World of Warcraft

[Squeek]

3 drops for sqk tonight despite our server crashes.

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=45292 for healysqek (replaced http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37844)
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=45687 for dpsqek (replaced http://www.wowhead.com/?item=39594)
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=45866 for hitstarvedsqek (replaced http://www.wowhead.com/?item=37873)

While the hit trinket is kind've a dps loss in itself since I can't use the SP bonus during bloodlust like I did with the Mark and the haste isn't really a good proc for me, the +35 hit means I can drop my +8 hit gem and my +27 hit dragon's eye. In the end, that trinket is a +46sp bonus from replacing the gems and the helm is +20sp, +7 haste, +22 crit.

[Sullyman2007]

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=45289 off Flame Leviathan earlier tonight. Brings the imba up to about 471. My only other issues are low quality gems and getting my shoulders enchanted.

[devonin]

That's strange. I'm at 471.9 and have nothing at all from 219+ gear.

You should get on those gems.

[Sullyman2007]

Gemming annoys me. I have a +16 spirit gem in that head piece I just linked, and a +12 spirit gem in my shoulders. I personally don't think 4 spirit is a lot of spirit so I haven't ever bothered changing it. But according to imba that +12 gem is "low quality", and since "low quality gems" are my only issue besides a missing enchant, I guess I don't have any choice. Time to go spend a few hundred gold on 4 spirit

Alright whatever I did some detective work and they weren't as expensive as I thought they'd be. Though I'm still stuck with the red +14 SP gems since most of the red gems on the AH were geared toward strength/attack power. The only thing I see is Runed Stormjewel for 600g.

[devonin]

Um.....the blue quality spirit gem should be dirt cheap unless your server is ridiculous.

Spellpower and Strength and Attack power are all red mods, which means that yes, you'll need to acquire scarlet rubies (Which, because they have spellpower, strength and attack power on them) are in high demand and expensive. Uncut scarlet rubies tend to cost on my server, somewhere from 50-80 gold cyclically.

The gemcut to +19 spellpower comes from being exalted with the Kirin Tor.

[Relambrien]

Having a good week raiding so far. My guild started 25-man Ulduar this week, and we've already downed the Siege, Kologarn, and the Iron Council. We've also taken down Emalon (skipped Archavon due to time issues), and did 25-man Malygos on Monday. We've also formed a couple 10-man teams.

I got a few nice drops out of it too. Quartz Crystal Wand, an ilvl 232 from XT. Handwraps of Plentiful Recovery from Kologarn. My T8 leggings (though until I get another t8/8.5 piece my other leggings are better).

And to top it all off, I revamped my UI. I had been using a lightly-modified version of this UI suite, but today I went ahead and made some substantial edits.

Here's the result.

[Squeek]

Noice.

Our ten man run did up to Auriaya yesterday (skipping the Assembly so Auri's trash despawns overnight), then we did the Assembly today and the three watchers with no wipes.

We could've done more but decided not to. So, we're going to spend all of tomorrow on Mimiron. Of course, if we actually down Mimiron, we'll head for Vezax, but I'm doubtful. Hoping the nerfs are more of a motivation boost rather than an actual nerf, since I'm still convinced they changed the wrong things.

That UI looks pretty good. Some things I like, some things I don't. Definitely going to check out a few of them.

[ImEric12]

Woot, got the t8.5 legs off of Freya yesterday, and finally passed 58 emblems of conquest, so I grabbed the chest as well. With the 10-man gloves I got, that puts me only one piece away from my 4-piece! Which will probably be the helm, as the 25-man shoulders drop off Yogg, and I don't envision downing him for a little while yet.

Edit: Just checked, it puts me at 545.51 on Imba, and 2404 on wow-heroes.

[Squeek]

You could always run the 10-man. The shoulder token drops from Thorim in the 10-man.

I don't know why they switched around the tokens for 10/25, but I like it.

