Oops! Was That A Heroic?

Delgada in her Tabard of the Achiever

 I played a long time yesterday.  I finished Deepholm, which also finished the Cataclysm Loremaster achievement.  I did my first round of Twilight Highlands dailies, and found the only two dailies in Uldum. I fiddled around getting the 25 tabard achievement.  I logged in my bank alt and sent 1300 gold to Delgada so she could get the ultimate riding achievement.  I even managed to kill C'thun (with some help!) and got my AQ40 achievement.   I figured, I can do all that, I might as well try one of these super hard instances everyone is talking about.

The End of C'thun

So I loaded up the looking for group tool, making sure I had selected only DPS, and pulled out my fishing pole.  I fished for about 30 minutes, and was whisked away into the Stonecore.  I'm guessing I was a replacement, because there were some dead mobs where I zoned in.  Not having run the instance before, I kinda guessed that we weren't at the entrance, because there were no npc types handing out quests.  So, I buffed up and followed the pack, carefully doing my job of dps and nothing else (well, I did dispel a couple things off the tank, but you won't tell?  Good.). 

Pre-Dungeon Attire.

The first boss I encountered was a dragon, I think.  This is a little fuzzy because it was at night yesterday, and I may get things out of order.    Anyhow, seems this guy does this aoe thing, you can see his cast bar ramping up to spin it off, of crystal shards.  Before he does that, he does this aoe where stalagmites drop from the ceiling.  This actually come in handy for the second aoe, as you can use them to hide behind.  Not too bad a fight, and we were off to the second boss.  Now, I'm pretty sure this was the second boss I saw, even though it may be further in, because I was a pinch hitter.  This rock guy does that shatter thing we all love from back in Burning Crusade days, but he has this other aoe I couldn't see.  So, after the shatter was about done, I sat there spamming my shield, or dissipate if it was up, to avoid as much damage from that attack as possible.  We got through that fight, then it was on to the next. Trash fights in between seemed rather straight forward, stay out of bad stuff, don't aggro, don't aoe, follow the tanks lead for kill order.  Well, I did aoe in the room before this next boss, to get rid of a bunch of non elites in the middle, then we turned the corner and saw our last boss.  This lady was fun.  She threw rocks at you, which you could totally avoid by getting out of the dust forming around your feet.  She also put up void circles, which were also easily avoided because of their obvious targeting ring before they appear.  The boss called non elites out, usually when she ran away to her stage, which were aoe'd down rather easily.  Oh, and if you grabbed enough aggro, she had this choke hold thing, I think it was even called Force Choke. So, we didn't get her down on the first try. Or the second.  Then, the tank, healer, and one dps just up and quit, leaving me and another hanging around.  We decided to wait for replacements.  She (might have been a guy, but was in female form, so you know, you are what you wear in this game to me) told me this was her first heroic, and that is when it hit me.  This is a heroic?  Here I just thought that the instances were that hard, and I was lucky to be able to perform at all in them..  Replacements arrived, and my partner in crime ate the dust, but we finished the boss, getting me a heroic and regular run of Stonecore all at once.

So, the heroics are hard?  The instances are hard, too?  Well, it's just more of the same we already learned...stay out of stuff, don't let stuff fall on you, and for gosh sakes pay attention! Now, to start planning my next several runs...

Why Join The Queue At All?

Today, I started out checking my auctions on Rowena, then got a whisper from a friend. We could run together! We're only 10 levels apart now, so I suggested Scarlet Monastery, and roped hubby into logging in his 39 blood elf rogue. Then, she remembered she hadn't spent her talent points since they were wiped, and begged forgiveness and promised to run something with us later in the week. That's fine, said Nira, and promptly hopped into the looking for group queue. She's been living there since level 15, and it has treated her well so far. Tonight, Nira's first run was Scarlet Monastery - Graveyard. This went without a hitch, Nira got a necklace she couldn;t use, everone said goodbye, and that was it. Nira spent about 20 minutes repairing and restocking in Thunder Bluff before deciding that she didn't want to heal anyone else. So, I logged in Lostariel.

Lost's first instance was Gnomeregan. Tank number one disconnected shortly after zoning in, leaving us with 4 minutes until we could kick her. The warlock, mage, and I cleared some trash in anticipation of a replacement, as the hunter had left when we noticed we had no living tank. Lost dinged 28, took the quest for her grime encrusted ring, and a balance druid and a paladin joined us, We headed down the corridor toward the clean room. Someone said they had to go afk for a minute, so Lost cleaned her ring and a few grime encrusted objects The paladin disconnected. Then, another person dropped group. That was pretty much the end of it, and everyone left to do something else. Frustrated, I logged out and logged in my rogue, Maura.

