kind of well .... wiped on Quagmirion. /HangsHeadInShame

Anyway this all meant that I got to whirlwind to my hearts content and was more than willing to hold off WW during the trash pulls in SSC. I logged off for a bit to grab a bite to eat and have a quick nap before the raid.

The Raid.

Unlike our normal raids, this one took a bit of time to get off the ground. I don't know why that day was different to normal but it was.

We finally get in and get buffed up and start pulling trash, at this point I was told that because of the trash we would face today I could Whirlwind to my hearts content, my previous complaints on this subject having been noted. Joy of Joy's I get a full day of all out dps :)

The raid burns through what little trash stands between us an Karathrass, and we settle down to run over the fight, i.e. the kill order, who's tanking what and where. Then after one false start where the hunters don't quite MD fast enough, causing the MT to go splat as Karathrass and his three adds turn him into a warrior shaped puddle on the ground, he died so fast his healers couldn't even get of a Flash of Light before he kicked the bucket. The next time everything went well and we got the bugger, lets see that boss down pic again :)


You know what the best bit about this fight is? I remembered to ware the proper goggles this time, and while I didn't rise any higher on than 10th on the WWS report, ny personal dps was significantly higher. Check it out.

Much much better :). It should also be noted that because of the nature of the fight, having to kill all the adds before Karathrass himself. This meant that by the time we got to him the MT had so much threat on him that the dps could go absolutely mental. And they did, some of the higher dps players managed to reach 1300-1400 dps in this stage of the fight.

The Not So Good Bit (It has murlocks *shudder*)

After the loot was distributed (I didn't get any not having enough dkp, soon, soon I tells ya some of that juicy loot will be mine) we had to change a few players who had to go, and send one or two off to respec.

At this point the raid seemed to lose focus, a fact the became readily apparent on the next few pulls on the way to Morogrim Tidewalker. Here's a pic of the surviving third of the raid managing to down the last couple of trash mobs from an ill fated pull.


Soon after this came the murlocks ... I hate Murlocks. It seemed that in every zone at every level while Stunty was just a little warrior, there were the Murlocks ready and waiting to spoil his day.

Anyway during the Murlock pulls I got to unleash unholy Whirlwind and Sweeping Strikes hell on the Gurgglarggelarggeling buggers. The problem is that you just cannot have that much fun and not pay the price, and I ended up face down on the floor after almost every pull. Sure I could have held back a little and survived, but there was just no way I was going to go easy on my mortal enemies.

We have a couple of tries at Morogrim (a boss the guild has downed before) but it was just not happening. So mister Morogrim ...


So until next time this is Stuntyone the Incompetent Warrior signing off.

YAY!! SoL Goes 5/6 In SSC.

Whoohoo Fathom Lord Karathrass goes down. Good work everyone.

Also good progress on the fancy clothing for boss down pics. I personally brought enough Savory Delights to cover the whole raid but it turned out not everyone wanted them. This motley crew of Pirate Paladins, Ninja Hunters, Dress Waring Druids, Kilt Waring Warriors, Bears Boomkin, and much much more did it. Yeah Baby!

By the way why does the shaman in the same shirt and kilt look so much better than I do?

More to come soon but right now I need some sleep.

So until next time this is Stuntyone the Incompetent Warrior signing off.


For the attention of Banshee: The CoT had to cancel their Gruuls run due to lack of attendance that day. The red team proceeded to one shot all the Kara bosses from Curator to Prince, excepting Nightbane and Netherspite, who they skipped this week but plan to have a popper go at next week adding a third kara night just to deal with these. Thats about all the news I've heard from the CoT.

Loe Down, Yeah Baby!

Another first night on a new boss and another first down for the guild ... and I was there ... again!


You guys and galls rock! I was planning on spending a quiet afternoon wiping on new content, and what happens?

Thats right we down him and it only took 4 tries (technically 5 but more on that later). The whirlwinding, blind bugger takes a dirt nap.

But I do have one complaint about the raid, and it could have a negative impact on our progression. Not enough of you guys are bringing fancy clothing for the boss down pic. Codose to El for his improvisation with the savory delight but we can't all do that or it would look like a gang of pirates and ninjas killed a boss and robbed his loot ... on the other hand that would look really cool. I may have to stock up on them for tomorrow night, just in case.

Thats right my crazy guild has picked lil' ol' me to come along on another progress raid. Those hunters and rogues must really like that Blood Frenzy damage bonus.

I'm just too pumped to organize my thoughts for my usual style of post, but I will give you highlights and pointer about the raid.

The Trash.

Yet again those annoying groups of mobs meant I couldn't use Whirlwind. Damn it but one of these days I'm just going to lose all control and make lamb chops out of the CC. I nearly managed to kill myself on the green stuff those bog lord type things put out, but apart from that I've said it all before.

The both trash moments of the day go to El for 1) His spectacular "Start the encounter when we are still killing trash" technically starting an attempt on Leo, and 2) For his prophetic comment before going to pull a patrol back to the raid "If I don't make it back from the pull tell my family I love them." ... "El____ has Died".

Both of these cause complete, but humorous wipes, so nobody really minded too much. And El if you're reading this, we still love ya buddy :)

Inner Demons.

My first inner demon went really really well. They only have 11k hp and hit like pansy's and I knocked his pansy demon butt into next week. This success was to be me down fall in attempt 2 (technically 3 but we wont count the pull during the trash).

Due to my earlier success with this aspect of the fight I wasn't paying as much attention to it as I should have and my inner demon having learned from last time that "If ya mess wid da Stunty, ya mess wid da axe." got a bit sneaky on me. So I didn't notice that I had my inner demon due to the sneaky lil' bugger hiding himself inside the demon form Leotheras. I only noticed when I hit WW and it scored two crits. but by that tine I only had 12 seconds left to kill my inner demon before I became mind controlled. My brain did a bit of work and realized that I would need to put out nearly 1000 dps to kill it in time. So I popped a haste potion and kicked it into overdrive.

