(WoW/GW) Sweep the Deeps!*
Slow WoW weekend in general, but got in a couple heroic dungeons anyway.
WoW
My paladin put away her shield and pulled out her two-handed sword, letting our guild leader tank with his warrior alt. I've also started watching the DPS meter to get a feel for how I can do in damage dealing. We hit Violet Hold on Friday night first, got to the first boss - the voidwalker I hadn't seen yet - and wiped. Ow.
Being my first time drawing that boss, I don't feel too bad. We swept the dungeon on our second attempt without any major problems. Then we hit up Halls of Lightning. It went pretty smoothly most of the way. We got a little split up on Ionar, and one person died there, but it wasn't a big setback.
Loken, however... was interesting. He's one of those fights you can almost expect to die on the first time - you take damage for staying too far away, and he does a nova effect that hurts a lot if you don't run out of range in time. Movement's a bit factor. So with a new tank (who usually plays ranged DPS) and a healer new to the dungeon (I believe?), there was bound to be a little trouble. Or healer bit it on the first or second lightning nova, and I thought that would lead to a party wipe. It usually does, right? But our druid started healing. As it became clear we were going to fight it out, I started juggling healing with whacking the boss with a big sword. It was not the smoothest transition, and I'm not as familiar as I could be with all the paladin's bag of healing tricks, but I like to think it helped. We lost our hunter, too, but the three of us standing finished Loken off for the last third or half of his health. Rawr.
Sunday we started with Violet Hold again. This run really made clear to me just how situational DPS can be. Against the arakkoa boss, it was pretty straightforward, and I clocked somewhere around 2500 DPS. The second boss was the floating eye. He ended up right on the edge of the balcony atop the stairs. Trying to get behind him put us down the stairs while the healer was on top. Those stairs are notorious for breaking healer line of sight. So I'm trying to position myself such that the healer can reach me and partway through I noticed the hunter farther down taking a fair bit of damage - I switched to supplemental healing. When the dust settled, everyone was alive, but I seem to recall my DPS for the fight nosedived to the 800-1000 neighborhood. Against Cyanigosa, I didn't have to sweat it quite so much, but I did fumble off attacks after the aggro wipes and such. I didn't switch over to healing as my main goal, but I was not able (due to situation and my own disorientation) to unload fully. I think that fight I put in around 1500.
So that was actually very educational to me in seeing just how much DPS can vary.
We then ran Utgarde Pinnacle. An attempt at completing the first boss with the achievement failed, though we beat the boss okay. Coordinating positioning and damage to the abomination seems it will take a little more work. I got to collect spears to shoot down Skadi for the first time ever (I guess I'm usually tanking, heh). We lost our hunter sometime after he landed (probably a whirlwind), but the fight didn't actually go badly. Ymiron went down our first attempt, too. Really the only difficulty we had was some lack of communication between tank and our druid who started off-tanking. Tsk, tsk. Communication is good. ;)
So I have 45 emblems of heroism, I think, on that character again. Again, I'm pondering what to spend them on. There's the dodge trinket for 40, which would be good but I seem to be doing okay without. There's tier 7 gloves at 60, which are probably a fairly small improvement. Or I could look at the tier 7 gloves and chest (80 emblems) for my DPS set. Decisions, decisions...
*Title courtesy Zand "Dorkins" Broumand of Project Lore.
GW
In fairness (or for comparison), I offer a quick report on Sunday night's Guild Wars events, too:
I was shown around in a confusing fashion, led to giving cake to an anniversary-based NPC who gives prizes in return. Not that anyone filled me in starting out on the details of that. I was handed some roots, then a piece of cake. It's good that I didn't eat it then, because it only later became clear that the roots were to be traded for more cake and the cake turned in to the NPC.
After that, we finished a few more little Kaineng City quests. Lots of running around through the twisting tunnels of that city, some /resigning to get back to civilization, and some combat with a few packs here and there. It really doesn't feel like we did much, but some people were tired and others just disorganized. I think we're getting reasonably close to starting missions, though.
WoW
My paladin put away her shield and pulled out her two-handed sword, letting our guild leader tank with his warrior alt. I've also started watching the DPS meter to get a feel for how I can do in damage dealing. We hit Violet Hold on Friday night first, got to the first boss - the voidwalker I hadn't seen yet - and wiped. Ow.
Being my first time drawing that boss, I don't feel too bad. We swept the dungeon on our second attempt without any major problems. Then we hit up Halls of Lightning. It went pretty smoothly most of the way. We got a little split up on Ionar, and one person died there, but it wasn't a big setback.
Loken, however... was interesting. He's one of those fights you can almost expect to die on the first time - you take damage for staying too far away, and he does a nova effect that hurts a lot if you don't run out of range in time. Movement's a bit factor. So with a new tank (who usually plays ranged DPS) and a healer new to the dungeon (I believe?), there was bound to be a little trouble. Or healer bit it on the first or second lightning nova, and I thought that would lead to a party wipe. It usually does, right? But our druid started healing. As it became clear we were going to fight it out, I started juggling healing with whacking the boss with a big sword. It was not the smoothest transition, and I'm not as familiar as I could be with all the paladin's bag of healing tricks, but I like to think it helped. We lost our hunter, too, but the three of us standing finished Loken off for the last third or half of his health. Rawr.