PS edit - Do you think our guild could do 10-man 3 drakes? We're one-shotting all the Ulduar bosses up to Mimiron. Our raid leader is, unfortunately, someone who doesn't care about achievements even in the name of guild progression (would shoot us up considerably if we did it--we're 15th overall (7th horde) on the server without it). I think I reminded him enough of it lately that we're going to legitimately give 2D a shot one of these days. We did 1D on 25-man with one of our "pugs" (aka people we know and run with sometimes) but we haven't even bothered with 1D 10 man because there's just nothing there for any of us.

[Relambrien]

Originally Posted by Squeek

That UI looks pretty good. Some things I like, some things I don't. Definitely going to check out a few of them.

If you need to know what any of the addons are, feel free to ask.

Additionally, my screen probably looks a lot more cluttered than it -could- look, simply because I love redundancy. I have about three different things telling me when Missile Barrage procs, in addition to a sound, so no matter where I'm looking, I'll always notice it. It's like that for a few things.

[Squeek]

Well, I like the healthbars (TankSpot has those too), but I don't like Pitbull, so that's out.

I like how everything is organized on the bottom, but I also dislike it.

I like the bar organization, but I hate the castbar mixed in with it.

I like the raid frames but I don't like where they are.

I really, really don't like seeing the combat log (way too many words scrolling through that at all times--why do people leave that up anyway? Seems like a huge waste of space and you're never going to be able to read it...)

I took this while trying to figure out who to hand some loot to and incidentally putting myself directly in front of the beacon of light that shines on top of Thaddius, in case you were wondering. I have no "action" screenshots of what my UI looks like during a fight.

Basically all I do is move two things to B3 and B5 (two buttons on my mouse) based on their necessity for the fight. I move Earthbind totem up to B5 during Gluth so I can quickly root the adds if necessary. I had Purge up there for the Military wing and the Cavaliers. I typically leave B3 for my totem macros so I can just mash that to drop them, only clicking on the icons on the right if I need a different totem arrangement for that fight (Cleansing for Maexx/Heigan, etc).

And yes I am well aware of the lack of customization on many of my addons.



ps - this was taken 2 runs ago. Last run I did 7,900 dps. I've gotten two more upgrades since, so I'm looking forward to breaking 8k. And that hunter was under my DPS the entire time--the DK Hysteria'd him right at the end just so he'd beat me ;_;

pps - for some reason the WowWebStats of that fight put my DPS at 8,500. I think Recount is including Feugen/Stalagg in that, since the WowWebStats data is pretty accurate.

[devonin]

Having a good week raiding so far. My guild started 25-man Ulduar this week

Traitor.

Also, 4 paladins in the raid, and you only have sanctuary and kings?

Is that "Effects are a big column down one side" thing part of the larger UI addon, or is it something seperate?

[Tokzic]

Apparently there were some problems with the old XT-Hard kill video, so here it is on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_jkLGRqXpI

Also, Mimiron down within first hour of attempts. Wow.

[Relambrien]

Originally Posted by devonin

Traitor.

Also, 4 paladins in the raid, and you only have sanctuary and kings?

Is that "Effects are a big column down one side" thing part of the larger UI addon, or is it something seperate?

It's Satrina Buff Frames. And at this point, there were still a few minor issues I was working out. Each one of the buff "frames" that Satrina creates can only hold up to 20 effects, but you can make it so that overflow goes into another frame. I set up two frames on the right, one right under the other, but in that screenshot they were flowing a little incorrectly which is why the order is kind of off, and a couple buffs were "missing." We had a shaman mana totem taking care of Wisdom, and there's no reason for me to have Might.

Of course, that shot was taken shortly before a wipe, as you can see if you take a look at Omen.

But yeah, in comparison to the original UI compilation, the only things still around are the Pitbull settings (with minor graphic edits) and the general layout. Each individual add-on has been customized to my needs, or in some cases, replaced. For instance, I'm using SexyMap and Satrina, whereas the original uses Chinchilla and Elkano's Buff Bars.

[Squeek]

One-shotted Mimiron.

Also, Tsugo is in my guild now.

=D

[Tokzic]

Holy ****.

First day at Vezax.

1%.

He enraged and wiped everyone but the tank with a Searing Flames.

God dammit god dammit god dammitttttt.

