Rated BGs

We had a try at rated Battlegrounds the other day and it was pretty horrible.  We just didn't have the group make up and we were all over the place and a bit disorganised.

However with raiding being so lousy lately I thought it might be nice to change the pace a bit.  Doing PVP as a guild would allow us the competitiveness but also give us the same teamwork thing we want as a guild.  Not to mention guild achievements.

So far the people that seem interested in it are:

Sevros, Lushnek, Azadelta, Beasti, Beauti, Shabadu, Coolidge, Cymre, Eboniee, Mazlakk, HWired, Kadburi, Me
but I bet I can get Xynzelle, Caedis to come as well if we needed 15.

Made a post about it on Frostwolves forums in officer.  And that I was thinking about putting it on a *shock* raid day.  Monday sounded good.  Maybe we could do Fridays as well.

Strand of the Ancients facerolling

Gee Strand was easy today.  Won every single game, and we even got the Defense of the Ancients achievement.  And had some fast queues as well.  Me, Sev, Lushnek, Az and Kad were 5 manning SCC for gold and we kept getting interrupted by battleground queue pops.

Oh on the weekend we did Heroic TOC for the achievement which was really cool.  Now the next step is to get the Champions down within seconds of each other ... hmm I cant' seem to find that achievement anymore!  Maybe on the weekend or something we could just do 5 man to get some of our other achievements out of the way.

A real attempt at Nefarion

We had a real go at Nefarion today.  Now that I actually understand the fight it was pretty good, we actually made it to phase 2!

Though there were quite a few rough patches.  Me having difficulty keeping Thraso alive was one.  I finally worked that out in the end.  Tail swipes and not chain healing him was the problem, once I did that it was fine.  Second hiccup was trying to keep Gobbi alive.  He died in phase one almost every attempt!  I think the tail swipes got him quite a few times and then the electricity.  Now we've got to figure out how to get on top of the pillars and interrupt at least one blast nova!

Rares gallery

Back when I first started playing WoW, me and Cymre (Tallys) used to take pictures of all the rares we saw and have a folder where we shared them all.  She has an awesome collection of rares pics now on her mischiefus website - though what do you expect when she has this achievement...

So maybe I'll start my puny little rares gallery again.  Problem is I lost most of them since they are like 5 years old.  Guess I'll just have to put them in alphabetical order as I find them so you can at least search through the page...

New kid on the block

We have a new paladin healer added to our midst - Panorama.  He seems pretty good and has turned up to almost all the raids since joining.  Yesterday we had 3 paladin healers - last week we had 0.  From drought to plenty!

Not too good yesterday with raids though.  Couldn't get atramedes or Chimaeron down.  BoT tonight - hope it goes better.

Ulduar 25 achievement run

First try at this as a level 85 and it was really great, we did almost all our achievements for the drake (Glory of the Ulduar Raider 25 player).  We bombed out on Disarmed... by a few seconds which was a bummer.  Otherwise, it was awesome.  So here's what achievements I got tonight:

I choose You, Steelbreaker
Can't Do that While Stunned
I could Say that this Cache was Rare
Lose your Illusion
Firefighter
Con-speed-atory
Knock, knock, knock on Wood
I Love the Smell of Saronite in the Morning
Kiss and Make Up
In his house He Waits Dreaming
The Descent into Madness
The Secrets of Ulduar
One Light in the Darkness (and Two Lights in the Darkness and Three lights in the Darkness)
Observed

 

I also managed to snag 3 shards bringing me up to 20 shards...  that's at least 4 more runs before I get my legendary mace... dang!

Bad raid week this week

Perhaps it's just me, but I've had a lousy raid week this week.  On Wednesday I couldn't raid because I had a meeting, and on Thursday we couldn't achieve anything.  Mind you no pallies in raid really hurts and 3 shamans 2 druids and 2 priests couldn't make the grade.  I did tell Bel that he was sorely needed though when he heard the word Chim he was understandably busy hahaha.

I am not sure whether I can improve my healing more.  A bad raid week like this usually results in bad turnouts next week.  Let's hope this isn't the beginning of the end of raiding... I might just be hitting the doom and gloom gong because I feel bleh about raiding this week.

Coolidge wasn't around to tank, Bel and Fish weren't around yesterday.... blek!

Guild progression and Achievements

Well this is exciting to see on the Dath'Remar forums...

And not to mention we hit Guild level 19 yesterday.  Perks was extra 10% honour.

3v3 - I managed to res!

After raid yesterday thought we should try and do some 3s.  I was excited with my new arena spec and wanted to try it out some more so convinced Sev and Lushnek to do some 3s.

We actually went up about 40 points (best we got up was 55 but we lost the last game) compared to previously so that was pretty cool.

