That Guy: Lawful/Chaotic Stupid

Since I spent most of my days RPing lately, you get snarky RP posts instead. Deal with it.

Most people don’t want their characters to die. That’s understandable, I mean, these are our creations and they can take a lot of work!

The problem is that sometimes…sometimes a character really SHOULD die…because he did something stupid.

Let’s say you have a character who is, for all intents and purposes, a villain. In this case, a cultist, because that’s most of the villains I see these days. And let’s say this character decides to…pick a fight in a crowded tavern. Maybe he flings some sort of shadowy, tendril-y spell at a patron.

Not surprisingly, four or five OTHER people are probably going to turn around, go “What the FUCK?” and get involved because…nothing involving tentacles is ever good.

Is it reasonable for the cultists to miraculously escape a tussle with 5-6 other characters unscathed?  No, but I see it happen routinely, because the player of said character doesn’t want to lose them.

It’s exasperating for the others, however, because this is usually accomplished by ignoring or brushing off nearly all of their actions. Before too long it’s no fun to play your little cultists because no one wants to deal with you.

What’s the best solution to this problem?

Simple. If you character doesn’t want to die, he needs to fucking act like it.

My apologies to all the Warhamz fans out there, but Eisenhorn could have avoided a lot of trouble for the whole universe if he's just not been a fucking idiot. Seriously. Have you READ those books?

Play your character INTELLIGENTLY. Don’t pick 6 on 1 fights unless you want to get seriously messed up. Have a plausible back up plan if he does get in over his head. And for the love of all that is holy, get fucking hit sometimes.

Last night my druid, Aedeminar, got in a tangle with a known villan alongside her friend, a priestess named Sarah. Despite it being a two on one fight, the cultist got away–but it was a reasonable escape. Our intrepid heroes weren’t used to working together, so they were sometimes getting in each other’s way, skewing things in favor of the cultist. My feral druid had no idea what to do when the PRIESTESS tackled the target, preventing her from making a leap of her own! When the target got as far as her drake and took the combat to the air, Mina had to bow out, because bird vs dragon never comes out in the bird’s favor. All three were injured to some degree or other–we all took hits as well as gave them.

In other words it was a well-played out conflict that DIDN’T SUCK. You know what does suck? The enemy being unharmed by every single damned thing you did because they have to brute force god mode their way out of their own fucking idiocy.

My druid has been caught unawares–and paid dearly for it. Either embrace mistakes and have your character learn from them (note said druid is now in armor FAR more often than not, what with a cultist RP plot actively moving against her guild–she learned!) or rub their two little brain cells together and don’t box them into stupid situations that should, by all logic, result in them getting their gravestones erected.

Other RPers are often approachable. Don’t be afraid to say to someone, “Look–I got this character in way over their head right now, sorry. Is there some way we can work this out so that my character survives this time? I really need them for later, I’m not ready for them to die.” This will go over much better than “and suddenly, Archnemesis vanishes into the night, despite three fireballs, an arrow, and a sword coming right at him.”

Cho’gall: Tank Editon

Rather than doing one big post with all sections of the strat, I’m going to try to break this up into thirds. Besides, if I post one part then guilt will compel me to finish the rest.

This post is brought to you by Fuzzbutt, who has actually tanked this more than once (unlike me). I did edit it to my heart’s content, however.

General Notes

Cho’gall is a 2 tank fight. The first tank to grab Cho’gall will end up being the add tank. The second tank will kite Cho’gall himself.

(/slaps wordpress and reclaims her image)

Abilities You Need To Pay Attention To

Fury of Cho’gall – aka AMG LASERS – 3 giant frickin laser beams shoot out of Cho’galls heads and give the active tank 2 debuffs. One increases melee damage taken by 20%, and the other increases shadow damage taken by 20%. It stacks. 
This is your cue to swap tanks.
When it comes time to swap back, you will still have roughly 10 seconds left on your own debuff… that’s normal. Deal with it and pray for no worship stacks.

Summon Corrupting Adherent – This should (theoretically) happen AFTER the taunt swap. He spawns an adherent at one of two portals on either side of the room. I’ll go into more details of the Adherent’s later.

Shadow’s Orders/Empowered Shadows – This will empower Cho’gall’s weapon to do an aoe shadow burst every time the tank is hit. This is a good place for your avoidance trinkets, to cut down on the raid-wide damage.

Flame’s Orders/Empowered Fire – This will empower Cho’gall’s weapon, causing his melee swings to deal fire damage instead of physical damage. This is the heavy-hitting portion of your tank swap, so feel free to use minor, short duration cooldowns (barkskin, anti-magic shell, etc) to help mitigate this. Also, every time he hits you during this time, he will spawn a patch of flame on a random spot on the floor. They will invariably end up in the least convenient places ever.