Maura queued for the random dungeon and started turning in quests. She then set out to find the parts of a book, but ran into the Frost Nymphs. She took the head nymph's quest, then stealthed and picked all the lesser nymphs pockets, then gathered 13 of the 15 ice elemental shards she needed before she finally got her invite. She ported into Utgarde Keep, poisoned her blades, and got ready to start. Maura was just above the healer in dps, and just below the tank. The tank kept losing aggro to the other dps. At the pull just before the first boss, we wiped. the healer and the tank agreed that the tank needed a higher health pool, so the paladin dropped. Then, everyone else did. Maura ported out of the dungeon, turned in the ice elemental shards, picked the dryad's pockets one more time, and hearthed.

I logged in Niranjani one more time, thinking I might want to run another dungeon. Five minutes passed, and I just shut the game off. Ugh. Maybe I'll respec one of my three druids to tank and try that out for a while. Or, there is always Shawndra. I could macro a disclaimer before every instance. What would I say? Maybe,"My main is a healer. I haven't tanked anything since Karazhan. If you have crowd control, be prepared to use it." Yeah, that sounds good. And maybe, just to really scare them, I will equip my level 70 tanking trinkets, since they are all I have. No, no, I am not that desperate for a run with a tank in it that I would go and be one myself.

I started this post yesterday and am lost as to where I was going with it. *looking at title and rubbing chin* There it is! Tanks disappearing not even 4 minutes into an instance has to stop! That's all I have for today. I have been scooted to hubbys machine so he can fix my user interface(another reason I didn't feel much like playing yesterday, it's hard to dps the point and click way!) so that key bindings will work on my rogue. Lostariel is nearing her 29th level, and soon comes the gearing and enchanting fun. Stay tuned!

Random Dungeons And The 19 Twink.

Today, partly to test out the blocked experience bar on my rogue, and partly to see if the 15-25 crowd were as nubbly as the 80 heroic crowd I was having no pleasure with tonight, Rowena queued for the random instance. Rewards were to be a handful of copper and a random useful item. Rowena ended up in the Deadmines, working on the second boss.

The under 25 bracket people I started with were a warrior tank, a priest healer, a hunter, and a warlock. The damage dealers seemed to know what they were doing, even if the pets were being unruly. The tank was holding aggro well, but I think I stepped on his ego a coupe of times, stealing the threat away and taking care of adds that strayed. The run was rather uneventful, until we hit Greenskin. Somehow, the hunter pet ran past a bunch of mobs andbrought Greenskin, his two pirate buddies, and 3 more, with parrots. I was able to help clear two, and got Greenskin to about 20%, but evasion was on cooldown. We wiped, everyone came back ,and we tried again. This time, less adds, before we got the second of the four adds down, the tank died. The hunter helped with the last add, then I was on Greenskin again. Somewhere before that Greenskin and a parrot bugged at the base of a ramp, giving me time to bandage. It was a close fight, but I got him down, with only 5% health to spare. I think that was the last straw for the warrior, as he never came back. We ended up pulling a paladin in to finish the last boss, and Rowena got her achievement for Deadmines. Here in the picture you can see what else she got.

If you click you can see my badly drawn commentary. I am now off to submit a ticket for my twink friends out there so that I am one of the few that earn experience after experience is turned off, or at least get some kind of answer. The belt is yummier than what I had, though, and Rowena has a few more experience points she can trade if that is the way it has to be.

Since posting this, a ticket has been opened, which is sitting unanswered. I just submitted a post here about it. Hopefully I'll get an answer to this question soon.

3.3 .... WOW!

The little things. They are what keep me coming back for more in this game. Logging in to find a core hound pup in the mailbox was great! Remembering that Breanni was supposed to have a few new pets to buy, I ran to the pet shop and picked up a new snake and kitty. They'll have to make a 100 pet achievement soon, with all the pets they keep coming up with. I made sure to give them all play time, running a lap or more of Dalaran looking for the last three books for the Schools of Arcane Magic achievement.

