Fire Nyan Kitty!

So I haven't posted in way too long (my apologies!), but thought this deserved a post because it's amazing(ly fun). Our bearcat Reesi (of The Inconspicuous Bear) got a firekitty staff a couple of weeks ago (Fandral's Flamescythe) which gives her the incredibly fun ability to turn into a firecat while in cat form! Sadly we've only seen two of these drop so far so I don't have one yet, but hopefully will soon!

Fortunately we can have pretend firekitty fun with Potions of Illusion!

Also, many druids out there will have discovered that you can shift into bird form without losing your illusion, which leads to amazing floating kitties...

Which, in turn, led to the following video of pure awesome:



:D Best thing ever amirite?!

At any rate! Again, apologies for the lack of posts lately, we've been full on into progression content in-game and out of game has been pretty busy as well! I would like to do some posts about the current content and I have some ideas in the works, just need to set aside some time to get them posted up. I'm excited for the final fight of the tier though - we're working on Heroic Ragnaros now and it's shaping up to be a very challenging (and long) fight! The world first kills have started rolling in now, and a big congratulations to all the guilds who have taken him down so far! With some solid work ahead for this week hopefully it won't be too long before we see a kill as well.

Enjoy the video!

Conclave of Wind Heroic Video!

A quick post today, with my Heroic Conclave of Wind video!

A quick note before the video, I'd really appreciate additional reads on my post on druid healing, particularly the post on the WoW Healing Forums - I'm really hoping some devs as well as players will give it a read, as I do feel the issues discussed are really important for druids (and also for Shamans, who are in a similar situation at the moment). Any constructive comments on the post are appreciated, whether joining in the discussion if you agree or disagree, have a good idea of your own, or just chiming in to say if you like the ideas or not :D It will bump the post as well in a positive way and might even get some good ideas brewing!

You can find the post here: The Current and Future State of Druid PVE Healing.

Back to the video! I recorded our Heroic Conclave of Wind kill last night and finally got to make the video for it - I've been wanting to do this for a couple of weeks now as I had a specific set of music I really wanted to use in the video. Very different music than my other videos so far, and fits very well I think! I also managed to get this one uploaded at 1080 HD, continuing to work to improve my vid quality (though think I may hit a point where maximum quality videos may actually require a better computer).

Anyhow, without further ado, Conclave of Wind Heroic! (Watch in HD!)



For those interested, I actually run a different spec for this fight, 8/2/31, picking up 3/3 in Perseverance for the 6% reduced spell damage. I also still max out Gift of the Earthmother to help keep my Rejuvs frontloaded and as I tend to let my Lifeblooms bloom a fair bit more on this fight, since I'm mostly jumping around a lot healing many targets and myself as needed (rather than being on a set tank target the whole fight, as there's no tank on the East platform and I'm only briefly on the North platform). I drop Nature's Cure (as no dispels are needed in this fight), Swift Rejuv (simply as it's not a crucial point in here so I feel I can spare it), and only take 2 points in Efflorescence to get the 3 for Perseverance. That last point feels a bit difficult to drop, but, given how mobile people are on East, most will not be standing for long in Efflorescence, let alone stacked up in it, and the stacked healing for the North platform specials are boosted by many of the other healers being there with their AE heals plus Power Word: Barrier, glyphed for 10% extra healing while in the barrier as well as the damage reduction.

The video also shows nicely just how crazy that East platform with Rohash can get with Tornadoes (and how much they can affect visibility, seen towards the end of the video) and Wind Blast. Timing and awareness really has to be sharp on the East platform, and I always have an eye watching that Wind Blast timer, as well as keep Rohash focussed to see what he's casting.

I also save Tree of Life for the East specials for the instant Regrowths and multiple LB stacks during the special - I pop it when Rohash is at about 80 energy or so in order to maximize how much use I get out of ToL, as I always shift into cat form for the fall. On normal mode you may survive dropping while not in cat form, but it's an excellent habit to get into, as it is highly unlikely you'll survive full fall damage and are consequently targeted for a Slicing Gale attack (especially if your debuff stacks are high). If I can as well I'll use ToL as a DPS cooldown at the end (as I do at the end of the video).

Enjoy!

Heroic Chimaeron Video + Raid Guide Update!

I recorded a video of our Heroic Chimaeron 25 kill last night! Working on improving the videos as I go, I'd still like to up the sharpness some more, though you can still watch this and the Omnotron kill in HD. I had a comment on my Omnotron video to see my cursor during a fight so you can see a bit more what I'm doing, so I tried that out for this video. My primary focus on this fight is on tank healing.



I have also updated the Raid Encounter Guide for Chimaeron with information on the Heroic version of the fight, including the Heroic mode abilities and additional tanking and healing suggestions.

You can see the updated guide here: Raid Encounter Guide - Chimaeron.

In other amusing news, there is no running from the trash in Blackwing Descent - they've learned to use the lifts!

This gives whole new meaning to deaths to the lift-boss! A guildie aptly described these drakes as like velociraptors, learning to use lifts, they'll be learning how to open doors next... Run while you still can!

Killing the Whale Shark!

We did it! We killed the Whale Shark! Clearly, the biggest achievement a guild can accomplish, and I do mean biggest. There were many corpse runs and, amazingly, one of our tanks who had joined in the kill survived a hit (through Shield Wall plus a block) - only one hit, though. He didn't make it through the next hit.

For those of you looking to get your kill (and achievement - From Hell's Heart I Stab at Thee), here's how to do it!

While you could solo it, you'll likely have best luck doing it in a group (it won't take as long, at least). You'll definitely need to kite him, staying between 5 and 20 yards the entire time. 5 yards will keep you from getting eaten, but if you go beyond 20 yards he'll disengage and evade away. Conveniently for your DPS, swimming 20 yards away should reset threat as you'll drop combat. For your kiter, an addon that shows range would be very useful to ensure you remain in that range. There are specific addons that will check range, and others that have it as a built-in option (IceHUD has one). Have a look around Curse or WoWInterface for some of the range check addons. To kite him, simply swim backwards, keeping him in that range.

For DPS, you can swim alongside him and pew pew, but keep a close eye on your threat - if he turns to bite you, you're done! You won't need any healers for this as anyone who gets nommed on will be dead. You will find you have some Line of Sight issues as well, so you need to position yourself at the right height alongside or in front of him. The line seemed to be about in line with his mouth.