Also Going On During All That Shit

Cho’gall will cast “Conversion”, MCing 2 (3 in 25 man) raid members and causing them to buff Cho’gall. This adds 10% more damage each stack. The rest of the raid should be handling this, but feel free to throw out a death grip/avenger’s shield/what have you to interrupt them as well. This is a raid-wiping mechanic if it’s not handled properly–the tanks will just take too much damage. If he gets more than 2 stacks of worship, blow a major cooldown (shield wall, icebound fortitude, etc), ESPECIALLY if he has Flame’s Orders up at the time.
(Been there, died during it, OW.)

Back To Those Adherents – Adherent Tank, This Is For You!

The Corrupting Adherent will need to be kited to a predetermined point to die (in our strat, this is the door–see image above). When he dies, he will leave a pool of blood behind, which will in turn summon 5 miniature adds. Those are for the ranged to play with.

While you’re kiting the son of a bitch, he has two abilities that he’ll be using:

Corrupting Crash – Will target one raid member and do AoE shadow damage where it lands. Has about a 3 second travel time. Causes 10 corruption.  Hey guess what! The damage area is bigger than the graphic. Surprise surprise. If he’s really being a prick he’ll target the other tank with it repeatedly.

Depravity – 3 second cast, will hit any raid member in the room with shadow damage and give them 10 corruption. MUST BE INTERRUPTED. In my experience, he always does a depravity right after a corrupting crash. The melee should be following you and helping you interrupt, but he has a tiny ass hit box and they may be worshipped, so be prepared to do any interrupts you can do yourself.

You have roughly 45 seconds to kite the add to the door and kill him before Cho’gall casts Fester Blood. If the adherent isn’t dead by then he’ll do a Shadow AoE and…well…we don’t want that.  He’ll cast roughly 4 Corrupting Crashes and 3 depravitys along the way.

Don’t stand in the black puddles on the ground from previous adherents, they give you more corruption points. These black puddles don’t vanish until phase 2 and are part of why you try to kite everything to this nice, out of the way spot.

Phase 2 – < 25% .

Any adherents still alive will melt away–if you know you’re close to phase 2 you can ignore your final adherent. Whoever has Cho’gall near phase change puts Cho’gall against a wall beforehand, to make it easier for the raid to kill the stalks.

This is a strict burn phase. There’s no more Empowered Shadow/Fire, no more adherent summons, no more fester blood, and no more conversion. He will still do Fury of Cho’gall, so keep an eye on that for taunt swapping. If you’re not tanking the boss then you get to go play with eyeball stalks. They have only one ability, Debilitating Beam. It is teh suck and should be interrupted (stalks can be stunned). Army of the dead is win, etc. Hopefully Cho’gall falls over dead before you do!

More PvP Musings

More PvP Musings,
Because That’s What I’ve Done This Week Instead of Raiding:
How to Not Totally Suck As A DK No Matter How Much You Actually Do Suck
(In BGs Because That’s What’s Fresh On My Mind And I’m Worse In Arenas)
Disclaimer: I am not as awesome Cynwise

It amuses me how some things have never changed–fighting mid field in Warsong Gulch is still stupid, and everyone still does it.  So I suppose that’s the first piece of advice–don’t do that.  Unless you’re actively chasing down a flag carrier, get somewhere actually useful.  Hint: it involves a flag carrier.

Speaking of flag carriers, you need to be all up in their business.  CHAINS OF ICE CHAINS OF ICE CHAINS OF ICE CHAINS OF ICE DEATH GRIP LOL.  That is your job, wether it be hasseling the enemy flag carrier or peeling people off yours.

Not in a capture the flag BG?  FIGHT ON THE NODE FLAG, OH MY GOD.  Oh, and your job is now to eat healers.  Actually, you job is always to eat healers, but lacking anything else to do that is definitely your job here.

I was amazed at how helpful my tidy plates was in that regard–I had it set up so that my bars were color coded by class, allowing me to quickly focus my hatred on the appropriate target–the frost mage the potential healer.  Making it so that I could see cast bars right under their name was even more awesome.  I’M SORRY ARE YOU TRYING TO CAST HEALING WAVE?

Also, don’t forget Dark Simulacrum.  Like me you’ll probably have to hunt for it in your books because seriously wtf is that damned thing, but it does have good use in pvp.  Sometimes, of course, it will steal something useless like…oh…beacon.  Other times I’ve cast Repentance right back at the poor pally and giggled madly. 

Kill all the things!

How To Make Grim Batol Suck Less

Protip: stop sucking.

Wait, you want something more helpful than that?  Pfft. 