Core pup in tow, I decided to try out the new looking for group tool. I made allowances for patch day newness by not getting angry over glitches that I knew would be fixed soon. Other than a 15 minutes of disgrace at having to leave an instance group that noone got summoned into, the grouping was rather smooth. Delgada was chosen to dps the first instance, then heal the second. The second was everyone's favorite instance, the Oculus. One of the group said," They didn't hit this with a (nerf) bat, they hit it with a sledgehammer." No truer words were spoken. The first boss was a pushover, the mage boss in the center died without me noticing any of his signature frosty floor patches. The end boss was very forgiving of movement impaired people, or I was just getting better at getting out of the way when the boss threw out his bubbles of pain. Loot was rolled on, mstly to be disenchanted, and that was all I did in LFG that night. I really enjoy the new system. I'm not sure if everyone is on their best behaviour, or if I am just getting very lucky. those two runs were the most fun I have had in a while.

After the LFG fun, I ran regular ToC with some friends, and that was a blast and a half. Graham, my favorite pally tank ever (he reads this, I know, so I can say stuff like that. I'm sure he's not modest or anything. He's probably saying, "That's right, I am that good." to himself as he reads this. Makes up for how bad he rogues. -.^ ) tanked, I healed, and his two roomies (Hi Mar! Hi Ben!) were the reason for the group. Each walked away with three pretty purples last night, despite our lack of luck in getting leather or plate wearing dps to join our foursome. It was fun running ToC with people who were new to the instance, learning how to joust right there instead of through the tournament quests. I highly recommend it!

Tonight, kinda figuring I wouldn't get much play time in, I logged into Bladefist and my poor, neglected mage, Dinnaeh. She picked up her mail and set off to turn in some completed quests. She joined the heroic instance queue and waited. I thought for sure that being dps, it would be the same old thing, too many damage dealers and not enough tanks and healers. Dinnaeh had a group in less than five minutes. First instance she hit was Utgarde Pinnacle. She had never been there, so she picked up the instance quests, set out a table, threw intellect on the mostly melee group, and was second to last on the dps meter. Noone said anything (perhaps all their mods were still broken?Mine weren't, though they need organizing), and the run went smoothly in spite of my ineptitude (or lack of gear). I got three achievements in there, finished two quests, and ended up back in Zul'drak where I started. You know that fight with the guy on the dragon in Utgarde Pinnacle? Nerfed. I don't think that dragon breathed frost on the floor even once, and this was heroic! I'm all for making things accessible, but this was way too easy. This is where I have to say, why not just have people walk through an instance portal and give them a random iLevel 200 item, rare or epic, that is useful to the class. The instances I ran the last two days, with the exception of ToC, are close to doing that already.

I am mostly happy with what I have seen of 3.3. I haven't messed around with Delgada's shadow glyphs or spec yet, but she did pick up a mace that replaced both her damage and healing weapons. I enchanted it with Black Magic, so the mace has haste and now has a proc for more haste. I'll probably stick with the way she is for now, because if she starts running as many random instances as I know she plans, she'll be replacing gear pretty quickly.

Facerolling

Yesterday, I logged into Shadowsong and found the guild was raiding Trial of the Crusader. So, knowing noone else was on to do dungeon runs, I logged in to Bladefist. I asked if anyone was interested in running anything, got the standard no reply, so went off on my own to find things to do. I got into a 10 man Vault of Archavon, only dying once (glass area in the fire guy's room is bad!), got the achievement but no gear. So, I was invited to a 25 man Vault of Archavon run that was slow filling up. I asked in guild if anyone wanted to go, got no response. By then I decided I would get into ventrilo to see if anyone was in there and chatting. There were two guys in there talking about jobs that involve unions and parking cars. I didn't want to interrupt, so I left the server. I found out later, when I asked a second time, that the guild was saving themselves for a run some night later in the week, at around 10 server. I'm glad someone piped in. I wish someone had said something earlier.

Back to the point. Since noone wanted to run anything (I asked again not long after finding out about the raid times), I logged in to Delgada, logging in to the KNR ventrilo at the same time, and joined lfg. I chatted with two of my guildmates who were playing Aion while I skipped around Dalaran. I got invited to the heroic daily, picked up the quests, and got summoned to the instance. I stepped through the portal then opened my bags. I had in my bags 1 epic drake mount, a hearthstone, a duplicate robot pet key, and a piece of level 75 meat. No candles, no water, no buff food, no potions, nada. I healed all of Old Kingdom, on heroic, with nothing! I even died once, got rezzed, and the tank went off without a care in the world. Healed up a little, got a very small bit of mana, and kept healing.

After that instance, I hearthed back to Dalaran, bought some water and a couple of mana potions, and raided my bank for some food. See, I had emptied my bags so I could cart all the stuff that got sent back by Blizzard from the time our guild bank was cleared out, and I forgot to restock. What a dummy! Now, with part of the items I needed, I went off with the same tank to do heroic Culling of Stratholme. I let one of the rogues die (I think I was being attacked by a kitten), so we just missed the timed event. Quest complete, we hearthed out, and I logged out after that.

