Final Pre-Naxx post

Only 1 day to go until AMOV take on the evil forces in Naxxramas! I have a quick few updates and also something that could become a new Friday feature.....

Friday's Yolk - Week 1



My Mysterious Egg turned into a Cracked Egg on Friday....and what did I get? Aged Yolk :( I bought another mysterious egg which will again hatch on Friday so stay tuned for the next installment of the exciting adventures of the mysterious egg!



Eat my [Epic] shorts



Heloko and I joined a Naxx25 PuG 2 night ago and cleared out the arachnid and plague quarters but failed on patchwerk. Heloko got a couple of drops and I got one, the pretty much best-in-slot Leggings of Colossal Strides. Just need Kynnx to make me one of those Icescale Leg Armor kits for my new legs and they'll be ready to rock Naxx10!

We failed 3 times on Patchwerk - twice because the melee DPS/healers messed up and once because we didn't have enough DPS, which without that we weren't going to progress. That also ended the run. Here's a s/shot from recount on our DPS, I'm pretty sure at just over 3k DPS I shouldn't be top!


At one point in Naxx, at the beginning of the Arachnid quarter Heloko whispered to me:
"I think my recount is broken, you're doing over 8k DPS"
"Ah, that'll be Volley :) You should have seen it pre-30% nerf!"

And that's why looking at DPS on Trash isn't important, just check the boss damage - Anyone with AoE damage has a big advantage, especially if they invest 6 talent points into it :p



You are not prepared!



Before going on a raid it's best to know what drops you need/don't need to save time and confusion on rolls! With this in mind I got working on Naxx10 drops, lets see what I get! (Percentages are the odd's of the item dropping)

Arachnid Quarter

Anub'Rekhan - Collar of Dissolution 18% - Nice bit of hit on these but with the +expertise I'll pass on for any melee DPS.

Grand Widow Faerlina - Rusted-Link Spiked Gauntlets 10% - These are BoE but with their +hit they can give me a bit more flexibility should I need to swap any gear around.

Maexxna - Nothing! (I already have the Wraith Spear)

Plague Quarter

Noth the Plaguebringer - Spaulders of Resumed Battle 19% - Nice shoulder with +hit, again giving me more flexibilty but as it's leather I'll let other class' need before me.

Heigan the Unclean - Nothing!

Loatheb - Spaulders of the Lost Protector 29% - Trade that in for Tier 7 Hunter Shoulders (Heroes' Cryptstalker Spaulders). Loatheb's Shadow 10% is nice but more of a side grade for me so I'll let someone else need before me.

Construct Quarter

Patchwerk - Hatestrike 24% - Obviously I'll let any rogue need before me but it has some very hunter-friendly stats. I'm kinda hoping it doesn't drop or if it does there is a rogue there as I hate the 2H vs. Dual-Wield argument in my head! Things would be much simpler if hunters just used 2H...

Grobbulus - Sealing Ring of Grobbulus 10% - Probably the item I need most from Naxx10 - a big upgrade from my current Bjarngrim Family Signet! The Blistered Belt of Decay 9% is also nice but again it's a bit of a side grade so I'll let others need above me.

Gluth - Leggings of the lost protector 10% - Tier 7 Hunter legs (Heroes' Cryptstalker Legguards) nice to get set bonus but possibly a downgrade so I'll probably pass. Spaulders of the lost protector 9% - can drop here as well as from Loatheb earlier.

Thaddius - Leggings of the lost protector 26% - These could drop again but they are still a possible downgrade and there's nothing else of interest!

Military Quarter

Instructor Razuvious - Cloak of Darkening 10% - Great cloak, just a shame about the lack of hit. Still a nice upgrade for me though.

Gothik the Harvester - Spectral Rider's Girdle 10% - Nice belt but lacking hit bit of a side-grade for some more hit balancing options.

Four Horsemen - Nothing! (I already have the Pauldrons of Havoc)

Frostwyrm Lair

Sapphiron - Key to the focusing Iris 89% - not really gear, just a key to open the EoE raid encounter so it's not too important who gets it really. Cloak of Mastery 17% - Another cloak upgrade, this time with hit! The Helm of Vast Legions 16% is a bit of a +hit sidegrade to my current helm. Being leather though, I'll leather wearers have priority.

Kel'Thuzad

First of all, I just want to say I want to kill this punk bad! Just need to kill him and Malygos and I've killed everyone pre-Uludar.