I’ve done GB waaay too often (GRIM BATOL, FOREVER) although only once on heroic, but it doesn’t take a genius like myself to see that a pro bombing run makes a world of difference.

Look, someone even made a YouTube video.  If you haven’t done the instance so often you know exactly what path you walk, don’t worry.  YOU WILL. 

The easiest way is to focus on one side at a time–say the left side on the way up, the right on the way back.  Doing that should be able to visually trace your path and easily hit only the important groups.  Don’t forget pats!  Once you’ve done the quest ignore the troggs in the middle.  You can firebomb from a surprising distance away, so you can keep plugging away at the groups for a bit instead of wasting time on mobs you never actually touch.

Holy Paladining the Lower Spire

Disclaimer: this is just how I do it, and I’m usually the only holy paladin in the group. If you have more than one, Beacon assignments and whatnot will probably be a bit different.

Lord Marrowgar

This is the OHMYGOD SO MUCH DAMAGE, WHYYY fight, and one where we holy paladins really shine. The damage comes fast and heavy, so you have to be on the ball about topping it off. What happens if you take a break to rest your poor Holy Light finger for a few GCDs (or worse, if you’re repeatedly boner spiked)? DEATH, that’s what.

Yeah, you did that. Anyway, you will probably be assigned to the MT for this fight, and you will want to put your sweet, delicious Bacon Beacon on the OT, who will be taking quite a lot of damage as well. Especially when he stands in the Coldflame. Stick yourself in with the caster dps group, who will probably all be standing within Marrowgar’s hitbox, because that makes things easier for everyone, especially when it comes to Bone Spikes, because if you have to count on dps to come find you in order to break you out, you’re probably gonna die.

Possibly the hardest part of this fight is the cat herding fest that is Bone Storm, because everyone is going to scatter, and they’re not all going to go in the same direction. Ideally you should stick on top of your tanks so that you can quickly get back to healing them ASAP when this part is over, but if you’re like me you probably just run to a corner while going OMG QUIT FOLLOWING MEEEE. We keep raid markers on the tanks so that we can quickly find them and stack back up. If you run a 51/20/0 build, Bone Storm might be a good time to pop your bubble and Divine Sacrifice, if you happen to notice a lot of people waltzing through Coldflame or trying to give Marrowgar hugs. Just … don’t sacrifice yourself without bubbling, unless you’re prepared to stand still and heal all that incoming damage to yourself, which will be hard. Bone Storm is also the best time to pop your Divine Plea, but because chain casting Holy Light is very draining, you’re probably going to have to just use it when you can.

Assuming that everything goes well, Marrowgar will keel over, you will cry because spell plate is a myth, and then move on! \o/

Lady Deathwhisper

During Phase 1, I find it more useful to have your Beaconhax on your assigned tank so that you can help out the raid healers, because this is a fight where people will inevitably stand in things and take stray damage. Do remember to keep a close eye on your tank’s health though, because he will sometimes be hit mercilessly by empowered mobs, and you’ll need to give him extra attention. For the 25man version, you will want to stand roughly in the middle, so that you can help out the other tank healers when their targets are taking extra buttloads of damage. Curse of Torpor will be a big pain in your side for this fight, because it will lock you out of one of your spells (probably FoL or HL, depending on what you were casting when it hit you) for 15 seconds. It’s annoying, but shouldn’t be too hard on you.

In Phase 2, you’ll only need to focus on one tank at a time, but they will be trading off. I like to put Beacon on whichever tank currently has aggro, but if I’m having mana issues (LOL DOES NOT COMPUTE), I’ll just keep it on the MT. It’s nice to help out your raid healers with the Frostbolt damage when you can, and if it looks like everyone’s getting low, there’s always the bubblesac option.

Gunship Battle

This is the easiest Lower Spire fight, which means that BoO will always wipe on it once. Chances are that your raid leader will want you to stand on the ledge between the canons, toss Beacon on the tank who’s going over to the enemy ship (… we call them the Away Team), and keep the home and away tanks both healed. If you whine about being bored and getting cheated out of using your rocket pack, which I may or may not do, you might get to be the Away Team healer, YAY. In which case your major obstacle will be hearing when to go over and back on top of one of your guildies playing “I’m On A Boat” over vent. /facepalm

The Away Team tank will take a lot of damage when he goes over, so be sure that you keep an eye on him. Otherwise, this fight is mostly about keeping your eyes on Grid/Vudho/what have you and peppering around FoL where needed. If you get a lot of aggro from the Axethrowers, BUBBLE then yell at your tanks.