So, I guess Delgada is at the point where she could pretty much faceroll through heroics now. Too bad the guild is off doing their own thing. I miss them!

Catch Up Gear For Shadow Priests

So, you are behind your guild by leaps and bounds. Your gear is pre-heroic, and theirs is post Ulduar. You feel left behind, but you don't want to burden them by asking for runs in Naxxramas when they really don't even care to dance another round with Heigen. What can you do?

Well, with the new Trial of the Champion instance, you can bag some i-level 200 epic pieces to help flesh out a good heroic ready set of gear. Everyone is running it, and if you are lucky, you'll find a group that is running it multiple times. Once you're in, stick with it. Here is a list of the gear that a shadow priest can use in this instance.

Belt of the Churning Blaze
Bindings of the Wicked
Handwraps of Surrendered Hope -yes it's a healer piece, but we like the spirit, and the red socket!
Leggings of the Haggard Apprentice -another healer piece, gemmed with a hit gem if you need hit, and a spirit gem, why not?
Mantle of Inconsolable Fear -this piece works well for healing as well.
The Confessor's Binding -this is a healing belt. If you get this one and not the other, it's not so bad, is it?
Signet of Purity -a nice ring for healing and dps
Brilliant Hailstone Amulet
Abyssal Rune
Tears of the Vanquished -I know it isn't a dps trinket, but if the healer doesn't want it, who would laugh at you for wanting all that intellect?(I believe that all my spells are helpful. I boycott the exception of my spells from Blizzard's idea of helpful. Phooey!)

These items don't cover all your gear slots. That's okay though. This is where you use the best item from Shadowpriest.com's beginning raid gear list. Let me throw up an example here. HolyNova, who is kicking herself for her bad choice in naming right now, has been building her shadow set, in hopes that one day she can be as dangerous and beautiful as that fire mage over there (we'll call him Larry). She was able to get the wrists, hit belt, hit neck, and the dps trinket from a few runs in Trial of the Champion. She is thrilled. She gems the hit neck with hit, enchants her bracers with more spellpower, adds a socket to her belt to put another hit gem in it, and puts on only these items. She has 107 hit rating now, and some other nice stats. Right now, we need to make sure her hit rating gets closer to cap. I have found for heroics, cap is not necessarily the same as it is for raiding. Still, we should aim for as close to that magic 289 as possible (assuming you have all points spent in misery and shadow focus). She found The Argent Skullcap kicking around in her bank, getting her to 168 hit rating. She healed a heroic Violet Hold and was lucky enough to get Mark of the War Prisoner, which boosted her hit rating to 241. At this point, some people might just run off without a robe and happily be able to complete Utgarde Keep on heroic mode, but we like well dressed priests. It's cold in Northrend! Speaking of cold, Nova has been working with the Ebon Blade (probably where she got her affinity for the dark side), and they liked her enough to sell her a Dark Soldier Cape. Her hit rating, now at 270, is looking more worthy of heroics. Now, our gal has been cooking and fishing and doing her regular daily dungeon quests without fail, and the Kirin Tor love her. They let her buy Robes of Crackling Flame, which make her think of Larry. Another item the Ebon Blade let her buy are Sterile Flesh-Handling Gloves. Her boots and pants have been hard to replace. She's just using her healing rings now, nothing special about them. They have haste and intellect and critical strike chance and stuff like that.

Now, we were talking about farming heroics for gear to catch up with, weren't we? With the set we have assembled, Nova should be able to hold her own any about any heroic. This is where the fun begins. You see, everyone, and I mean everyone, is farming heroics for the new badges right now. How does this impact Nova? As a healer or as a damage dealer, she will find more groups as she is flexible. More groups = more badges, and more chances at upgrades. Should she still run regular instances? Probably not, unless she is uncomfortable walking into a heroic not having done the regular version. Badges are the key, because the items that can be purchased are i-level 213 and 226, which is fine to jump into Ulduar with. Here is a list of items a priest can use, purchased with Badges of Conquest. Pair that with items you can get from heroics (here are some nice i-level 219's from ToC), and Nova can dazzle Larry with her new role as a damage dealer. Fireball? That is so yesterday. Eat a few of these dots and tell me how you feel in the morning. :)

I hope this is helpful for people, like me, who are trying hard to catch up as a new level 80 to people much further progressed. Comment if you found something fun that I missed. I love shopping for new gear!

