ICC Post 4.0 Commentary, and BM Hunter Musings

ICC Post 4.0

LOL Bug #1: if for some reason you can’t see Gunship, don’t just keep walking assuming it’s a graphics glitch even if everyone else is safely on the boat.  You will fall and die…just ask our tankadin Solt.

LOL Bug #2: Icy blasts and other important Things On Ground To Not Stand in on Sindy’s platform are well nigh impossible to see.  While you can see Sindy’s blasts of icy doom via the swirls (not the circles on the ground, oh no, but the swirls), whatever the little dragons cast is currently invisible.  I apparently died by standing in 3 of them.  Okay!

Which brings me to…
LOL Bug #3: A lot of people are having a hell of a time getting their buffs/debuffs to reappear, even after ditching whatever buff addon they were using.  I wish I could tell you how I fixed mine, but really all I did was flail at settings in Interface and then relog and they magically reappeared.  Relogging is the magic fix for a lot of things right now.  Let me tell you, not seeing buffs and debuffs made Sindy fun.

If you’re just curious about looking at some numbers, our WoL is over here: http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/7iooyri0rxyay7co/

We started late and still killed Sindy.  ICC on normal mode, at least, is now /faceroll.  I’d say that it’ a fairly “safe” place to play around on alts-that-might-be-new-mains.

On BM Hunters, In Particular

I did not particularly enjoy huntering last night.  Of course I’m not going to give up on BM hunters that easily, but for now at least I’m going to be focusing on bringing up some other alts…just in case.

I don’t like focus.  It’s seriously disrupted the flow that huntering has been for the past 5+ years.  I’m going to give myself time to adjust, but initial impression is one of BLARGH FUCK THIS.

It’s hard to judge DPS while we’re missing key things (o hai, level 81 skills) but I was lagging massively behind everyone else.

I passionately hate being terrible at something.  Right now, I feel terrible at huntering, and it’s twice as frustrating since I used to be good at it. 

Serpent Sting needs to last longer.  I feel that with its current duration, it’s obnoxious to keep reapplying.  Or maybe I just can’t cope with a focus restrained shot priority, I don’t know.  It always seems like there’s one more shot I need to get in RIGHT NOW and I can’t because I have to steady shot for more focus and then kill command comes up and then oh god where did my focus go and fuck how long as serpent sting been down?

I miss my pew pew moonfire kitty.  The heal seems like a lackluster (and far less useful) replacement for a pet skill I used to enjoy based on looks alone.

Bleh.

Conspiracy Theories, Part 2

Yes.  After reconvening and finding us down a DPS, we weren’t able to move on becuase we couldn’t add anyone to our raid ID.   Everyone got a fresh instance.

>:|

>:|

Fuck you too, Blizz.

Picking Hard Modes

For one reason or another, you’re now looking at doing hard modes.  The hard part, of course, is in picking which to try! 

I haven’t tried them all yet to say, but to steal from Rhidach’s Twitter, his ranking is as follows:

Gunship > Marrow > Rotface > BQL > Dreamwalker > Festergut > Saurfang > Princes > LDW

You wanna know something though?  The second HM we did in SiB, after Lootship…was LDW.  Chew on that for a moment.  The real answer when it comes to picking hard modes, although this is not the answer you want to hear, is: it depends. 

I’ve done my best to compile a list with notes on what makes each heroic mode hard, so that you can adjust at will: if you don’t have your ace healers or a strange, raid healing light raid comp, you know to skip BQL, etc.  Now I havent’ done all of these myself and don’t have notes for all of them yet either, so feel free to comment and toss your own experiences out there so I can update this.

<3

Gunship: is full of lulz and should be doable by just about anyone.

Marrowgar: Can demand some tricky positioning work on behalf of the tanks.  Healers and DPS need to be more alert for boned targets during bone storm, but I don’t remember it being an especial strain.  It’s definitely more about getting everyone to stand in the right spot.

BQL: Is healing intensive, but aside from that, not overly difficult in my opinion.  Good for new tanks because you just slot them in as OT and tell them to go play Tetris.

Rotface: We’ve only tried one night, and we struggled in part due to a newish tank (and my love for hugging slimes?).  I’d say it’s a lot of situational awareness and the slime tank keeping the booger where it needs to be.

LDW: Awaremess, awareness, awareness.  New tanks should avoid tanking the adds.   Your CCing DPS needs to be on the ball for MC’d targets.

Putricide: DPS, DPS, DPS.  I’d say positioning, too, just going from the normal fight.

Saurfang: Tank heals need to be solid (I hear holy pally is the favorite for this), and your ranged needs to be good at handling the adds.