Good luck!

In other news, we got our first heroic kill last night, Halfus Wyrmbreaker! The most difficult part seemed to be Halfus' last 50%, as he does a Roar every 30 seconds which does a knockdown to the raid which is both annoying and difficult to heal through. I think I preferred his bonestorm-esque whirlwinding from Beta! It seems they've taken that out completely, though. We ended up BoPing myself, our other druid, and then a priest for each stun to pop Tranq/Tranq/Hymn, which helped us get the raid through that phase, and also rotated cooldowns on the tanks (who were still tanking Halfus and the dragons through the knockdowns).

The screenshot above was only remembered after we had started to clear the trash on the way to Theralion and Valiona, so no corpse there, but here's a little achievement shot to go along with it.

We managed to get Nefarian and Al'akir down on 10s as well to keep our progression up through the holiday attendance lull (all other kills on 25 though), so I think this week we may try some more hardmodes and also finish up those two kills on 25 to round that out. Some good progression so far, which should pick up even more once the holiday season wraps up!

In fun news, the bug with the stone drake models is actually pretty excellent with the Sandstone Drake, as it looks like you're carrying your prey off to your lair! Works especially well with gnomes (as above).

Still digging for my Tyrande's Favourite Doll trinket, 119 Night Elf artifacts (and 6/7 rares) solved and still no luck! Just have to keep telling myself 'It'll be the next one...'

Back to digging!

Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays everyone! I hope you all have a happy and safe holiday season and Greatfather Winter leaves you some nice gifts for Winter Veil!

I've got some posts lined up (and some days off from raids because of the holiday, so hopefully a bit of extra time to actually write!) so I'll be trying to get those up ASAP. Most of my spare time recently has been spent in-game, working on gear, profs, etc, and getting my priest up to 85 for alt usage in raids. After which, of course, I'll again have the gear and rep grind. It never ends!

Raids have been going well despite the bit of craziness from the holiday season. We're 11/12 at the moment with only Nefarian left to kill, and we made some excellent progress on Thursday on heroic Halfus despite a less-than-ideal comp, so we should get him down in the week. I'll be working on some new guides to the raid encounters as some have changed a bit since beta (though for the most part the beta preview pages are still pretty accurate and useful).

Resto druids are in a bit of an odd place at the moment. As mentioned in my last post, we're definitely feeling a fair bit behind Paladins and Priests. Paladins have been a bit OP since beta, and though they did have some nerfs they're still quite strong. Priests got a lot of much-needed buffs (they were ridiculously behind the other healers on beta) so now they're looking almost too strong, and I won't be surprised to see most progression guilds stacking priests and pallies for some early kills. A bit of a problem with druids at the moment is our AE heals were scaled back quite a bit - Wild Growth isn't hitting as hard as it used to, Efflorescence is strong but not as much as it was, and Rejuv is very mana intensive, so you have to be careful with its use. It's definitely still strong for heals, but you absolutely cannot waste them on overheals or you risk going OoM. Our tank heals are stronger now with Lifebloom and Nourish and Healing Touch, but it's more likely Paladins will still be preferred as tank healers due to all the cooldowns they have, whether a Hand of Sacrifice or Lay on Hands, etc. In terms of actual HPS numbers, druids can hit some of the numbers priests and pallies are reaching, but it seems to be at a greater mana cost and harder to reach, even when the toons themselves are about equal in terms of gear and skill. Pallies and Priests are pretty easily hitting the top numbers with druids and shamans trailing behind a bit. Overall, it's just feeling quite imbalanced at the moment, and I really think either druids and shamans could do with some boosts or pallies and priests need to be scaled back a bit. We won't see anything til after the holidays, I'm sure, as Blizz needs their holiday too! But hopefully there'll be some changes upcoming.

Otherwise, things have been fun around the game. The new raids are fun and pretty interesting. I still think Atramedes is one of my favourite fights, as it was in Beta... As ever, I'm a sucker for a good dragon fight, and I find the concept of a blind dragon and how his attacks are sound-based is interesting. Ascendant Council is also a fun fight due to its mechanics and how you're supposed to use them, and is proving to be one of the harder fights for many - the soft enrage in the final phase is definitely a strong push (you need to burn him down before you all die to the damage, basically).

I've been plugging away at Archaeology as well, though it's starting to wear on me now! I did get very lucky and found a Ring of the Boy Emperor, but no luck yet with Tyrande's Favourite Doll. I finally had to take a break and get back to working on other stuff as it was just going on too long. I had also been trying to get the Vial of the Sands recipe to drop, but after many Tol'vir items and yet another common that wasn't a Canopic Jar, I gave in and found someone with the recipe. Fortunately I had already saved up the mats (transmute master proccing on Truegold is amazing), and now that the mount's BOE, I was able to find someone to craft it for me without charging a ridiculous tip. So now I can turn into a dragon! /Squee! I'll likely get back to looking for the recipe, but I won't be spending ridiculous amounts of time on it.

Anyhow, I hope you all are enjoying the new content so far! I'm looking forward to doing some levelling again with my little worgen warrior after my priest gets sorted out at 85. He's all equipped with BoA gear and sitting out in Darkshore (Withers pet!), I had fun romping through the starting zone already. Worgen starting zone is definitely worth a look! I'll have to check out the Goblin zone at some point too, but that can wait.

More posts to come soon! In the meantime, enjoy the holidays and enjoy the game!

Video: 2-manning Sapphiron 10!

ETA: Added information from myself and Rexdart about our specs, gear, and strategy on this - all below the video!

In follow up to my post about 2-manning Sapphiron 10 the other week, my friend and I went back in the other night and took him down again! I remembered to video it this time (and actually insisted we wipe it the first time when the recording had a fault and stopped midway through the fight, so I could make sure I had a good video of the whole thing. Repair bills went into this recording!).

It was a ton of fun, and we learned from our kill last week and sped up the kill time by over a minute (though it still took 13 minutes - don't worry, the video has been sped up!). Mostly it was just being a little more strategic in our placement to avoid getting out of range of each other and deciding how we wanted to deal with the blizzards - we decided to just sit and take some of it, as keeping up the healing for it wasn't too demanding and constantly moving was hampering our DPS a bit.