There's loads of 1H weapons here I could need on - too many to link - but I'll see who else needs what first. The Gem of Imprisoned Vassals 19% is a nice neck upgrade for me. The Helm of the Lost Protector 27% is the Tier 7 hunter helm which is a nice upgrade and could get me the next set bonus, which is good for long boss fights where I have to switch to Aspect of the Viper. Finally the Nerubian Conquerer 19% drops here which has more AP, Critand Agility than my Final Voyage but less Haste. A side-grade but worth needing on though in case I hit the haste cap or need to swap things around.

Naxx Conclusion

Some straight forward upgrades available for my cloak, ring and helm here and a few side-grades should anyone else not need them. I'll be pleasantly suprised if we can do more than the Arachnid and Plague quarters on our first run, so with those 2 in mind there's nothing other than side grades available for me :( Oh well, should be fun and for the better of the guild!

A need for achievement....

What a fun night of heroics! While not everyone really loves achievements, no-one can argues that they have made heroics a lot more fun - with the added bonus of getting a proto-drake when they are all complete!

Last night a crack unit of AMOV guildies went after some achievements.

Featuring:

Valilor - Hunter DPS
Tommytank - Warrior Tank
Heloko - Paladin Healer
Succi - Feral Druid - DPS
Rosencrantz - Mage DPS
Deepcreepy - Rogue DPS

and the non-AMOV :

Deltares - Noob Rogue DPS

Ahn'kahet: The Old Kingdom (Heroic)

I just logged in and checked who was online in the guild - including me there were 5 of us, 1 tank, 1 healer and 3 DPS...the scene was set. Unfortunately one person couldn't join in so we had to enter LFG for a random and up came "Deltares" - at the time a person on Heloko's Friends list as "good DPS" (emphasis on "at the time").

We decided to hit the Old Kingdom as there's lots of achievements to be had there so off we went. First up was the respect your elders achievement. Here we have to kill the boss Elder Nadox without killing his guardians. The challenge is managing the adds and keeping them a distance from the boss as the guardians make the boss immune.

On our first attempt we couldn't keep the boss from getting immune and the healer died and we wiped. Not surprising really, it was our first attempt and it was a bit fiddly. Attempt two is when the fun happened. We went in, started doing better on the boss but as soon as a guardian spawned, Deltares - the random rogue - killed it, making us fail the achievement. When asked why, he said "I don't have the time or the gold for the wipes". Nice. A little more lip came in the form of "I was the only survivor" - which not only invalidates his gold excuse but was also incorrect as I too had survived. To cut a long story short, we killed the boss, failed the achievement and booted him from the group.

Leaving just Tommy Tank, Heloko, Succi and I we ventured on, which was pretty handy actually as the 4 man achievement The Party's Over was up next. We did this one on our first attempt, it wasn't too tricky, you just need decent burst damage for one person gets sucked (sorry, don't know how else to describe it!). After this boss Rosencrantz joined us bringing us back to 5 men. Big improvement over that Rogue, that's for sure!

Next up was the difficult Volunteer Work achievement. The boss here summons one of her volunteers and sacrifices them to give her a buff. Usually you'd just kill the volunteer but the achievement is to not kill any. On our first two attempts we wiped. When buffed she hits very hard with an AoE attack which can kill the tank and also any other Melee DPS around (Succi). She also puts a circle on the ground which we all have to keep out of. When we succeeded, the tactic was to disarm her reducing her damage (Tommytank did it on her first buff, I used Scorpid Sting with Chimera Shot on her subsequent buff) and to avoid her AoE damage/circle. Done.

The final boss was a 2 min time challenge for Volazj's Quick Demise - we didn't have any tactics here, we just went for it as quick as possible...which was too slow. 2:51 was our time. Not too much of a problem though as we just have 2 achievements to come back for!

Nexus (Heroic)



I had 2 achievement to do here before I finally had no need ever to return to Nexus so off we went.

Split Personality was the first achievement up, not too difficult if you can control your damage. Our tactic was to take one image down to 5k health then move on to the next, then the next and then to AoE them to zero. Our first attempt didn't go to plan, one of the images seemed to give up the will to live a bit too easily so we all ran out of the boss room and it reset. Attempt 2 was a complete success. 1 down 1 to go.

Chaos Theory requires you not to kill any rifts, which means to survive the tank needs to take all the damage from the rifts and everyone else stay a safe distance behind - killing adds, and the whole fight has everyone back peddling down the plateaus. This was pretty difficult - we did it on our first attempt but only just - we wiped but with Rosencrantz dying breath he killed Anomalus - getting us all the achievement. Sweet!

Just before the last boss I thought I'd have some fun with Tommytank as he played around with his UI.