Heroics, Heroics, And More Heroics!

Halinka got to run a few heroics yesterday and today. Today, after dinner, Delgada got to run some heroics, too. Seems both my horde guild and my alliance guild have gone heroic crazy. Why? Those damned tokens. Now, don't get me wrong, Halinka was happy to add that i-level 226 neckpiece to her hodgepodge of i-level 200 blues and purples (many of which were upgraded tonight. Thanks everyone!). She just feels a little out of her league yet. Who can blame her? She is so new to 80 that she hasn't sold off some of her green hit gear.

Delgada, on the other hand, was asked to heal tonight. Delgada hates healing. She'd rather try to dig through the glacier surrounding Arthas heart with her bare hands than be anything but a shadow priest. But, if you want the gear, sometimes you have to make allowances. Delgada found some gear that had a bit more mana regeneration on it and healed heroic Oculus, Nexus, Culling of Stratholme, Gundrak, and Drak'Tharon. She got herself a nice pair of bracers, several achievements, and a bronze drake. That's right, a bronze drake, that she can't ride yet. Delgada is a slacker. So, after the runs were through, she dug out every item in her bank that she could bear to part with, turned many bolts of netherweave into bags, churned out a few frostweave bags , cooked up all the raw meat she had iwth spices to make raiding food, and sent it all to Rowena to sell. Rowena is sitting on about 2500 gold, and had a mailbox full of teenage greens. She listed everything, and we're hoping for some nice profits.

Earlier today, Halinka got in on a Wintergrasp raid, and was invited to a 10 man Vault of Archavon run. She ran 25 man of the same instance yesterday, and with all the raid buffs,, her critical strike food, and her flask of the frost wyrm, she was pushing out about 2200 dps. In this run, she ran out of flasks, so she was using that pink elixir that boosts all stats, and an elixir of mighty spirit. Three wipes later, out of food, gear wrecked, and out of elixirs, Halinka's dps had been an abysmal 1350. I thought I had been doing everything right. I guess I wasn't. After complaining about mt shoddy performance in guild chat, one person suggested checking my rotation. I thought, you know, what has worked for me before this patch, may not work now. So I googled "Shadow priest spell rotation 3.2". It landed me on a forum post on shadowpriest.com's forums. No surprise there. If it is relevant to Shadow Priests, it has been discussed on their boards. They had macros! Here is the link, so I don't hog it all to myself. I tested it out on a dummy, doing one rotation of the start and then switching to main. I got my dps to 1750 at one point. Sounds like my problem is solved! Now, if only I could get Halinka a drake...

Additional Instances Cannot Be Launched...

This evening was an exercise in frustration for me and 4 others, as we beat ourselves silly on the invisible barrier barring us from entering Scholomance. We tried all sorts of things. We tried disbanding and regrouping with a different leader. We tried disbanding and trying to get one person in. We tried sitting around and randomly taking runs at the portal. Noone contacted a game master, that I am aware of. Finally, as they were deciding to run Ramparts instead, I burst through the impenetrable shield and stood looking at skeletal guards and fantastic candelabra. I was in Scholomance at last.

I love this instance. The look inside is my absolute favorite. The candles, the oriental rugs, the wrought iron gates, the stonework, the books...all the things I'd love to have surrounding me. The skeletons and creepy spellcasters can vacate my palace anytime.

Once inside, our group, consisting of a paladin, a druid, a death knight, and my priest, Halinka, proceeded to decimate the place. I got a little to close a few times (forgot how low level she is), and died. Thank goodness we had 2 other people who could resurrect. Having to wait over half an hour to get in was well worth it, as we were able to get down all the normal bosses. We didn't get all the way downstairs, and we didn't summon the messenger, and we didn't aggro the entire student body. But, our friend near the alchemy lab was about ready to visit a lady conjurer, it seems, because he had this in his pocket:


Isn't it lovely? I also got a new hat that doesn't quite match, so I won't bother you with the details. This robe should help Halinka grind out her Wintersaber Trainers reputation in style.

Back to the point of this post. I'm reading a thread on this issue. Blizzard says this is happening only during peak periods, and I have noticed this happening only in Azeroth. I have never had a problem getting into an Outland instance or a Northrend instance. Are they hosted on different servers? I don't know. The thread I am currently browsing through is pretty heated, with a few posting helpful information for the game masters to pass on, and many just getting angry and not helping to solve the situation. I posted our problem on page 79.

Have you had any problems getting into instances lately? Let Blizzard know, or just post your thoughts below!