Enjoy the video! (and share it around!) Link to the video here. You can watch it in HD! I'm embedding it at a smaller size just so as not to take up too much space on the blog page.




Also, on the topic of videos, I'd like to give a plug for my friend Bouncydemon's new YouTube page - he does some amazing videos (he made the official video for our Halion HM 25 kill) and will be making more in Cataclysm, so keep an eye on his channel! Bouncydemon's YouTube Channel

ETA: Also now have an official YouTube Channel for the Blog - FeralTree YouTube Channel

We didn't do anything too special for the fight itself - a lot is mostly the joys of overgearing content (and the healthpool boosts from 4.0.1 don't hurt either). We grabbed a food buff for this kill but we didn't have any for our last kill. The only buff used was Gift of the Wild and, apart from Wild's inherent Frost resist, we didn't use any additional Frost resist pieces.

My spec was my standard raiding spec (2/0/34) and my PvE gear (armoury) which is mostly 277 pieces. If you wanted to use a spec specifically for things like this, Fury of Stormrage would probably be a good talent to pick up to boost your DPS a bit more. I didn't find it necessary, but it would definitely be a nice talent to use to get some Starfires worked in there as well. I used my Tree of Life as a DPS cooldown in this rather than a healing cooldown (though as you can see my first one was poorly timed, as I wasted half of it in an ice tomb), tree-form Wrath spamming can pull some great DPS if you can keep it up, plus the instant-Regrowths make it much easier to recover quick big heals should anyone fall behind while you're DPSing. In hindsight, I probably could have thrown on a piece or two of +hit gear - missing wasn't costly at all, but it was a nuisance, particularly at one point where my Faerie Fire missed three times in a row. I mostly kept my Wraths to tree-form as it's such a long cast in caster form, but I tried to keep Moonfire and Insect Swarm up as often as I could as well as Faerie Fire from the start. I also tossed Thorns on Ortega whenever I remembered to add in a little more DPS there. Along with keeping HoTs up, I popped Efflorescence pretty exclusively onto Ortega, both for the big Swiftmend heal and to add that additional healing tick to give me more time to DPS or move.

For Rexdart, his spec is a PvE Beast Mastery spec (31/2/3) and his gear was also PvE gear of mostly 264 pieces (armoury). Glyph of Misdirection is a pretty great glyph to help pets build up good threat if it's needed. Ortega's spec is this (Tenacity). A pretty key talent Ortega has is Blood of the Rhino, increasing all healing effects on the pet by 40%. You can see in the video, too, Ortega has cooldowns as well - Shell Shield, effectively a shield wall with a 50% damage reduction, is used frequently.

From Rexdart:
"As for things like building threat, Kill Command with some reforging of excess hit into mastery was more than enough threat generation. I honestly only needed to use MD once at the very beginning and that was it. Disengage was used to escape out of blizzards faster, and mend pet was used to help during transitions between air phases, assuming he didn't run out of range to the opposite side of where we were.

There's actually two turtle damage reduction effects, which is why they are one of the best pets for tanking now: Shell Shield and Cower. Shell Shield when put on auto-cast seems to use some fairly smart AI, and I only see it activate when the pet drops to about 50% or less HP. Cower gets used whenever it's up when it's put on autocast. Being BM spec with Longevity, the cooldowns on these two get reduced to 42 seconds on SS and 31.5 on Cower, so the cooldown coverage is pretty good even with spamming.

A few other solo-style hunters have a stamina gem set they use to boost up their pet's health even more. Currently I don't have this, but I could see a turtle tanking some of the bosses in ICC without too much trouble given a decent +stamina setup."


For the most part, the fight wasn't really complicated - ultimately it was a tank and spank, really. The air  phase was trivial as both Rexdart and myself were icetombed each time, and Ortega's passive AE damage reductions (as a pet) protected him from the frost bombs. For me, I was focussing on balancing keeping us all alive and putting out DPS to help ensure we beat the enrage timer, and also decursing (as that curse heals Sapph). Rex will have been more focussed on managing Ortega's threat and survivability along with dishing out the damage. The main nuisance of the fight were the Blizzards, as they would inevitably target onto us (as there was no one else to target), but just intelligent decisions on when to remain standing in it and when to move out of it was all that was needed to deal with it. For positioning, we had to adapt after each air phase as Ortega would often shift positions, but we simply communicated that on vent to ensure we both went the same direction.

Who needs a tank when you have a turtle!

ETA: Video up here!

It can be a lot of fun seeing what you can take on in the game, and I was quite pleased with this kill a friend and I managed to get. We often go out to Hellfire to take out Magtheridon, usually he tanking on his warrior while I'm healing and helping dps. He's been working on his hunter recently though and thought we should try it with his pet tanking, which worked out pretty well and sped up our kill a lot.

We decided to see what else we could take out. We ended up heading to Northrend to check out Naxx 10. Some of the trash was a real nuisance - we thought about tackling Noth but decided not to bother this time as the trash would be a pain to clear. We had an alright time with Anub'Rekhan, but were falling a bit behind the enrage timer (the adds were causing some issues as their debuff required proper healing on Ortega (the turtle), taking away dps that I could do).

We decided to give Sapphiron a try, since it was a straightforward fight with no trash to clear. It was really quite good! We were a bit precariously close to the enrage timer, around 30 seconds off I think, though next time we should be better off as we got a good idea of what some of our positioning should be throughout.

The blizzards were the most annoying mechanic of the fight to deal with - since there was only two of us it usually came and sat right on us or drifted in rather irritating paths where we wanted to move to. Towards the end I just sat in it because moving seemed to keep putting us out of range of each other. Next time I may just sit in it briefly then shift slightly to step out once it's finished pathing, or just find a more coordinated way for us both to shift to keep in range of each other and minimise DPS time losses. Air phases were really simple to deal with as both of us were blocked each time, so it was simply a matter of waiting to be freed. Ortega was an excellent tank, held good threat and the AE damage reduction pets have mitigated a ton of the damage taken, especially from breaths.

