(WoW) Warcraft Report
Poked on and off through the weekend. I managed to get in a number of Wintergrasp battles. PVP still isn't really my thing, but it's bearable, and an avenue to a hat upgrade for my priest (at least in her DPS incarnation). I've seen good and bad battles. I think I most enjoy settling in on a tower cannon and playing artillery, earning my priest the "Vehicular Gnomeslaughter" achievement. Heh.
Learning experiences all around. It's blending together a little, but let me try to pick out any points of note. From the last few days...
The Nexus was run with a couple non-guild warriors. I'm not real accustomed to such heavy use of melee DPS. Lost our healer on Korlug - probably due to an unfortunately-placed whirlwind, as those can down non-tanks almost instantly (and it still hurts on defense-heavy plate, too). I think one of the warriors whirlwinded himself and broke CC on one of the healer adds, but I don't know if that really changed the outcome any. We wiped on our first attempt at Telestra - by the time I got a good look at where the arcane split went, our healer was down, and things unraveled from there. The second time, was much easier. I don't know if the fire resist aura helped that much, or my picking up the splits quicker made a difference, or if it was a factor outside my perception, but... huge difference. The other bosses went down pretty easy and on single attempts, though I'll confess I didn't remember to move on Keristrasza until I had several stacks of her debuff. Oopsie.
Utgarde Keep is seeming easy now. Heck, someone else asked if we'd forgotten to set it on heroic that time. Full-guild run with a couple hunters. Prince Keleseth dropped his tanking sword. :p on him, it's not as good as the one from Pinnacle. The only problem I can recall was one or two mobs pulling out of a pack and going after healer and mage. It wasn't insurmountable and I don't recall anyone dying. The bosses went down simply enough and the end boss dropped a caster ring, as I recall.
We followed that up directly with a run of Violet Hold. I hate the group spawns. You get periodic spell reflect, some sort of teleport/backstab combo, and it's difficult to manage four mobs, particularly at the one portal where they split up. Just after I was asked to tank the groups coming from that spot down below, it came up. One of our hunters caught a pair, and the other pair went toward the door, as I wasn't expecting, but probably should have realized they would. There was much fumbling to get them all together - I was worried, but we managed to get through it without any deaths (other than, I think, a pet?).
We drew the floating eye boss, who was only difficult because I didn't position him well and that caused some line of sight issues, and the arakkoa who wasn't terribly difficult - just have to remember to not kill his adds first or he gets harder. Sashayla even picked up Bolstered Legplates out of the deal - pretty much a straight upgrade over what she had going in.
We also went through Gundrak with different group. With few guildies on at the time, we had to pull in a fifth person for DPS, and ended up with a warlock. Strange, but I don't recall dungeoning with a warlock before (and I've done relatively few dungeons with my warlock, even). It was also my first time on heroic and my first time tanking it. It was... rocky.
Slad'ran took three attempts. Getting bound up in snakes sucks, as I found myself unable to do anything at all. In the future, we might want to play around a bit more with positioning to do something about those adds, but... it seems there's really only so much to be done.
The Colossus also took three tries. I'm not even sure exactly what the problem was there. In elemental form, he seemed prone to rushing the healer and offing them in one shot. That leaves something of a slot decline toward wiping. I wish I had a better assessment of the situation on this fight, because I'm not entirely sure what to change to do better.
Moorabi almost went down on our first attempt - and that with the warlock having disconnected as we started. So, having almost killed him with a group of four, getting the warlock back and having a full group was pretty easy. Eck was a hectic fight - it was hard for me to keep up with his leaping - but we were successful the first time. And the end boss went down the first time, too, though he offed our healer at some point.
Poor Ailara took a beating on the run, and it was frustrating at times. But we were successful. Unfortunately, it wasn't much fun. As the death toll racked up on the first couple bosses, the warlock started offering pointers in a straightforward "you have to do this" sort of way. Now, I may feel that approach is a little abrasive, but it doesn't set me off and I'm usually willing to listen. I didn't really research what experience he had, but some of his gear indicated luck and raiding to some degree, and he seemed to know what he was doing, being able to identify when something would affect his DPS. To others, however, that attitude is something of a challenge, I think. There was definitely some friction going on there, which peaked around the time of the third boss - when the warlock disconnected. The timing was unfortunate, but the fact that he came back fairly quickly and said his computer restarted rather than making offensive comments seemed to indicate to me it probably was an accident. I tend to give the benefit of the doubt there. But it took away enjoyment that would have been there otherwise.
So... yeah. While I've worked with some perfectly pleasant people, there are sometimes clashes of personality, humor, and pride to go with the people out there who are just plain rude. This is why I prefer playing with guildmates. Even if we're lacking in the experience department, it's usually more enjoyable. We tend to console each other through frustrations rather than getting in verbal pissing contests.