Fester: high DPS and “a pulse” according to one lovely Twitter comment.  XD

Princes: no concrete answers on this one yet, but if awareness isn’t up there I don’t know what would be.

Dreamwalker: ?

Friday Flowchart + Congrats, SiB!

The evening crew of Stands in Bad finally got their Lich King kill.  Congrats, guys!  <3

Although I do now have Survival as a secondary spec, my first LK kill came with Omnomnom the Devilsaur proudly at my side.  Go go Intimidate stun.  It still feels odd to get the kill with my hunter (read: until lately the bastard child 2nd alt) and not the priest that has done all the real work. 

Anyway.  I know what you guys REALLY want…

I Am The Most Nub Hunter

I am the most nub hunter of them all, I swear.  Well…no.  Maybe not the most nub.  I may be a BM hunter but I’m not meleeing.  My gear does not have SP on it.   I have gems.  I even have ENCHANTS. 

What I do not have, sometimes, is a clue.

Ways I Died On LK:

Falling off the ledge during phase transition!
Hugging spirits! (I did not hug orbs)
Not tranqing the big uglies in time oh god the tank is dead it’s eating my face oh fuck!
….defile!

 By far the “falling off the ledge” has to win for nubness.  That said, we did get LK down to 17% percent…which means, of course, that he dies next time.

…meanwhile I’m going to learn to Survival Hunter.    /twitches

Come play with ussssssss.

It’s that time again! Summer slump, raiding burnout, and a little touch of unfortunate drama have left Brotherhood of Oblivion unable to raid 25 man content for a few weeks now. We have a lot of interested people, but we need a few more to round out our numbers. SO. RECRUITMENT TIEMS.

If you’ve been following this blog and BoO’s antics for a while, you won’t believe what I’m about to say, but we need more healers. Especially raid healers, because Amber and I both are like LOL RAID HEALING NO. Sure, I know I can, but I’d rather lay my hands on a tank. Resto druids and resto shamans would be very very much loved, as we do not have one of either as a main (this makes me a sad Ori). We would pet you and give you cookies. I’d also really love to see us have another holy paladin, in part so I have someone to babble about binding every key to holy light and tapdancing on my keyboard with, and also so that I may occasionally go ret and smack things to help my stress levels. :D So tank healers are also definitely welcome. WE LOVE HEALERS.

We also need plenty of dps. Specifically, ranged dps because right now we have mostly melee. There are no dps shaman mains raiding our 25s currently, so one of either smacking or lightening turret flavor would be much loved. Boomkins would also be wonderful! Frankly, we will welcome any dps players who don’t stand in bad things or think that hugging Sindragosa sounds like a good time. /stares

I think that the only thing we are currently not desperately needing is tanks. If you’re a tank who also has a healing or dpsing offspec that you don’t mind using frequently (or the opposite) feel free to also join us, because chances are that you will get to tank at some point. Curse the irregular tank scaling between 10 and 25 man content.

Currently Brotherhood of Oblivion raids from 7-10 server (CST) on Wednesday and Thursday nights, though dates might possibly be moved if needed to work with summer schedules. As of the last time that we did 25s, we were 8/12 and progressing steadily, and our 10 mans are either working on Sindragosa or have danced on her chain smoking corpse. We’re a pretty casual and relaxed guild, but our goal is to have everyone on board and serious about making progress in our raids with minimal goofing around.

Still, we are the guild who does things like this:

so don’t expect there to be a lack of fun, silly times. I know I can never be entirely serious. Other perks include occasional fun time old school raids (BWL this week!) and a weekly Ulduar 10 hardmode group working towards drakes on Monday nights.

Also, a reminder that we aren’t particularly … PG-13 most of the time.

If you’re interested, you can check out our forums ( http://booguild.net ) or poke me in game on either Orithea or Mortaleia and we’ll talk shop (you can also email me at vivalamuffin at gmail dot com !). We’re always glad to let recruits sit in vent and listen to raid fun times to get a feel for what we’re like before coming over.

Ice Cream Social: Sindy the Chain Smoker

Disclaimer: I have now seen this boss…once.  Er.  Yeah.

General Notes
2 tanks, 3 healers

Like with many dragons, there’s both a ground and an air phase.  Typical cleave/tail whip rules apply, so several of you will die while tanks are positioning the boss for the first few wipes because you forgot how to Ony already.

Icy Grip.  Do you remember Aran?  …no?  Noob.  Anyway, Aran pulled everyone into the middle of the room, and if you didn’t run the fuck away, you got blown the fuck up.  Same principle applies here.  Just don’t run too far beyond the 25 yards required because spreading out too much will still make the healers hate you.  If you are a keyboard turning nub like me, pray to god you don’t lag or try to mouse turn without confusing yourself.  Or just run straight and end up on the opposite side from everyone and say FUCK really loudly like I did. 