I used my Tree of Life cooldown for DPS bursts rather than healing - the healing boost was still helpful, but I was timing the cooldown to try to get as many Wraths out as I could in the 30 second duration. I've been playing with this in dungeons especially - ToL Wrathing can pull some pretty good DPS if you're able to Wrath nonstop for the full 30 seconds. Moonfire and Insect Swarm are great helpers as you heal as well (though both will shift you out of ToL, so don't try to reapply them while in tree form). Three stacks of Faerie Fire should be up too for the armour reduction.

We should be heading back in again this week after the reset, I'd especially like to in order to video it this time (I thought to myself pre-pull 'I should record this', but of course I ended up not doing so), so hopefully we'll get back in again and I'll be able to upload a video of that as well. ETA: Video up here!

Very tempted to see what else we can take on around Outlands and Northrend. We managed to take down two of the Twilight Drakes in OS, Shadron and Vesperon, though Tenebron's whelps proved to be an issue. If we can get Tenebron down I imagine we may be able to take Sartharion down - the biggest issue I think would be the fire adds, as healing aggro really rips anything other than the primary target off of our turtle tank at the moment. Sarth has less HP than Sapphiron, so theoretically we could do it. We shall see!

Definitely some fun things to do while waiting for Cata!

Where will you be when the Cataclysm hits?

Keeva of Tree Bark Jacket had an interesting post recently about completing achievements before the xpac (Screw Bucket Lists), or rather, about not completing achievements:

'...it’s almost as though I want to leave these things half finished, as a reminder that the Sundering hit us without warning. My character isn’t privy to “patch notes” and announcements. She is going about her business, returned from Icecrown Citadel, having killed the Lich King. She is just a citizen now, a returned hero, enjoying some well-earned rest. She wonders what the mysterious rumblings are when she visits Orgrimmar, but doesn’t suspect anything dire on the horizon.'

I've always been pretty PVE focussed and haven't really delved into the RP world within WoW, but I do love all the lore and stories behind all the things in WoW. I didn't know much about raiding when I first began playing, I thought the game mostly revolved around quests, so I had a lot of fun with them as I levelled up. It's fun to see the stories and adventures you come across, and I enjoy thinking about what the stories are behind my characters, what their motivations are and how they would react to the world and challenges around them. There's a tremendous (and almost surprising) amount of depth in WoW - everywhere you turn there's history, from the actual books scattered around towns and cities to the NPCs themselves and what they do. It can be great fun to immerse yourself in the quests and zones.


There are some really memorable storylines within quests - many who levelled Night Elves in Darkshore will remember the questline For Love Eternal, telling the sad story of a loved one lost in the battles at the Well of Eternity. I remember how creepy Duskwood was the first time I levelled there, and the horror upon completing the Stitches questline at what I had released on Darkshire (though I'm bemused that after that first horrible deception by a questgiver that none of my toons ever learned to be less trusting when helping strangers). The Spectral Essence, which allows communication with the spirits on Caer Darrow gives a glimpse into the history around Scholomance, is a great item. The Lady's Necklace remains another favourite questline of mine, and why my Music Box is one of my favourite mementos. The quest to help save Crusader Bridenbrad is a wonderful questline (along with many in Icecrown and Storm Peaks) which gives so much more depth to everything in the zone. There are many hidden little spots around the game as well which can be a joy to explore, let alone some of the amazing art and architecture which make up the zones.

Reading Keeva's post got me thinking about just where my toons will be and what they'll be doing when the Shattering occurs. While there's some achievements I'd still like to wrap up (and even just getting the Tripping the Rifts achievement) and preparations for Cata, most of my toons are, like Keeva, returning to the Old World having fought in Icecrown Citadel and brought an end to the Lich King. Already (to avoid patch-time lag) many of my toons now have their hearths in Darnassus, my favourite of the home cities. I imagine most would end up there, returning home after the trials faced in Northrend, perhaps sharing stories of their adventures with Tyrande and the residents of Darnassus, with no idea of the events to come.


Where will you and your toons be when the Shattering occurs? Will they be caught off guard, shocked as the land is ripped apart? Or have they taken the word of the Cultists invading the cities and are expecting the world to be engulfed in flames? Or have they not paid attention to any of the ominous signs, ignoring the earthquakes and elementals as they reflect upon their adventures in Icecrown and Ulduar?

Twitter!

I have taken the plunge and made a twitter feed for the blog! We'll see how it goes - I've not tried it before (yes, yes, I'm late to the game on this one) but it certainly seems simple enough to use. It seems like it will be a good way to keep up some minor posts and updates in between my normal posts, particularly between my longer ones which take more time to write and set up. You can find my twitter page here @feraltree. I should be able to add it to my sidebar as well in the links, so I'll go see about setting that up now.


In other news! There was a lot more beta raid testing this week, so I have a lot of updates to come. We cleared all of the Bastion of Twilight and a couple more bosses in Blackwing Descent, as well as checking out the boss in Tol Barad. Some pretty fun stuff! I took screenshots as well so you can get a glimpse of what the bosses look like. Because it was a lot of bosses in just a few days, I'll probably split up the posts, likely one on the rest of Bastion of Twilight and then a separate one on Blackwing Descent. I'm also working on getting my kitty guide updated (sorry fellow cats!!), fallen a bit behind due to the beta testing, but that will be updated soon.


Blizzcon is this weekend as well! I'll try to post with any particularly exciting news or information (though there may be a lot, so no promises on catching all of them haha) - perhaps a nice start for the twitter feed to put some mini-post reactions there!


All for now! Beta raid posts and kitty updates to come!

Farewell, dear tree

Patch 4.0.1 going live also marks the end to our permanent Tree form, as it's now become a cooldown (and, likely at some point in the future, into a revamped model). Whether you loved it or hated it, tree form will be missed by many. There were some amazing emotes (best /dance and /cheer, and surely the most tragic-looking /cry), tree-related puns, raid members 'sap'-ing you, threatening to chop you down with their axes or light you on fire, and just running around Dalaran... the fun went on!  

A send-off for our Trees! You will be missed.

Favourite zones in Wrath

With patch 4.0 on the horizon and, with it, a few days (or more) of bugs, broken addons and massive lag in and around Dalaran as everyone tries to flood on, I've been shifting all of my hearthstones out of Dal and into the quieter neighbouring areas. As my toons all drifted outwards away from the city, it got me thinking about my favourite zones in Wrath, and found myself heading again and again to Storm Peaks.