I damn near did it too, just one second, one second more and I would have been able to hit Execute and kill the bugger. DAMN YOU GLOBAL COOLDOWN!!!! *Shakes fist at the heavens*

The following vent chat went like this.

Me: "I'm mind controlled, kill me please."

Me: "It's Stunty."

Not Sure Who: "Ok." *In an altogether too cheerful tone if you ask me*

*Some of the raid turn on me and blow me into next week*

Me: "Thank you."

Lady B: "Thats the first time I've ever heard you say thank you to someone for killing you."

*Much laughter ensues*

*And later on, a lot of people having been MC'd at this point*

El: "Damn, I must have personally killed at least half the raid."

After this fiasco I carefully read the raid warnings on who had their inner demons, and moved away from Leo briefly just in case I misread the warnings and there was another sneaky bugger hiding in there.

My Dps.

I achieved a reasonable rate of sustained damage throughout the Leotheras the Blind kill fight coming in 10th overall according to the WWS report.


Just imagine what I would have been capable of if I'd been ... and this is the really embarrassing bit, and I sure as hell didn't announce it to the raid, but they'll find out since some of them actually read this crap ... If I'd been waring my Furious Gizmatic Goggles instead of my Tankatronic Goggles, man I don't think I'm going to live this one down :(

How you ask did I achieve such an amount of damage with such crappy dps? Especially in a fight thats so much about holding you dps at the right time?

Well just look at (and this is the part I'm proud of) my dps time. 88% Yeah Baby! Sure I had to stop hitting the bugger when he was about to do his spinny business, but every other moment I could I was hitting him as fast and hard as I could, (Intercept FTW) and I never pulled aggro.



Well thats about all I can think to add at the moment and I'll try to be more organised about my post tomorrow.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that after we downed Leo everyone was jumping around and shouting for joy, into this joyous hubbub I yelled "Don't Stop Healing Me!". I still had the bleed debuff on me and my life was going down fast. The last tick of the bleed hit taking me down to 4 hp just a second before every healer in the raid hit me with a heal, shooting me up to full hp in an instant. Just one of those funny moments I thought I'd share with you.

So until next time this is Stuntyone the Incompetent Warrior signing off.

The Regular View Of Melee Dps.

Just thought I'd post my regular view when running heroics. Melee dps just get no lovin'.


P.S. Sorry for being so lazy on this post, but I'm off to SSC tonight to face Leo the blind, should be fun. Expect a longer post on that some time tonight.

So until next time this is Stuntyone the Incompetent Warrior signing off.

Sometimes It's Just Not Meant To Be.

It's days like today that make me wonder if I have any skill as a player. Let me explain.

The Setting.

Today I went to heroic Magisters Terrace, and it was a disaster from the word go. We had a mage, warlock, hunter, holy priest, and me tanking. Now while this isn't the easiest of heroics, I have practically farmed this place for everything I can get from it, so it was in no way new to me.

The Bad Bit.

In those first few pulls we died and died. Twice form me forgetting that those casters can interrupt a healers spells and marking it second on the kill order, once from the crazy mage's body pull on a group we had skipped. I managed to pull that same group onto just me and the priest as we were waiting for the others, and while technically not a wipe it still felt bad.

The Good Bit.

After that we pulled it together a bit and mowed down the First boss and relevant mobs. During this time I also received a bit of instruction on seduction as a cc from the warlock. My usual experience with seduce us that it's a one hit wonder and started tanking the marked mob as soon as cc broke. I was told in no nonsense terms to leave that mob alone in future unless the succubus is dead, especially when the target is a caster. Apparently casters are much easier to chain seduce than melee. I really must remember that one.

It's Gone Wrong Again :(

Then we got to the room of the second boss with all his little eel thingies. Now I have always sucked at pulling these groups, but on my first try I managed to pull most of the room in one go, only the priest and I survived.

It came time for Vexallus himself, this guy killed us over and over and over again. We tried slightly different tactics each time, but the result was the same. The dps were dieing just that little bit too fast and there seemed to be nothing we could do about it.

As I've said before I don't get wipe aggro, but I have learned to notice the point at which everyone else is at their limit, even for those who aren't complaining. So I was more than happy to give everyone a free out (meaning that nobody would hold it against them if they left), they decided however to give it one last shot.

This time I switch into battle stance as soon as he hits 20% and start executing. Then the dps start dieing again but his health is going down. We can do it, we can do it. Then I notice all the dps are dead and the priest has dropped after being in her spirit healer form and Vexallus is still at 10%. I have full health, but I'm on my own, and I've used all my cooldowns and pots.
9%,8%,7%,6%,5%,4%,3%,2%,1%. Come on only one Execute away from victory here ... Splat.

A 1% Wipe ...... Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

/Headdesk
/Cry
/ThrowThingsAroundTheRoom

I hate 1% wipe. Thats just down right mean.

Ok guys and galls one more shot.

He's going down this time. He's got to go down. He's not allowed to tease us with a 1% wipe and then not go down.

It was not to be however, this time we got him to 18% before the dps died and the priest started doing her spirit healer impersonation. I effectively solo'd him down to 8%. But in the end even the imbaness of Execute could not do it, and it was "Game over man, game over". With that we called an end to our ill fated run.

I think for the next while I'm going to spend most of my time as protection, as it seems to require more constant practice to stay proficient at than dps.

So until next time this is Stuntyone the Incompetent Warrior signing off.