Deathbringer Saurfang

Another fight where everyone will be pleased to have your Beaconhax. Once again, you will probably be on the tanks. I heal the first tank to take Saurfang and put Beacon on the second. This means that when Tank 1 has him, I need to focus primarily on healing him, and when Tank 2 has him, I can help out the raid healers by keeping people with Boiling Blood topped off and healing anyone who gets hit by the blood beasts’ melee. As usual, if you don’t have mana issues and would like to, you can simply switch Beacon from tank to tank.

When Saurfang hits 100 Blood Power, that’s when you go FUUUU and things ramp up. You need to put your Beacon on the person who gets Mark of the Falling Champion, and then you need to heal the tank with the aggro for all you’re worth, to keep the Marked person up. If Blood Power management is Not So Good, you get to play YAY SOPHIE’S CHOICE and decide whether to stick with the original Marked player, or switch Beacon to the new one. If it’s a healer or a tank who gets the Mark, they also get the Beacon. If it’s between two dps players, I’d recommend keeping up a player who kites the blood beasts. If none of those are factors, just slap it on the person you like the most. That’s right, everyone be sure to lavish love on your paladin healers – it may save your life! I take bribes in the form of unicorns, rainbows, and hugs.

If you have a group that can successfully manage Blood Power and you don’t break out in a cold sweat from healing stress, then YAY TIEM FOR PLAGUEWORKS. Just uhm, maybe don’t forget to bubble if you’re the first one to zone into the next wing, because the mist wants to give you not so nice cuddlings.

The Joys of Random Pugging

Edit: Broken recount is broken.  So let’s address the rest of the fail, because that’s still perfectly valid.  :P

If you don’t know an instance, speak up.   Better you ask than have your healer screaming obscenities at you IRL.  I mean sure, I’ll wonder inwardly how the hell you don’t know NEXUS, but that’s better than calling you a douchenozzle becuase you’re making my life insanely difficult, right?  I’ve had several cases of DPS wiping groups because they didn’t know fights already (though it makes more sense in the new heroics).  Bwuh?  ASK, PEOPLE.  At least for the new heroics, I stop and ask if people know the fights first.  If you don’t answer and then wipe us with something stupid, I’m going to be pissy. 

If a boss has spell reflect, it behooves you to notice your own dots stacking up on you and STOP.  PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD STOP.  If you keep taking a ton of damage, your healer is screaming JUMP at you in party, and you notice a stacking debuff?  Yeah.  Do it.  Please.

Speaking of heroic fails, my lovely tank healing, high crit, low haste build?  Yeah, it fucking sucks for heroics.  Oh the normal ones are fine, but if you get in the new ones with even a semi-derp derp group?  Yeah, kiss your sanity goodbye.  You can’t have low DPS in there.  You just can’t.  I know this because I tried.  And I couldn’t just group kick because they were guildies.  Bwuh.

Woo!

Not only did the Brotherhood of Oblivion finally conquer our cockblock (DIAF Anub), but we got a new recruit out of it.  There’s another two that I’m reeling in, as well.  Yay!  DPS!

I am forever amused (and frustrated by) the fact that we have this plethora of tanks and healers and a dearth of solid DPS.  WTF, guys?  Thankfully, most of our tanks and healers can rotate  into DPS slots, but not all of them.   The majority of them are competent at their secondary jobs if not downright excellent, which certainly makes my life earlier.

To my further amusement, our healers are less likely to complain about DPSing than our tanks.  While most healers I know suffer from “back seat healing syndrome” (see how often I drop out of shadow form sometime), none of them seem to flail at others doing their job like a tank will.  Is it because the tanks are more visible?  

And now, let’s talk about…

How To Offer Opinions And Not Look Like A Dick

We have two raid members who are both rather opinionated individuals with a lot of usually solid advice to offer.  One of them is an appreciated, well-liked member of the team…

…and the other is on the verge of being gkicked nearly every raid he attends.  Why are they different?

• Watch your word choice.
• Watch your method of delivery.

“In hindsight, using X at This Time would have been better,” is less hostile than “Gee, using X at This Other Time was a mistake!  Didn’t you see that _____?”  If you are really frustrated and want to vent, find a friendly ear and do it there.  Hint: ventrilo isn’t it.  Tell your Healing Buddy that doing Y was dumb as hell, then suggest far more politely to your raid leader that maybe we could try ___ some time, because you’ve seen it work really well before.

Similarly, commenting in raid chat or in whispers is considered more polite than random vent comments during a boss fight.   So, what what you say and how you say it: it makes the world of difference.

On a related note, if you are not the RL/an officer, don’t call for things like brezzes or heroism.   Sometimes, we forget…but sometimes we have something else in mind, so we’d really rather you not confuse the matter.   A pug, for example, might not recognize that you’re not the RL/officer and go ahead and do it and then…well.   Oops.