The last game was a druid/warlock/plate dps? (can't remember what it was!) where Sev died really early.  So they went all out attacking Lushnek so I tossed him a few heals and thought oh what the hell let me try and res Sev.  Funnily enough, I managed to get it off!  So the game lasted for AGES after that, and we got close on the druid a few times but he was pretty good and managed to get away and heal and mana up quite quickly.  They dedicated quite a bit of time trying to kill Lushnek, I healed the crap out of him but I was cc'd a lot unfortunately and in the end he succumbed.  And I was wondering where was the felpuppy... now I know, it was on Lushnek the whole time, no wonder I was able to heal so much!  That was the last game we played and we did lose quite a bit of rating there.  But it was a long match, and I like long matches.

My next goal is to try to get 1550 rating in 3s.  Looking forward to more pvp next week.

Cho'gall Down!

Wow I didn't think we could do it but we got Cho'gall down today!

Phase 1 was pretty straightforward.  Phase 2 is a mana hungry part and you have to go into it with pretty high mana coz I used all of it!  And the first couple of attempts I didn't have my tree of life up at the right time so couldn't use it Phase 2 which is when I really needed it!

Attendees
Tanks: Fueghan, Thraso
DPS: Lushnek, Azadelta, Sevros, Xynzelle, Moopie
Healers: Navimie, Shaimster, Shnaptim

Heailng the first part was straightforward.  I stayed on the Cho'gall tank the whole time and healed the raid when needed.  Got Shaim to go heal the adds tank and Shnaptim was with me healing Cho'gall tank the whole time.  We found out early that we REALLY need to save mana, because in phase 2 it was just all out heal everyone while they burned the boss down.  Everyone getting to 100% corrupted blood means that they can't be healed so that was pretty crap, and the damage was crazy.  Managed to get at least my tranquility off so that was good, and when I saved my tree form for that phase and had about 70% mana it was great and we just managed to get it down before the enrage timer.  I can't believe it only took us 5 or 6 goes to get it!  Now the next challenge is to get it on 25 man, so the guild can join in on the celebration.

This just goes to show that you don't need a holy priest.  We have been raiding with no holy priest for ages and we seem to be doing just fine.  I guess it's nice that it's worked out that we can work around not having a certain class/spec.

And you know what dropped? The caster mace!  Lushnek was kind enough to pass on it to give to Shnaptim because Shnap has a blue still, and I bet he's really thrilled to have that weapon now!  No spirit on it so bleh imo.  I like my staff tyvm.

Oh you know what else this means? We can do heroic now!

Just the two of us: 1550 (Go Void Hawks!)

Sev and I were at 1543 or so rating yesterday and I was excited at how well we did after our shaman/warlock match on Saturday that I thought we'd try to get our achievement on Sunday after raid.

Bad start.  We queued and I forgot to change out of PVE spec so we lost terribly.  But we got the points back on the next one, and then we won the one after and got our achievement. Just the Two of Us: 1550! Woot.

Memorable matches would have to include the poor druid/warlock combo we met up with and were dreading it, when it turned out the warlock was d/c.  Poor boomkin did well on his own to stay up so long.  And also to the mage and shadowpriest who actually was healing for a bit of the match before Sev wiped the floor with them.  Polymorph has some great moments though, heals people up to full so I don't have to heal them.

It's confusing sometimes to remember which teams we played against.  There was another double dps group which annihilated me :( and a rogue/druid combo that wasn't very challenging that I can recall anyway.

So the most important thing I learned from yesterday was to ToL early when facing double DPS.

Next stop: 1750!  Who knows when the hell that will be!  Though perhaps it's time I worked on my 3v3 1550 rating.

2v2 match - shaman/warlock

Yesterday me and Sev had a really long match with a shaman and warlock - lasting about 38 mins.  It was a pretty evenly matched as our ratings were very similar at the end.

It was tough - shaman never seemed to oom and mana tided a lot every cd I think.  And the warlock had his puppy out all the time so it was silencing me a lot.  Actually that probably helped my mana when I was silenced because I couldn't cast that much.

Sev swore lots when the other lock harvested soul and so he did it as well so that we had instant pets constantly.  After a while Sev was yelling at me to heal his pet more.  I have to say I am liking my new spec, the blooms from LB are really helping in pvp, and having the stacks being refreshed with nourish/regrowth/HT all the time did blow a bit.

I was trying to dps down the mana tide but I think next time I should just whirlwind the shaman so he can't get it.  Interestingly the shaman didn't purge any of my hots or my innervate though I did try to hide when I was innervating.

My Darkmoon card: Tsunami journey

Well, Darkmoon Faire is up today, and so I finally get to hand in my Tsunami Deck to get my Darkmoon Card: Tsunami.  It's the first time I've ever had a Darkmoon card!

I was despairing of ever getting an epic trinket (though really if I worked hard enough on my archaelogy and got lucky then I could have my Tyrande's Doll, and also if I did my Hellscream's reach reputation I could get the spirit trinket) but I got lucky with the Jar of Ancient Remedies in BWD and now I have my card!

