4.0 Background Downloader up and PTR fun!

As you can see from the title and recent updates on WoW.com and MMO-Champ, the first part of the 4.0.1 patch is available on the background downloader! In other words, OMG CATA IS COMING. Looks like we're definitely on course for November release date.

I haven't started this download yet, though, as I'm currently finishing up downloading the PTR! After much discussion with guildies and friends about talent tree changes, gem changes, and basically how crazy everything will be for raiding once the patch hits, I decided I had to check it out for myself and see how things were. The PTR is pretty massive (about 16GB) so it's taken a while, but I like the option with the new launcher to load the game while it's still downloading.

I'll be testing things out a lot more once it's fully downloaded and over the weekend as well. When I last logged on it was all fairly choppy but that's likely because I hopped on as soon as it would allow me to. The character copy was surprisingly quick (few hours, tops, despite a supposed 4-day waiting period), so I hopped on to check on my druid and also adjust basic UI features (a large portion of my action bar keybinds are not the default ones).

Some first impressions:

• We can't fly in Azeroth yet, but I was able to mount up on my flying mounts! The druids in Moonglade weren't phased by the sight of my frostbrood drake, however. You can jump and the mounts will flap, but they won't lift off.
• Already feeling nostalgic for my tree form. The cooldown Tree of Life currently takes you to the current Tree form model, though I imagine that will change at some point (though perhaps with a later patch in Cata? I'm not certain). I guess my little Teldrassil Sproutling will have to keep me company even more often now so I can keep my tree spirit with me.
• Haven't been able to test healing yet in a dungeon or raid setting, but playing with the new spells has been interesting. The reduced duration on the Regrowth HoT will take some getting used to. It's a bit odd having Regrowth as my fastest cast now (on Live my fastest is Nourish, at 1 to 0.9 seconds depending on Nature's Grace procs... even faster with 25m haste buffs and heroism). 
• The Efflorescence graphic is a mixture of pretty (leaves drifting upward) and vaguely threatening (wait, you want me to stand IN the green voidzone-appearing area??).
• Current gear stats at level 80 seem to be holding - at first glance all of my stats seem to correlate (though have a slightly larger mana pool (edit: I did not look closely at this the first time, I have a much larger mana pool!)), and my spellpower looks to be correlating to my spellpower in Tree form on live.
• Lifebloom no longer returns mana, so I'll have to adapt how I use my Omen of Clarity procs (also - OoC is indeed a learned talent). Nice little in-game Power Auras-style graphic for the OoC procs.
• Also rolled a little level 1 hunter while waiting for the character copy - focus is so much nicer than mana! Maybe my hunter will get some attention again when Cata hits.

I'll get some proper time in and post more information after it's all finished downloading and I can actually navigate without the game being choppy, etc. I'll also try to get some screenshots (of things like the Efflorescence proc). I also need to find some new glyphs as my glyphs are currently half-empty now (missing most of the Prime spots).

In other fun, what will you be rushing to get done before Cata hits? My guild is currently pushing to finish off our LKHM25 kill, which we'll hopefully have done before 4.0 hits (particularly as I think everything will descend into chaos, at least for a week or two, when that lands, from simply talent tree changes alone, let alone everything else that's coming!).

Personally, I've been trying to grab a last few achievements and things. I'm still trying for the Raptor mount in ZG, though it still eludes me - I'm glad I at least managed to get the Tiger, though, as that's the one I really love. I've been pushing a bit to try to finish off the Zandalar rep as well, but it will take some dedicated farming I think. I'm a fair bit into Revered, but still a bit far off! I haven't tried properly for the Baron mount, but may be something I look into if I have the spare time.

I did manage to successfully complete my Winterspring rep finally though! I spent a day grinding out the last Revered-to-Exalted stretch, which fortunately was livened up some by teaming up with a couple of other players who were out there doing the same thing. Teaming up is a good idea - stops everyone stealing each other's mobs and can provide nice relief to the grind. My Winterspring tiger was my 100th mount as well, so a nice couple of rewards at the end of it all!

So what are you hoping to finish before Cata or 4.0 hit?

PTR 4.0.1 is live!