/p Tommytank: "blah blah blah UI etc"
/p Heloko: "yak yak yak etc"
/w to Heloko: "Psst, shall I have some MD fun with Tom?"
/w from Heloko: "LOL, yeah go for it!"
/p Tommytank: "blah blah blah more UI stuff etc"

*Valilor sneaks off round a corner and spots a mob*
*Valilor presses the MD macro button (casts on tank)*
*Valilor shoots mob and then stands still*

/p Heloko: "Yeah that should fix your UI and LOOK BEHIND YOU!!"

The mob was pretty easy but it was fun none the less. It was just a shame there was only one around ;) We then went on to kill the 2 boss'. Tommytank also got the intense cold achievement and I now had no need to ever return here!

A quick note on this for any other non-BM hunters out there. There's no way we can do this on our own, you'll get trapped 3 times on this boss and unless you have any method of getting out of it (pots, PvP trinkets, Human racial etc) it's impossible. The two ways of doing this is to either get someone to heop you out (Heloko did this for me with Hand of freedom) or to no join in the fight!

Violet Hold (Heroic)

His name might be vegetable he's not food!

Here I was after the Void Dance achievement and Succi was after the Dehydration achievement but it's a lottery for which boss will turn up. Unfortunately neither one we wanted did turn up so we just did a standard clear....or so I thought. There was one other achievement AMOV would get.

No skin off my back....

I'm pretty much invincible these days, well AMOV must think so as they went for the "Kill Valilor Achievement." This achievement is possible with the Moragg boss - when he puts the Ray of Suffering on Valilor everyone nukes the boss. Ouch. I died unsurprisingly as the healer somehow forgot to heal me too! LOL. I probably deserved it for all the "Misdirection fun" I had in the past ;)

It was getting late and Rosencrantz logged out here and in came Deepcreepy.

Utgarde Keep (Heroic)

Initially we just entered this dungeon for the first boss and the On The Rocks achievement. Pretty straight forward here, we had Succi to Off-heal should Heloko get frozen or to Off-tank should Tommytank get frozen so no problems there. Achievement unlocked. Not a lot else to report here, pretty straightforward clear - my DPS was over 3.5k on the last 2 boss - that's a new record for me in Heroics :D

Achievements

So a pretty successful night! Only 7 heroics I need to go to now for achievements, so hopefully they'll be over soon. My main concern is with the Oculus as no-one really enjoys running that heroic and to do all the achievements it will require it to be run at least 3 times...


Enchanting


Dinged 450! I don't even want to think about how much that has cost me - I've never sold any items i can DE since I started learning enchanting back at level 1o (probably) - I could be rich beyond my wildest dreams if I didn't!!

Coming up soon....

Friday: My mysterious egg hatches!

Sunday: AMOV's first Raid (Naxx 10)

Hey big spender....

New gear!

Didn't get it from anything cool - I bought it for 1,550 gold from the Auction House. That's the most i've ever spent on anything from the AH!

The Armguard of the Tower Archer are the best bracers for a MM Hunter at the moment so it seemed like a valid investment. Wowhead recommends a buy-out price of 1,200 gold so it's only a little over that. The 1,550 was also just a bid, the seller had it on buy-0ut for 3,000 gold!

A nice upgrade from my Eaglebane Bracers which for a sub level-80 item, it has served me suprisingly well!

I've enchanted the new bracers with Greater Assault as I'm currently an enchanter/skinner which also took me up to Lv449 enchanting, only 1 level to go! Now if only I had more dreamshards I could buy some more recipies...

Malygos survives again...

Malygos is officially the luckiest thing in the whole of Azeroth - I joined another PuG and after 4 wipes we gave up again and again we failed at the 3rd Drake stage /sigh

I don't believe you get saved to the raid until you defeat him so in theory you could just keep practising and practising until you can do it - I tend to get into Pugs for this fairly late so time is always against us.

Just in case any of you are going to give this a try, if you haven't done it before you should definitely check out this quest first: Aces High! The Q is available near the Nexus and it lets you fly the drakes with the same abilities as the one in the Malygos fight. This is pretty vital for the 3rd stage as my previous attempts on this boss have all been failures because a few people don't know how to use the drakes. They are different to the ones in the oculus.

One other thing I thought i'd point out for hunters and other ranged DPS out there is that it's not a good fight for us! Malygos has a ridiculously big hit box so if the spark drops anywhere close to him, standing in it for the buff will probably put you in melee range even though it doesn't actually look that close. Best get a DK to grab the spark to a better location!

First Aggro My Own Vegetables Raid Confirmed!

Well out guild has certainly come a long way. From being a small guild on the Burning Legion server we moved to Chromaggus when the queue times were too long and we've grown!

This Sunday (March 15th) we will be doing our first raid - Naxx 10 - so expect to see some updates after that (probably how we all died horrible deaths) and if anyone from AMOV is reading this, don't go and get saved to Naxx 10 before Sunday!