This all put Sash over 40 emblems of heroism. That's enough to pick up a dodge trinket that's of value. On the other hand, if I save up to 80, I can pick up the Tier 7 chestpiece (and actually lay claim to having owned a piece of "tier gear"). I think I'm getting by okay with "old" stamina trinkets right now, so I'm planning to save up, and hopefully get the Heroes' Redemption Breastplate.
Now, there are also glove and belt options worth considering available through the emblems. But the gloves are a relatively minor upgrade over the ones that are about one heroic's worth of rep away, and the belt would be overshadowed by a new crafted belt in patch 3.1. So I've de-prioritized those for now.
Learning experiences all around. It's blending together a little, but let me try to pick out any points of note. From the last few days...
The Nexus was run with a couple non-guild warriors. I'm not real accustomed to such heavy use of melee DPS. Lost our healer on Korlug - probably due to an unfortunately-placed whirlwind, as those can down non-tanks almost instantly (and it still hurts on defense-heavy plate, too). I think one of the warriors whirlwinded himself and broke CC on one of the healer adds, but I don't know if that really changed the outcome any. We wiped on our first attempt at Telestra - by the time I got a good look at where the arcane split went, our healer was down, and things unraveled from there. The second time, was much easier. I don't know if the fire resist aura helped that much, or my picking up the splits quicker made a difference, or if it was a factor outside my perception, but... huge difference. The other bosses went down pretty easy and on single attempts, though I'll confess I didn't remember to move on Keristrasza until I had several stacks of her debuff. Oopsie.
Utgarde Keep is seeming easy now. Heck, someone else asked if we'd forgotten to set it on heroic that time. Full-guild run with a couple hunters. Prince Keleseth dropped his tanking sword. :p on him, it's not as good as the one from Pinnacle. The only problem I can recall was one or two mobs pulling out of a pack and going after healer and mage. It wasn't insurmountable and I don't recall anyone dying. The bosses went down simply enough and the end boss dropped a caster ring, as I recall.
We followed that up directly with a run of Violet Hold. I hate the group spawns. You get periodic spell reflect, some sort of teleport/backstab combo, and it's difficult to manage four mobs, particularly at the one portal where they split up. Just after I was asked to tank the groups coming from that spot down below, it came up. One of our hunters caught a pair, and the other pair went toward the door, as I wasn't expecting, but probably should have realized they would. There was much fumbling to get them all together - I was worried, but we managed to get through it without any deaths (other than, I think, a pet?).
We drew the floating eye boss, who was only difficult because I didn't position him well and that caused some line of sight issues, and the arakkoa who wasn't terribly difficult - just have to remember to not kill his adds first or he gets harder. Sashayla even picked up Bolstered Legplates out of the deal - pretty much a straight upgrade over what she had going in.
We also went through Gundrak with different group. With few guildies on at the time, we had to pull in a fifth person for DPS, and ended up with a warlock. Strange, but I don't recall dungeoning with a warlock before (and I've done relatively few dungeons with my warlock, even). It was also my first time on heroic and my first time tanking it. It was... rocky.
Slad'ran took three attempts. Getting bound up in snakes sucks, as I found myself unable to do anything at all. In the future, we might want to play around a bit more with positioning to do something about those adds, but... it seems there's really only so much to be done.
The Colossus also took three tries. I'm not even sure exactly what the problem was there. In elemental form, he seemed prone to rushing the healer and offing them in one shot. That leaves something of a slot decline toward wiping. I wish I had a better assessment of the situation on this fight, because I'm not entirely sure what to change to do better.
Moorabi almost went down on our first attempt - and that with the warlock having disconnected as we started. So, having almost killed him with a group of four, getting the warlock back and having a full group was pretty easy. Eck was a hectic fight - it was hard for me to keep up with his leaping - but we were successful the first time. And the end boss went down the first time, too, though he offed our healer at some point.
Poor Ailara took a beating on the run, and it was frustrating at times. But we were successful. Unfortunately, it wasn't much fun. As the death toll racked up on the first couple bosses, the warlock started offering pointers in a straightforward "you have to do this" sort of way. Now, I may feel that approach is a little abrasive, but it doesn't set me off and I'm usually willing to listen. I didn't really research what experience he had, but some of his gear indicated luck and raiding to some degree, and he seemed to know what he was doing, being able to identify when something would affect his DPS. To others, however, that attitude is something of a challenge, I think. There was definitely some friction going on there, which peaked around the time of the third boss - when the warlock disconnected. The timing was unfortunate, but the fact that he came back fairly quickly and said his computer restarted rather than making offensive comments seemed to indicate to me it probably was an accident. I tend to give the benefit of the doubt there. But it took away enjoyment that would have been there otherwise.
So... yeah. While I've worked with some perfectly pleasant people, there are sometimes clashes of personality, humor, and pride to go with the people out there who are just plain rude. This is why I prefer playing with guildmates. Even if we're lacking in the experience department, it's usually more enjoyable. We tend to console each other through frustrations rather than getting in verbal pissing contests.