Image courtesy Blizzard Entertainment

It started about a month ago, and I was perusing the auction house and decided "OK, I'm not buying anything more than 1500g". So I bought the Ace for a cheap price (I was bummed because later there was one going for 300g!) and the five and six.  Ayelena sold me one for a great price and Shaimster gave me one for free much to my distress, as I hate being a freeloader.  I managed to get the others off the AH except for a 3, and the 3 was going for a ridiculous price of 6k or something.  Even alliance was bad.  So I sat around waiting and checking the AH every day.

But then Smashpally asked me what I needed and I told him and he got it for me.  I have no idea how he got it and he refused to take money for it and the 6k auction was still there, so I am eternally grateful to him.  This morning Darkmoon Faire was in Elwynn forest so off I went to get my card.

Can't wait to try it out tonight on raid.

That's a lot of Bait!

2 days ago we got That's a Lot of Bait, giving us the Recipe: Seafood Magnifique Feast. So I was excited at raid yesterday, was looking forward to making some feasts for the raid!  But I was having the devil of a time trying to catch Lavascale Catfish I managed to only catch 1 before raid started!  So I couldn't put a feast down for our first raid (which was only Baradin Hold) but between BH and Bastion of Twilight I went back to Uldum and fished up another Lavascale catfish.  So I got to put down the first Seafood Magnifique Feast for a Frostwolves raid!

So the recipe requires 2 Fathom Eels, 2 Highland guppies, and 2 Lavascale Catfish.  Eels and guppies are easy - Pools of Eels are found in Uldum and Tol Barad, guppies are found in Twilight Highlands.  Lavascale catfish are most easily caught in Deepholm (in lava funnily enough) but you can also catch them in Uldum near the delta and along the river.  I like fishing in Uldum at the delta because you can also catch fathom eels and Deepsea Sagefish there.  But damn there are a heap of murglesnouts too.  But the best place to catch them is in Deepholm - I now go there to fish for Lavascales.

Inspiration to spec for Arena properly

At work today one of the orderlies who plays an alliance rogue on Jubei was telling me that he moved servers to play with one of the other orderlies who plays on Nagrand who plays a shadow priest and a mage.  He was telling me that the mage was awesome for arena - which after having 2 mages in my 5s team, I know can be pretty cool (look back at my previous post on 5v5 win).

He was saying to me how in 2s the other guy used his shadow priest to solo a rogue and a warrior.  I'm like... wut?  Shadow priests are the suck in arena (well from my point of view anyway - Sev usually deals with that aspect of it).

So then in a corridor conversation they were asking me about my arena and why I have such a lousy rating... which has inspired me to spec properly for arena.  I think I will have to dump my boomkin OS to do that, which is a shame because I really like using boomkin to do my dailies.

Oombulance has some good tips, I think I'll head over there and look at his spec.

Thraso and Earthwisper are back

Thraso and Earthwisper came back to the guild on Sunday.  Some of the officers were not enthused on their return, but I do like those 2, they did help me get my achievement for my drakes.

I asked Thraso why he left, and he said he had some real life issues and then decided not to play WoW but then came back to the game and felt bad about the way he left so he wanted to come back.  Earthwisper left because he left so I didn't ask why she came back.

Thraso is coming back as a tank so that will be good, we are short of warrior tanks lately.  And he picks up reasonably fast.  Wisper's healing was terrible but her dps was not bad.

I would like to beef up our numbers with internal candidates rather than outside ones.  Just got to get Fue to let some of the socials play.  Some of them have raided before cata and were reasonable raiders, I keep getting tells from Shaimster about Nerii and Mendem who are not quite geared yet but I think they would like to raid.  I might make a more active effort.

Council down on 25 man!

With the amount of DC's happening yesterday I didn't think it was going to happen. 

Started off with Throne of the 4 winds, which went down easy.  I put Bel on Rohash and he said it was really easy.  I also found it quite easy when I healed it, and the two of us were giggling about how Melf said it was really hard, and only he could do it when actually it was quite simple to heal, just had to heal the falling damage that they got.  I was a bit retarded, I got stuck at the platform one attempt and then the second time I got pushed off.  I smacked myself in the head because I released on the kill and didn't get the valor points for it :(

We had bad connections with Fue, Shaba, Eb, Shady, Mazlakk.  Fue dropped out to get Fang in who basically dc'd the whole time too.  So he came back and we got it.

Poor Shaba managed to get online and we thought he was ready but he was outside the room when we pulled!  So he got locked out which was a bummer! Though that was on the second last attempt.

But on the kill, by some miraculous thing we managed to get through phase 1 with no deaths (a good sign!) and then got to phase 3 with all of the bosses reasonably down.  Phase 2 was quite good, people getting the hang of running out with their lightning rods.

Phase 3 drives me nuts, how the hell do you heal the tanks when there are people everywhere!  Approaching the tank was basically a recipe for death since you get chain lightninged to death.  But we managed to do it, I'm glad, and there was some leather caster gloves that dropped that Gemmira took (and she took an awesome offhand too).

Had a quick look at Cho'gall.  Geez, I think I need to read that up because it is seriously nuts.

Let's hope we can repeat that performance next week!