When Sindy goes into air phase, two players will have blue arrows appear over their heads and seconds later will end up entombed in ice.   If you see someone near you get the blue arrow things, get the fuck away from them, because apparently it’s contagious (10 yds).   You don’t want it, trust me.  As with Sapph, you hide behind the ice cubes, although this time you’re hiding from ice bombs.  The point of impact will show up as a blue circle with swirling ice around it, so stand on the opposite side of the cubes from these circles.  Don’t just stand behind it and assume you’re safe, you will actually have to move to another side sometimes.  There will be 4 of these bombs in an air phase.  The ice tombs are attackable and you might as well hack away at them while waiting, but you don’t want to destroy them until all 4 bombs have been dropped because then you’ll have nothing to stand behind, dumbass.  They should be destroyed before Sindy lands again. 

At 35% she gains another ability called magical mystical buffet.  Mystical buffet is bad, but is also broken my LoS.  This is where hiding behind ice tombs comes into handy again.  Designate an easily reachable spot for frost tomb targets to run to for this phase.  Once the tomb target has reached the spot and been frozen, everyone hides behind them to drop the stacks.  You should do this at least every other tomb. 

ON THE PROPER PRONOUNCATION OF BUFFET:
Okay look, guys (or gals, especially you narrating the tankspot video): if you’re pronouncing it buh-fey, you’re DOING IT WRONG.  Are you being served dinner, or being attacked by mystical forces?   SINDY IS NOT FEEDING YOU.  So let’s get it right: buhf-it. 

Tanks
Cleave + Frost Breath = this boss doesn’t tickle.  Don’t be shy about using cool downs in conjunction with Frost Breath, especially if you’re not using FR.

During the < 35% health phase, tanks will switch out to drop the mystical buffet stacks behind the tomb.

DPS
Dear melee: if you let permeating chill stack to high you will die.  You cannot DPS while dead.  Got it?

Casters:  You are not immune from debuff fuckery.   Sindy also casts something called  Unchained Magic.  Casting spells during Unchained Magic may cause you to gain stacks of Instability.  Don’t let it stack above 5 or your healers will shank you with their little caster daggers, assuming the damage spike doesn’t kill you first.  By the way, you drop it by not casting for 8 whoooole seconds.

In the 35% phase, you never want more than 1 tomb up at any given time, so be sure to DPS them down.  Just not, you know, TOO quickly.

Healers
While on the ground, Sindy has a frost aura that does damage to the raid just like Sapph.  You will probably hate it, just like Sapph.

Permeating Chill will stack on the melee, doing MORE frost damage.  If it’s too much damage for the healers to handle then they need to stop DPS until the stacks drop off, but we all know how that will go.   Casters have their own version.  Read the note to casters about Unchained Magic above and know that if you die from it you have no one to blame but yourself.

HoTs work to heal the cubed people. 

Bubbles can help negate the debuff so that they can stack higher, but I’m not one to encourage DPS to be reckless.  Instead, either spoil your favorite DPS buddies or accept bribes.  If a mage or warlock has ever taken gear from you, fuck them,

Sindy does a deep breath frost breath.  It’s a frontal cone, but has a 1.5 cast time, so CDs can be popped by/for the tank.  If anyone else is in front of the dragon and isn’t doing the Shadowmourne quest line and bribing you properly, let them die.  Fuckers.

Alternate hiding behind the tombs in the 35% phase, because leaving your tanks without heals is bad.

Things We Learned About the LK Fight (and more)

These screen shots (and more!) brought to you by a dozen or so attempts on LK 10.  We seemed stuck at phase 2, but that’s typical for us.  We hit a wall, wander off for the night, then come back next time with a fresh look and storm on ahead.  At one point I was laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe, though, so it wasn’t a bad night at all.  XD   I hope I didn’t use too much levity to counter the wipes!  There’s a fine balance between “enough sillyness to break the tension” and “so much silly we’re not focusing”. 

I’ll come back with some constructive disc priest tips, and an overall strat, once I’ve…you know…seen the rest of the fight.  I can say that disc priests are pretty hax in this encounter, though.  OM NOM NOM BUBBLES. 

I have more screenshots, but I didn’t  get to go through them all last night and edit them for blogging.  So on to a few from the altitis weekend!

Now that I’ve hit the 60s, I need to get beyond “castery type stats” as a gearing plan.  LEVELING GUIDE, HO. 