This all put Sash over 40 emblems of heroism. That's enough to pick up a dodge trinket that's of value. On the other hand, if I save up to 80, I can pick up the Tier 7 chestpiece (and actually lay claim to having owned a piece of "tier gear"). I think I'm getting by okay with "old" stamina trinkets right now, so I'm planning to save up, and hopefully get the Heroes' Redemption Breastplate.
Now, there are also glove and belt options worth considering available through the emblems. But the gloves are a relatively minor upgrade over the ones that are about one heroic's worth of rep away, and the belt would be overshadowed by a new crafted belt in patch 3.1. So I've de-prioritized those for now.
I don't think as much his 'this is how to do it' attitude is what grated more than his boisterous claim of having over 200 accounts with 10 characters per account. Seriously, if someone has that many obviously they're one or any combination of: 1) Lying out their ass and looking for some kind of 'geek cred'. 2) Insane to be able to blow that much money per month. 3) Should be multiboxing instead of getting into random PuG's where they outgear the content. 4) Should be spending that ~$3k/mo on something a bit more worthwhile than WoW for Godsake. -.- Anyway, re: Gundrak. Snake boss is a bitch. Just how it is. I, personally, wish I knew the 'trick' to avoid snake wraps (It might be based on aggro table as he seems to pick on healers and tanks) and how to get people out of them. The DPS has to pick up adds, especially those on the healer, and handle them while still being able to beat down the boss. AoE is pretty much desirable over single-target in those situations. Positioning the DPS around the boss to catch him in their AoE while avoiding the Poison nova is good, not so much a job of the tank, but the DPS. Statue/Elemental boss. Uhm. Dunno. You bring up the point of having the guy charge out of range of you is a pain, I bring up point if everyone stays in that tight ring then the splashes of puddles leave very little room to run/stand in. I feel the fight is more 'on the run' than the warlock seemed to know/desire, with everyone staying mobile during the elemental phase, dodging puddles of doom, trying to not get charged into, you need room to run. Mammoth boss is tank and spank, he really is. Just gotta watch the damage spike that comes in mammoth form, especially after the 4 stomp/second stun. Counterspell worked on the transformation, I assume the hammer did too. Rogues with their Kick and Shaman with Earth Shock also help. A group comprised of spell-interrupt probably has an easier time (and can catch the achievement without resorting to exploits) Eck is aptly named, as that's what you say when you fight him ;) No seriously, he's a tank and spank with a slight aggro dip when he leaps off after a random person, needing to be taunted back. I -think- what splattered Ail on the final boss was the knockdown ability that targets a random member, and then being chosen to ride around on the horn in short order. Her player expressed surprise, that I observed from where I sat, at how fast they died. Also, they didn't move as much as they probably shoulda during the elemental purple stuff phases. Dunno, I don't play a healer, I'm not sure how 'aware' you can be of moving around + keeping up tank and in that sort of fight, the rest of the party as well. It feels pretty danged hectic. (Also, was there an aggro dump during phase shifts? On one of our wipes the elemental went straight after the healer instead of you)
ReplyDeleteSee, I took it more as: 5) He was joking in a way that just wasn't funny with current company, not being serious at all. So when he said "I've done this a million times," I took that to be simple exaggeration to indicate he'd done it before repeatedly. And when you pushed the issue, saying that was "technically impossible," it escalated to him going on about multiple accounts and high cost. At no point, did I feel he was being serious in trying to convince us he had so many accounts. It's the sort of thing that seems so outlandish to me I can't believe anyone would even take that seriously for a moment. So outlandish, in fact, that I didn't see any point in calling bullshit over it, because it struck me as a joke. I'm a little surprised you got on him about it, but only a little. Slad'ran: I've read a little bit more about this. The wrap effect seems to come up if someone gets to many adds on them, thus making tank (if using AOE) and healer priority targets. It's said to be destroyable, like Keleseth's ice block, so maybe that should factor in in the future. There's also approaches to kiting the boss in certain ways (to the Colossus room or something) that manages to leave the adds behind. Colossus: Yes, he seems to dump aggro at the phase shifts. Yes, the fight involves movement and positioning to avoid the puddles. I don't think exactly where it's done really matters as long as everyone can still do what they need to do. Healing: Pretty much everytime Ail went down, it seemed fast to me, whichever boss or abilities were in use. As for healing on the move... it's sometimes absolutely necessary. Awareness of position and movement is a skill everyone needs to some extent. How well healers can do it depends somewhat on class, I think. I know holy paladins are disadvantages there, due to a lack of real instant-cast healing. Dunno about druids, though.
ReplyDeleteAs my druid I heal on the move when needed, but given the choice I'd rather stand in one place and do it.
ReplyDelete