 My favourite zone in Wrath is easily Storm Peaks. It has some fun questlines, the Hodir chain likely being the most memorable and leading into the history and the future of Ulduar. Overall, though, I find the zone to be really beautiful and peaceful. It's one of the places I enjoy just flying around. The music in the zone is also fitting, quiet at times, more epic at others, and always quite peaceful. One spot (pictured above) just south of Thunderfall actually has snow falling gently down.

My second favourite zone would likely be Dragonblight, mainly for the questlines there. The quest chains from Wyrmrest Temple are fun and give depth to all the dragonflights. The Veteran of the Wrath Gate quest chain is another brilliant questline, leading to an epic battle and setting up some of the final events in Icecrown. Icecrown itself has some excellent questlines as well, from capturing the Shadowvault to helping the Argent Crusade and everywhere in between, all leading to the final assault on the Citadel.

For pure fun, the Worg questline in Howling Fjord is brilliant and one of my favourites as well. I first discovered the quest on my hunter, whose pet wolf was the same model as the worg disguise you wear, and I spent ages sprinting around Howling Fjord in the disguise. I've started the chain on several toons (it starts with The Cleansing) and never turned in the final quest so that I could keep the disguise. It only works in Howling Fjord, but still a fun disguise to hang on to.

What have been your favourite zones in Wrath?

Mementos, Revisited (BA Shared Topic!)

This week has been my Shared Topic on Blog Azeroth! A big thank you to all those who participated! It looks like there were a ton of great responses.

I suggested the topic after I made my post on Mementos:


What mementos have you kept and why? What items or mementos have you kept (in your toon's pack or bank) and why? Whether it be keepsakes, quest rewards, special items, random drops, whatever! - why did you decide to hang on to it? What's its significance to you?


I thought I'd make an addendum here to go along with the Shared Topic, since my original post was a little while ago, and share some mounts that I'm particularly happy to have been lucky enough to get.

As you can see above, I was extremely lucky to win the roll for Mimiron's Head this past week! We did a quick mount run to break up the progression raiding week (and I think as a little break too as reward for finally getting Halion down). I couldn't believe I'd won it! Amazingly lucky.

Mounts are one of my favourite things in the game, I absolutely love them, particularly the dragon mounts. I have literally thousands of screenshots taken, and a huge portion of them are of my dragons soaring in various locations. My favourite of my dragon mounts is probably my Frostbrood Drake from ICC 10 (still missing just one achievement for my ICC25 drake! So close but so far...).

The Netherwing drakes are awesome, I love my Onyx drake. The Northrend drakes are brilliant as well. I like to fly my Bronze drake over to the Bronze dragonshrine to visit Nozdormu, or my Ruby Drake to Wyrmrest Temple to see Alextrasza and Korialstraz. I love all the dragonflights and their lore, so the drake mounts feel like a tangible connection to the dragonflights. If only dragons were a playable race! I also have the Black Drake out of OS10 which I really love, and I love flying him over to the Obsidian Dragonshrine to perch on the lava-strewn cliffs in the shrine. I tend to like the drakes over the proto-drakes, though I do still love my Rusted Proto-Drake out of Ulduar 10, both as he looks awesome and is a reminder of the achievements accomplished in Ulduar. I tend to like to fly him when around Ulduar. The red proto-drake is a pretty awesome looking one as well. I do tend to think that proto-drakes look particularly cool walking around on the ground, as the way they move is very fearsome (and they're lucky enough to make a roar sound when you do /mountspecial). The normal drakes I think look much more graceful when soaring through the air, though, so I prefer to fly them around. I also prefer their /mountspecial, though I wish they had a roar as well!

The dragons are by far my favourite (and I cannot wait to be able to fly them all over Azeroth!), but I have a few favourite ground mounts as well! I got extremely lucky and had the ZG Swift Zulian Tiger drop! The Nightsabres are my favourite of the class mounts (along with Night Elves probably being my favourite race), and the Zulian Tiger is amazing. I remember wanting one ever since I first saw one when I started playing ages ago. The raptor mount still eludes me, but I can live with that, I'm just happy to have the tiger!

I've had some great luck with mount drops (though the Kara warhorse eludes me as well); I've had the Swift White Hawkstrider drop in Magister's Terrace (great fun to ride when I have my Orb of the Sin'dorei on) and even the Red Qiraji Battle Tank in AQ. The Polar Bear mount from the Hyldnir daily dropped for me recently, and even more luckily, during a fishing daily the Sea Turtle dropped! (Thank goodness I didn't throw away the cast that caught it!!).

The most quintisential druid mount is, of course, the Raven Lord mount! This and the Zulian Tiger are my two most-used mounts, I absolutely love them. Best is definitely hopping on the Raven Lord with my Cenarion set on and my Guardian of Cenarius title up. Brilliant!

All possible results for this encounter have been calculated.

Malevica over at Type 'H' for Heals had an interesting post recently of a Wrath Raiding Retrospective. Reading the post got me thinking about raiding over Wrath and some of the highs and lows while raiding and inspired me to write a post on it as well.

Onwards!

Favourite Instance


I think Ulduar would have to be it, for several reasons. All the lore around it is quite interesting, particularly with the keepers, the old gods, and the related quests around Storm Peaks which lead up to it. The instance itself feels really different from so much around Northrend which is, for the most part, leading you up to ICC and battle with the scourge and the Lich King. Ulduar seems to have real history behind it, there's a sense of age and aloofness that rises above the rest of Azeroth's battle with the scourge and Arthas. The final battles with Yogg-Saron and Algalon in particular give this sense, especially with Algalon, that all of our battles before and still to come pale in comparison with the larger universe, nothing more than petty squablings.

The Algalon fight is amazing - the whole concept is brilliant, the stripping down of basically all that we know to see how this emotionless observer sees our world: See your world through my eyes: A universe so vast as to be immeasurable - incomprehensible even to your greatest minds.
Perhaps it's the philosopher in me, I just love the thoughts it all can provoke and the shift in perspective.