Patch 4.0.1 is now live on the PTR! You can find the patch notes and article on WoW.com here and some more information and the patch notes on MMO-Champ as well here. Cata is well and truly closing in!

It looks like we'll have a period with this pre-xpac content and, more importantly, with the new talent trees and glyphs. There'll likely be a period before the xpac hits with all the changes in place, and we'll have to adapt quickly to keep up with raiding as we wrap up the content before the xpac officially launches.

In other news, the tier 11 bonuses were released recently.

• Item - Druid T11 Restoration 2P Bonus - Increases the critical strike chance of the periodic portion of your Lifebloom spell by 5%. / Instant
• Item - Druid T11 Restoration 4P Bonus - Whenever you have Lifebloom stacked to its maximum of 3 applications on its target, you gain 540 Spirit. / Instant
• Item - Druid T11 Balance 2P Bonus - Increases the critical strike chance of your Insect Swarm and Moonfire spells by 5%. / Instant
• Item - Druid T11 Balance 4P Bonus - Whenever Eclipse triggers, your critical strike chance with spells is increased by 99% for 8 sec. Each critical strike you achieve reduces that bonus by 33%. / Instant
• Item - Druid T11 Feral 2P Bonus - Increases the periodic damage done by your Rake and Lacerate abilities by 10%. / Instant
• Item - Druid T11 Feral 4P Bonus - Each time you use Mangle (Cat) you gain a 1% increase to attack power for 30 sec stacking up to 3 times, and the duration of your Survival Instinct ability is increased by 50%. / Instant

The bonuses are interesting. The Resto bonus seems to be gearing towards our tank healing tools and emphasizing us using the new Lifebloom on tanks. It shouldn't be hard to maintain the stacks to proc the four-piece bonus. With the new talents Nourish and Healing Touch will refresh the Lifebloom stack, so once we get the stack up it should be easy to maintain, whether by throwing on a new Lifebloom or topping up the tank with Nourish or HT, and certainly maintainable between covering the raid if we're raid healing. Our tank-healing tools should be a lot stronger in Cata, so we'll be able to do that well as well as covering the raid. It will be interesting to see how all the classes end up working together in Cata as all are going through some big changes, particularly paladins. The healing dynamic will likely be switched up a fair bit.

The Feral bonuses are a bit odd. The two-piece bonus is a pretty straightforward damage increase. The bear four-piece is pretty standard as well, increasing the duration of Survival Instincts. The cat bonus is a bit odd though, mostly that it's currently triggered by Mangle. Mangle's duration was increased to 60 seconds, so it seems odd that the proc is for 30 seconds and stacks up to three times. It's basically encouraging us to Mangle a lot more, and certainly at least every 30 seconds instead of every sixty. I seem to remember hearing that they wanted to increase Mangle damage, primarily so we have an option when we're unable to shred (on caster bosses like Lady Deathwhisper, for example, who are often turning to cast at different people, so we're having to jump around a lot to stay behind her or perhaps have just one hit that would need to be replaced with something other than a shred). It seems like it would be a better idea (and more consistent with previous proc items, like the Idol of Mutilation) if it procced from Mangle and Shred. Perhaps that's something that might come.

The Balance bonuses seem fairly straightforward as damage and critical strike increases. The four-piece bonus is working with the Eclipse proc, so should only help with boomkins working with the new Eclipse mechanics.

Interesting stuff on the horizon!

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!

Halion video

Apologies again for the reduced frequency in updates - just recently started a new job, which has been very time consuming!

I wanted to post a video of our Halion kill from the other week. A guildie, Bouncydemon, makes all of our guild's official videos, he does a really excellent job on all of them, and kept it up with another awesome video of our kill last week! You can see me running amok in his PoV ones, he was in the Twilight realm with me.



You can see the video plus information on music used, PoV and links to addons/armoury/etc on the youtube page here. Go give it a thumbs up and things and check out the other videos in the channel!

Beware the shadow! Halion 25-man heroic down!

After many weeks of wipes, strategizing, frustration over cutter deaths, combat log malfunctions, and a 2% enrage wipe, Halion 25 man heroic is finally down! We finally got him down last night. Great job by everyone involved.

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!