Sunday we started with Violet Hold again. This run really made clear to me just how situational DPS can be. Against the arakkoa boss, it was pretty straightforward, and I clocked somewhere around 2500 DPS. The second boss was the floating eye. He ended up right on the edge of the balcony atop the stairs. Trying to get behind him put us down the stairs while the healer was on top. Those stairs are notorious for breaking healer line of sight. So I'm trying to position myself such that the healer can reach me and partway through I noticed the hunter farther down taking a fair bit of damage - I switched to supplemental healing. When the dust settled, everyone was alive, but I seem to recall my DPS for the fight nosedived to the 800-1000 neighborhood. Against Cyanigosa, I didn't have to sweat it quite so much, but I did fumble off attacks after the aggro wipes and such. I didn't switch over to healing as my main goal, but I was not able (due to situation and my own disorientation) to unload fully. I think that fight I put in around 1500.
So that was actually very educational to me in seeing just how much DPS can vary.
We then ran Utgarde Pinnacle. An attempt at completing the first boss with the achievement failed, though we beat the boss okay. Coordinating positioning and damage to the abomination seems it will take a little more work. I got to collect spears to shoot down Skadi for the first time ever (I guess I'm usually tanking, heh). We lost our hunter sometime after he landed (probably a whirlwind), but the fight didn't actually go badly. Ymiron went down our first attempt, too. Really the only difficulty we had was some lack of communication between tank and our druid who started off-tanking. Tsk, tsk. Communication is good. ;)
So I have 45 emblems of heroism, I think, on that character again. Again, I'm pondering what to spend them on. There's the dodge trinket for 40, which would be good but I seem to be doing okay without. There's tier 7 gloves at 60, which are probably a fairly small improvement. Or I could look at the tier 7 gloves and chest (80 emblems) for my DPS set. Decisions, decisions...
*Title courtesy Zand "Dorkins" Broumand of Project Lore.
GW
In fairness (or for comparison), I offer a quick report on Sunday night's Guild Wars events, too:
I was shown around in a confusing fashion, led to giving cake to an anniversary-based NPC who gives prizes in return. Not that anyone filled me in starting out on the details of that. I was handed some roots, then a piece of cake. It's good that I didn't eat it then, because it only later became clear that the roots were to be traded for more cake and the cake turned in to the NPC.
After that, we finished a few more little Kaineng City quests. Lots of running around through the twisting tunnels of that city, some /resigning to get back to civilization, and some combat with a few packs here and there. It really doesn't feel like we did much, but some people were tired and others just disorganized. I think we're getting reasonably close to starting missions, though.
Sorry about what happened on WoW. I wasn't exactly told what I was there for - OT, DPS, Healing, or what... So I DPS'd most of the time and attempted to OT when pulled made it look like a good idea (like the 5-pulls). In any case, I guess I'll be hanging up my tanking hat.
ReplyDeleteIf anything, I blame Dem for lack of communication. ;) But that's really all it was - hardly a big deal. As for your tanking hat, I still see you as one of our two main tanks. At the same time, I haven't seen much of you... well... this year, as opposed to last? Dem has recently been pushing to be tank-viable, so we've been trying to get him some hands-on practice while he hopes for heroic gear drops. Right now the guild is... close to being able to consider hopping into Naxx. A few people "need" to gear up a bit (in that they could get by, but a few heroic-level drops would help a lot). Mostly, our problem is scheduling. Getting enough of us on at the same time for long enough is difficult. Cross-training helps a little in that we have some more flexibility over who fills what slot. It's definitely easier to invite DPS from outside the guild than tanks or healers. If everyone were on, my first choice would be to set you and I up as the tanks - as long as you don't feel druids have been rendered unviable by class changes. I'd rather have Kyn DPSing than Dem tanking. Velnor has been groomed as a healer. I'm less sure about our second healer - Ajeya certainly can fill the role, but could instead kick some butt as a boomkin. Right now, I don't think Tarken is quite ready (in gear and practice) for either playing tank or healer, so I imagine we'd likely have Khay on instead. So, I still think of you as a tank first and a druids-can-do-everything-else-if-they-try second. But specifically, yes, there should have been some better communication Sunday. I knew Dem was working on his tanking just from recent conversations and Friday night's runs, but not everyone is as up on that. Standing where I was, I didn't even realize you two were juggling aggro, or I would have said something mayself. Certainly, a quick chat would have saved whatever frustration there was.
ReplyDelete*nods* Most of the times I pulled aggro clear off of Dem, it was intentional because he was getting pounded. I honestly am not sure he realized how many times his health hit like 30%... And I never did my Challenging Roar to grab -everything-... Just pulling 1 mob off of him was usually enough to get it so he wasn't getting beaten to a pulp anymore. I've managed to work my way around most of the Druid Nerfs so far, though I could still -really- use the Gossamer trinket. So could you when you are tanking, for that matter, I think. And I really need to get Mongoose on my mace. *frowns* Still bloody expensive, though. But, yeah... Gear-wise, really need to start hitting some of the raids to actually get better gear.
ReplyDeleteAnd sorry for not being around as much as before... But this issue with Crashing in and around Dalaran is really putting a kink in playing. And it's a major issue that they knew about clear back on the PTR... And -none- of the fixes are working. I crash even when I have my in-game sound turned off and the Video Effects set to the absolute minimums... Even with the most up to date drivers, Updated Bios, and my RAM and Video Card thoroughly tested... It's only Dalaran that it happens at, now less, which you would think would prove a point to Blizz that it was the patch, not people's computers... *sigh*
ReplyDeleteMy laptop now doesn't draw my own character's textures right, something new since the patch. I suppose I can go get new video drivers but everything was working fine before... why now is my torso suddenly becoming transparent? :P I don't play on the laptop much though so it hasn't been a high priority to try and solve.
ReplyDelete