I like the Yogg-Saron fight for similar reasons - the sanity, the shifts in perspectives, driving creatures and races to madness, exerting its influence across Azeroth. At various places in Ulduar and around Northrend you will get whispers from an unknown voice; 'Hope is an illusion', 'All that you know will fade', 'You will be alone in the end'. The fight itself is incredible as well, particularly diving into the memories of the past and breaking through the illusions to strike at his brain. Important turning points in Azeroth's history are seen; the Forging of the Demon Soul, the Assasination of King Llane, and the Tortured Champion.

Madness will consume you!

Most Difficult Encounter

Lich King Heroic would probably be the most difficult encounter in Wrath. It's incredibly long and balanced on a knife edge, which can make it particularly frustrating on progression nights, as the tiniest mistake can completely destroy an attempt. Each phase is never completely sorted either, so it's never a matter of simply repeating phase 1 to get back to progression work in phase 2 or 3, every moment is a battle where every player needs to be performing their best and have high raid awareness. DPS needs to be as good as possible while still avoiding shadow traps and defiles, killing valkyr, killing raging spirits. The tanks need to be constantly managing cooldowns, repositioning the Lich King, surviving the Shambling Horrors. Healers have to manage between covering infest and safeguarding the raid against it with constant top-offs and bubbles, keeping the tanks healed, and keeping up with all the movement. It's a long, intense fight, and easily one of the most difficult out there.

Least Fun Encounter

Anub'arak in ToC may be one of the least fun encounters. I didn't have the joy (or pain) of taking him on in heroic 25 mode, as the guild I was in at the time was not at that level. It was an extremely tense encounter, though, particularly coupled with the heroic attempt countdowns - a single wipe was extremely costly in terms of rewards, and generally Anub'arak was the fight where wipes would come. I was able to take on Anub in heroic ToC 10, and it was certainly a pain then and very close, particularly with just two healers. Regular Anub 25 can be a pain too, mostly for PUGs, which is the more usual method of going to ToC these days, as most guilds which are still raiding are focussed solely on ICC and RS. Even a PUG that's one-shotted the entire instance (even Faction Champs) will suddenly lose the plot completely on Anub. Adds won't be killed or they'll burrow when the tank didn't position them over ice, ice won't even be down because no one is shooting it, people for inexplicable reasons decide to not move when giant painful spikes are bearing down on them, and healers start healing too much in the final phase. The fight itself can actually be quite fun to do when you're with a competent group, but in a PUG, it so often ends up just being painful.

Most Fun Encounter

Thorim in Ulduar can be great fun, particularly if you're in the team that gets to go down the tunnel. It's a fun guantlet, which you have to get through quickly and skillfully to make it to the arena team in time and defeat Thorim. It's even more fun on hardmode, as you have to get through the guantlet quickly enough to force Sif down with Thorim.

A lot of the hardmodes in Ulduar were quite fun because of the ways to trigger them - while it's definitely nice to be able to just turn some on or off as you do currently in ICC and RS, it is quite fun to have to do something to activate it, whether pushing Mimiron's Big Red Button or destroying XT's heart. Both have their advantages and disadvantages, I suppose!

Most Rewarding Boss to Heal


This is a difficult one to pick I think, as it depends on just how you define most rewarding. For sheer numbers, I think two fights stand out in particular in ICC. For all healing classes, but perhaps Resto drudis in particular, Blood Queen Lanathel can be very fun for healers as well as for DPS as both strive to top the meters. The constant raidwide damage, particularly on heroic, means constant heals being pumped out and, consequently, the climb up the meters. The Twins in ToC similarly offer big numbers both for DPS and for Healers, with more DPS-increasing mechanics and raidwide damage. Valithria Dreamwalker can also be a rewarding fight to heal, particularly as its focus is on healing rather than damage. It tends to be a bit more fun for those able to go in the portals which, if the raid can be choosy, will generally get to be pallies and shaman, who can really rock the numbers on her.

In terms of difficulty, I think Sindragosa Heroic, Algalon, and Halion Heroic are some of the most rewarding fights to heal. Sindragosa is quite a fun fight I feel (so long as your raid has decent awareness, anyway), as I quite enjoy the mechanics of it. Unchained Magic can be very frustrating in Heroic since you essentially have to stop healing in phase 2 if you get it, but overall I find it a very rewarding fight to heal. Sindragosa can be tricky as different healers get Unchained Magic or Icetombed. I may have to top up the raid at one point, then suddenly need to go help heal the tank the next moment. I really enjoy the flexibility there.

Algalon, especially before overgearing it immensely (though it can still be difficult even when overgeared for it), can be a difficult and rewarding fight to heal as well. There's a variety of damage, from raidwide damage from Cosmic Smash to fast, heavy hits on the tank.

Halion Heroic can also be incredibly rewarding when the whole fight comes together. There's a lot of damage both to the raid and especially to the tanks and, especially when healing the Twilight Realm, there's a very delicate balance between healing the raid, healing the tank, and healing the consumption debuff target. Combine that with all of the movement to avoid cutters and voidzones, it makes for a difficult fight, but a great one when it all goes well!

Proudest Moment

I think our Halion 25 Heroic kill may be one of my proudest moments. It was a brilliant moment after weeks and weeks of hard work, numerous wipes, strategy adjustments, and simply hours of going in again and again to try to kill him. From both a personal level of working like crazy to heal it well and to ensure I didn't make any mistakes, like avoiding cutter deaths, to the guild-level of working with 24 other people to bring him down, it was a great moment when he was finally slain.

I'm also quite happy to have gotten my little druid to where he is today. I still remember my first forays into healing and the trepidation I felt healing my first heroic dungeon and, even further back, fleeing from troggs in Dun Morogh where I went to quest because I was familiar with the area after starting my hunter there. It's been a long, interesting and fun journey!

Humble Beginnings.

For Gnomeregan!

The time has come to take back Gnomeregan and the Echo Isles!

This week saw the implementation of the Gnomeregan and Darkspear Trolls pre-Cata events! It almost feels like it snuck up on us a bit - for me, at least, I was so distracted by beta updates and changes that I had forgotten this was due. The events are a ton of fun, I highly recommend checking them out! The quests are pretty quick and definitely worth the time (not to mention they give a couple of fun rewards), and if you're level 75+ you can participate in the final event to recapture Gnomeregan or Echo Isles too.