Death Knight Ambrosine doesn’t actually feel ready for this DK nub tanking business.  I cried a little inside when I ended up with warlock in the party–they’re the bane of my WoW existance.  Way to be cruel for my first time tanking as a DK, Blizz.  :P

BABY MOO DRUIDS.  :D  We’re trying to come up with some good RP concepts for that pair, but I’ve always struggled with Tauren for some reason.

By Any Other Name

I love coming up with nick names for various things in the game, and I can’t be the only one.  What are some of your personal (or guild) favorites?

ToC = One Room Raid
ICC = Ice Cream Social
Blood Princes = Sparkle Twilight Party
Warlocks = Whorelocks / Floor Smears / Floor Tanks
Rogues = also Floor Smears / Floor Tanks
BWL’s Suppression Room = The Depression Room (yes, that’s an oldie)
Princess/Stinky = Ugly Puppies
Felhound = Radioactive Puppy (or just Puppy)
Spirit Beasts = Pew Pew Moonfire Kitty
Devilsaur = Fucking Big Pet In The Fucking Way (oops, maybe that’s just Josh…)
Beastial Wrath = RAWR Red Pet
Ele Shaman = Lightning Turret (o hai Krikket)

…I’m sure I’m forgetting a bunch.

Ice Cream Social: Blood Prince Council

Blood Prince Council, AKA Twilight Sparkle Party 

being dead = photo opportunities

 

Tanks 

This is a 3 tank fight-even in 10 man.  Valanar and Taldaram (henceforce, Val and Tal) should be tanked by normal tanks.  Keleseth can be tanked by anyone with a ranged attack.  In 25s we stick our paladin on him because, well, in 25s we have 3 tanks. 

The Kel tank is going to be wandering around the room trying to pick up those floaty purple-blue orbs.  Invariably some DPS happy schmuck with AoE is going to pick up one or two, but you should yell at them and then grab all the rest.  

 

The orbs reduce the shadow damage you take, which is very important because all Kel fucking does is chuck shadow bolts.  They follow the last person to hit it, and don’t have a real aggro table.  They do fade after awhile, so you’ll pretty much be wandering around seeking more perpetually.  Try not to run through half of your raid while empowered shock wave is incoming, okay? 

The Val and Tal tanks have an easier job.  Stand there and tank shit.  In our 25s the Val tank (I think) is actually up against a far wall, allowing them and their healer to stay out of the way whenever their boss isn’t the focus.   This way there’s less screaming “stay the fuck away from me during fucking empowered vortex you fucking useless fuckwits!” at their screens.  

DPS 

Okay, I’m about to explain a very difficult concept, so pay attention.  

Stay the fuck away from each other (except for when you all need to NOT stay the fuck away from each other). 

Got it?  No?  Okay.  Basically, you need to stay 12 yards away from every fucking one.  Unless you’re melee, in which case you can continue your usual happy hump the boss’ ass pile until you see your empowered vortex warning.  Then you scatter to the winds–preferably not all in the same direction, and not all on top of healers.  We’ve actually had to assign melee DPS directions to run, and this may not be a bad idea for you, either.  The OTHER time you don’t stay spread out is when there’s a empowered fire ball floating towards someone.  Then those of you in the area kind of scoot together because it’s the old “the more people there are, the less damage there is” trick.  As soon as it’s done it’s burney thing, everyone has cooties once more. 

Ranged should just spread out and stay there, damn it.  That means you, warlock who keeps wandering into my range.  Yeah, you.  

Hunters (or some other ranged DPS, perhaps, but we have eleventy billion hunters) tend to have another task: watching for floaty orbs.  No, NOT those dark float orbs–the sparkly orange ones.   Those can NOT touch the floor.  Ever ever.  Your healers will cry at you over the AoE damage if they touch the floor.  They tend to appear long the sides/back of the room, so hunters should be assigned an area to watch.  If you only have one in your corner of the world, sic your pet on it.  As long as it’s not on the stairs, they’ll happily keep the ball off the floor by themselves.  The stairs will sometimes wig the pets out (though spirit beasts and wind serpents, due to their ranged attacks, handle things on the stairs just fine) so you might have to pew pew those on your own. 

Healers 

The tricky part of this for us is healing the wandering Kel tank.  Assigning a healer to follow them is suicide–this is where holy pally beacons often come in handy.  Beacon the Kel tank and throw some supporting heals on him whenever he happens to wander into your range.  Another option is to have two healers keep an eye on him, one for each side of the room–when he’s out of range for one, he’s in range for the other. 

Otherwise, assign your usual tank healers to the other two tanks and raid heals as normal.   If you have your Vel tank and his healer stuck over on one side, be sure that another healer is lurking within range, just in case.