[Squeek]

First day at Vezax.

We lost at 16% =(

Definitely need advice on this. We have:

Tank: DK
Melee DPS: Warrior, DK
Ranged DPS: MM hunter, Survival hunter
Caster DPS: EleSham, Destro Lock
Healers: Druid, Disc Priest, Holy Priest

We're trying to figure out who should be in his 15 yard radius and who shouldn't be, and who should be in the Crashes and who shouldn't be.

Edit: Scratch that. Think I came up with a working strategy. Gonna do a big triangle with melee and him at the top and two groups of 3 each (one caster, one healer (other than the holy), and one hunter per) and make sure the two other healers know what tricks they are allowed to use in the 75% healing reduction pools (PW:S and Lifebloom).

Anyway, I just now saw the video for Yogg. Alls I gotta say is: HOLY ****ING **** WHAT THE ****. That fight really does make Mimiron and Hodir look like a joke. At first I thought Hodir was damn hard because of all the things you had to pay attention to (toasty fire good, icicles bad, sunbeams good, freeze bad, shock good, flash freeze bad, dispel priest good, frozen blows bad...all while not stopping movement... damn), but it turns out that was just lack of information on our part as to how the fight worked. Nothing we read said Toasty Fires did anything other than keep Biting Cold off of you. Once we read about the Singed debuff, we knew what we were lacking and got him down in one try immediately after. Mimiron I will attribute to the nerfs mostly. Nobody died in phases 1 or 2. We lost someone to being instagibbed from an Assault Bot right near the end of Phase 3, but we b-rezzed him and had all 10 people up for phase 4. It was our first time seeing phase 4, and it was as easy as I thought it would be. Didn't have to do the "save the magnet" trick or the baby spice trick.

Yogg takes the cake though. Seriously, wow. Phase 1 seems alright. Not too bad. Phase 2 seems like HOLY ****ING HELL OH MY GOD WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE. Phase 3 seems weird to me though. Why is there a phase 3 if he doesn't even do anything?

Anxious to try him, though I don't think we'll down him until next week. I guarantee I'll be posting tonight about our Vezax win.

PS Edit v2: One thing I've been meaning to say for a while now.

I'm kinda tired of some of these sites putting out tutorial videos. They sound all cool and collected and their videos make it look easy and it's supposed to be reassuring but honestly it's insulting. To show a Mimiron video where he doesn't even Laser Barrage in part 2... that's not a tutorial video. Maybe your DPS can pull 6k each, but we're struggling at 3k most of the time. And I highly doubt we're alone. Why don't any of these sites realize that strategy videos should be made with the people who actually NEED them in mind? It's nice to see the fight in advance, sure, but we can't exactly employ the same raid strategy as you. Our raid composition is different, our gear level is different, we have different personalities, etc. What if we didn't have a Priest or Paladin for phase 1? We don't have those protection cooldowns to use. What do we do? Why don't you mention these things? When there are only 2-3 healers for a fight, you can't just ASSUME we have priests and paladins. Sure, we figured out how to handle it on our own, but it would've been nice to have that mentioned.

There really should be someone who writes / shows guides to fights from the casual point of view. And maybe they should also show fights from the four points of view in a raid: Tank, Melee, Caster, and Healer. Showing me the POV from a tank really does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for me. Hell, even showing me the fight from a mage's point of view does nothing, because they're completely different classes. EleShaman can't DPS on the run like Mages can.

I guess the point I'm trying to make here is that if you're making a guide, it should be more than just a laundry list of the boss's abilities layered on top of a video of your super-leet raiding guild killing the boss. I've now seen the TankSpot and StratFu videos for Yogg and it's safe to say I could've gotten the same information from WoWWiki's list of abilities he does. How about providing some "we had problems with this and you might too" or "we found the best way to handle this was to do this". Then again, you don't exactly have problems fighting bosses with 50,000 raid DPS.

[v0lcom]

I play wow
Opes-40 Hunter-Turalyon
Volcy-32-Rogue-Aerie Peak

[macgravel]

Is this a game I should get into?

Y/N?

[Gun92]

Yes