Some screenshots and highlights below! Just a note, they do contain spoilers! If you haven't done the events yet, you may want to check them out before reading on.

The Gnomeregan quests begin in Ironforge, where you have to recruit some gnome citizens for the battle.

There's a series of fun quests to do after you deliver the recruits, the most fun of which being able to test out the spider-bot vehicles. Especially fun as a tree!

The main quest line will reward you with an item which will allow you to wear a gnome costume (or a troll costume for the Horde questlines). The cooldown is long (four hours!) but the costume lasts for 30 minutes, so not too bad!

After you finish up the quests (and if you're level 75+), you can participate in the battle to retake Gnomeregan. The event is similar to the Battle for the Undercity quest in that you run with the leaders and gain a buff which boosts your damage immensely and heals you.

Gnome King Mekkatorque has a particularly funny line when trying to disarm a radiation bomb left by Thermaplugg, asking for some Refreshing Spring Water, Handful of Copper Bolts, and Dirty Trogg Cloths to fix it!

The bomb does go off, but we do reclaim the surface of Gnomeregan! I'm guessing there may be some more to come yet. Cool explosion though!

I recently moved my hunter horde-side, so I do have some screenshots from the Echo Isles event! (Though not as many).


As with the Gnomeregan quests, you need to get some recruits for the battle!

The quests are a little bit less humourous as the gnome quests (reflecting the different cultures, really), but a lot of cool troll lore is mixed in, and connections to the spirits. There's also a very interesting introduction to the troll druids!

The troll costume is also incredibly awesome! Much cooler than the gnome one I think.

That's all I've got! Definitely go check out the quests and events, they're a ton of fun! I'll be going through on all my alts, well worth it! After the battles too you get a cool Darkspear or Gnomeregan cloak. It looks like they took out the 'overcloak' option though and they're just normal cloaks now. Oh, and for those of you working on your Loremaster achievements, the quests do count!

Have fun!

Alt-oholics Anonymous: Managing alt's abilities and keybinds

I got into a conversation with a friend recently about all of our alts and, specifically, remembering each toon's (and each class') abilities, rotation and keybinds.

I love my alts and love playing different classes and different roles. I also love playing all the different types of roles - I have a toon for each healing class and spec, and almost all the tank classes (though I'm saving my warrior for a worgen in Cata). I'm a little behind in the dps classes (I never could get a lock past level 20, and debating whether to keep poking my mage up in levels or wait for Cata and another night elf) but I've had a ton of fun with them as well.

This many toons results in a ton of different abilities and rotations and of your keybinds and UI between each toon. The biggest potential issue seems to be how to keep track of it all!

The most useful thing I've found to help myself manage all my toons is keeping key and similar abilities to consistent key binds and setups.

For example; all of my tanking toons (or toons with tanking abilities, such as my druid's bear form) have their primary taunt bound to the same key. All of my night elves have their shadowmeld on the same key (indeed, all of my toon racials are on the same key). Similar abilities also get similar bindings. My bear form Bash is on the same key as my pally Hammer of Justice, my rogue's Kick has the same bind as my DK's Mind Freeze. Damage mitigation abilities (Icebound Fortitude, Divine Protection, Barkskin) all have consistent binds as well.

All of my healing toons have consistent bindings on my Vudho. While not necessarily the same binds, they're correlations which make sense to me, which is key. The beauty of Vuhdo allowing me to save different profiles for one toon's dual spec has let me put my priest's Penance (disc) and Circle of Healing (holy) to the same bind - connected, in my mind, as each spec's 'special'. Similarly, my priest's Pain Suppression and Guardian Spirit are also on the same bind. Heals like Nourish, Flash Heal, Healing Wave and Holy Light all also have the same binds.

In cases where I have multiple toons of the same class, I make sure they all have the same binds as each other.

The key with all of this is that, despite being different classes with different abilities, the core setup remains consistent. This helps ensure that no matter which toon I'm on, my reactions will be quick (particularly for important abilities like certain heals, damage mitigation tools, taunts, interrupts, etc) and I won't be second-guessing. Particularly in a progression raid setting (and also in PVP, really), a second's hesitation can make the difference between a win and a loss.

The most important thing I think though is a clean UI and bind setup that makes sense to you! Part of the reason I don't use any addons which change my action bar locations is due to this - I've finally gotten my setup in such a way that it is logical to me and now has natural reactions, so I don't dare mess with it! Keeping consistencies across different toons is definitely helpful, and it will make switching between alts that bit easier!

Life-Binder... preserve me...

'Dragonqueen... Life-Binder... preserve me...' -Keristrasza

Moonra from RestoDude got me thinking with his post on Favourite Dungeons about some of my favourite dungeons and quest lines in Wrath.

There are tons of great quest chains which have great depth in their storylines. Icecrown and the Storm Peaks in particular have some great chains. The Sons of Hodir quest line is an interesting one lore-wise, particularly as the completion of the chain explains much of what is happening in the Storm Peaks and sets up much of what you see in Ulduar. Icecrown has some amazing chains as well, from helping the Argent Crusade gain a foothold, to taking back the Shadowvault for the Knights of the Ebon Blade and, in particular, the plight to save the soul of Crusader Bridenbrad. The Guru of Drakuru chains are also fun ones which take you through the history of the trolls in Zul'Drak and Grizzly Hills.

One of my favourites is a questline out in Coldarra in Borean Tundra. I love most of the storylines involving the different dragonflights (I love all the quest chains from Wyrmrest Temple), even moreso when connecting the quests and history to the book trilogy War of the Ancients).

This one in particular is picked up as you go around Coldarra to help the red dragonflight (you'll be sent to Coldarra after assisting on Amber Ledge in Borean Tundra). Eventually while fighting the mages and drakonid you'll pick up a fragment of a strange prison, which is actually holding Keristrasza prisoner. Through the quests, you help to free her and eventually set up a trap for Malygos. Unfortunately, Malygos takes Keristrasza prisoner, forces her to be his consort and attempts to turn her into a blue. It is then we are asked to venture into the Nexus and 'do whatever is required to spare her this fate'.

After doing this questline, it always strikes me as sad when we have to slay Keristrasza in Nexus. It's a tragic fate for the dragon, and another of the many captivating tales strewn throughout the quests in Northrend.

Are there any quests that have had particular meaning or memory for you? Which have been your favourites? Share your thoughts!

Mementos

Lament of the Highborne

I have a number of mementos sitting in my bags and my bank. They all have some significance, whether a gift from a friend, a rare or no longer available item, or just something I thought worth holding onto. I thought I'd share some of them and their significance to me, and invite you to share any significant items that you've hung on to over your WoW days.

Sylvanas' Music Box: I only acquired this just recently, but it is easily one of my favourites. The music box is a reward from one of the five quests that are in the Unsealed Chest - this chest drops following a kill of the Lich King (25) after a Shadowmourne has been completed. The music box will summon two banshees (pictured above) who sing 'Lament of the Highborne.' Horde will recognise the song from the quest The Lady's Necklace; Sylvanas summons the singers when you return the necklace to her. Anyone immediately around you will be able to hear them sing when you use the music box (provided they have their game sound on). I love the song and the lore behind it. The song is a lament of the Fall of Quel'Thalas to the scourge.

Stone of Stupendous Springing Strides: A friend mailed this to me one morning after I had been feeling pretty down the previous night and I've kept it in my pack ever since! It brightened my morning and makes me grin whenever I look at it. It ensures I keep up my tree-jumping ways.

Tree Branch: I once fished up one of these! The one I fished up I gave to a friend (to help keep him healed when he didn't have a Tree nearby). The one in my pack now was given to me by a Tree friend in a previous guild one night when we were working on Lich King (25). What's a tree without branches?

Haunted Memento: For those who always wonder where those ghosts who follow people around come from, it's from a player having one of these - as long as it is in your pack, a dark shade will follow you around and place a 'Haunted' buff on you (something is with you...). I love having my ghost friend follow me around. I call him Wilfred.

Sulfuras and my Tier 1 Cenarion set: Even though I got these after the fact (rather than from raiding Molten Core in vanilla), I still find them special items to have. The tier set especially looks brilliant and feels very appropriate for a druid - I imagine my druid feels right at home in Moonglade in this garb. I have a lot of fun running around in them (and healing the occasional Random Dungeon in them!).

I have a fair few disguises and toys in my bags to keep myself amused, most of which are brought out while waiting for a raid to start or during our break. One of my favourites is the Orb of the Sin'dorei, which is particularly fun to use with the Swift White Hawkstrider and Phoenix Hatchling pet. I wish you could sneak into the Horde area in Dal with all of that on, but the guards aren't so easily fooled.

I have a bag of weapons sat in my bank, the majority of which I either think look brilliant (Black Ice, for instance, looks amazing) or have some significance (like Oathbinder, a souvenir from a Lich King kill). Another is the Lightborn Spire, a reward for restoring Quel'Delar from the Battered Hilt quest chain.

I've also kept a few of the more interesting quest rewards, like Don Carlos' Famous Hat and the Barov Peasant Caller from the Scholomance quest chain. The Spectral Essence they give you is quite neat as well - it allows you to see and communicate with the ghosts on Caer Darrow, who walk around as though things were still the same as on the day they died.

I'll end with a video I recorded of the music box so you can see the Banshees and hear the song.

New faction leader models and pets

We had a fun update from MMO Champ today showing off the new Faction Leader models as well as a few new companion pet models, so I thought I'd make a quick post showing those.

There are a few of the Wrath models in there as well (Alextrasza, for instance). The Ysera model looks great, Malfurion is looking pretty cool as well. 

 There's a few cool new pets as well, including two engineering ones! 

This one is pretty cool, will definitely be trying to make that quite quickly. Not too sure if the pattern is a drop or if we can learn it from the trainer.

This is the other one.

This is just a new pet, though they don't know where it drops yet. Pretty cool though!

There was also a quote from Ghostcrawler about Glyphs in Cataclysm:

Bigger topic, but minor glyphs are almost always cosmetic / convenience features for Cataclysm. The big distinction is between prime glyphs (unambiguous dps increases) and major glyphs (utility, survival or very hard to math out dps increases). Under that model, affecting Fear is probably a major.

While we probably won't change every glyph, there is a chance we might, so I ask players not to focus too much on the current LK glyphs.

All for now!

Guardian of Cenarius

I've just about completed my Cenarion Raiment set (only missing the boots), but the robes finally dropped so it looks complete nevertheless!

The Cloak of Unending Life from the AQ20 quests (made with the Idols, Scarabs, and drops in AQ20) matches it perfectly too. I don't have the best weapon for it (something like Dreambinder would probably be fitting), but it's quite fun using my Sulfuras with it, even if it does look a bit out of place.

I had a ton of fun healing a few randoms in the gear, so I may start doing that now to liven up my daily LFG (though if I get any of the ICC 5-mans I'd have to pop my proper gear back on).

I think this is one of my favourite tier sets - I love the leaves and twigs, and it just looks very much like something I'd imagine a druid would wear. If any tier set model were to be revived in Cataclysm or later, I would definitely hope it would be this one. The Cenarion Expedition tabard goes quite well with it all too, and the Guardian of Cenarius title just tops it off. Altogether it makes a really great druid set!

Shared Topic: A Picture Tells a Thousand Words

I'm excited by this week's Shared Topic on Blog Azeroth, 'A Picture Tells a Thousand Words' by Nuniel. I love taking pictures, both with my proper camera and in WoW, and consequently my Screenshot folder is packed with thousands of shots. I think the hardest part for me on this topic was simply deciding which one to share!

I finally decided on this one:

A Candle for the Fallen

I only came across this location recently - Dreadmist Peak in the Barrens. I had never done any quests up here, though some of you who quested in Kalimdor may remember it. It is quite a remarkable place... as you climb the peak, you leave the sunny savannah of the Barrens behind and enter a thick, dark, foggy atmosphere tinged umber and gold as the sun pierces through the haze. As well as the occasional tallstrider, you will find Burning Blade cultists who have infested the top of the peak. You can find spots on the peak that are still uninhabited, though, or do some cleansing of your own to reclaim the peak from the cultists.

I found this candle on one of the peaks, and hence decided to label this shot as 'A Candle for the Fallen'. A last candle lit under a setting sun for all those who have fallen and been lost.