Heroic Musings: Six One Way…

I have, so far, been okay with the “5 man raids for blues” as Josh puts it.  Sure, they’re harder to fit into my schedule, but sticking strictly with guild runs I’ve not run wanted to slit my wrists yet.  Well, except that one time in Stonecore, but I try not to think about that.

Cranky Tank’s experiences have been quite another matter, however, and he’s quitting the game in displeasure again.  What’s the difference?

Group comp is again important.  Every now and again I get terrible flashbacks to BC where I spent half an hour (or longer) in the LFG channel looking for a mage or hunter.  Thankfully more classes have CC these days (frog!  repentence!) but this doesn’t change the fact that there still multiple classes without any CC at all. 

It’s not hard to be the victim of The Group Comp From Hell and suddenly have heroics go from a challenging hour to a three hour tour ending in alcoholic consolation (see: that time in Stonecore).  And you know what, it sucks that if you are a frost DK and your buddies are a boomkin (whose “CC” is only slightly more effective than my ice cubes) and an arms warrior, you’re probably going to get boned pretty hard in heroics while you’re trying to get gear.

And you know what?  I can see why that would suck.  I know some people rail against making all classes the same, but which is worse: nerfing the heroics, or throwing more classes a CC-shaped bone so that you can get back to “bring the player not the class”?  BTPNTC was not a bad idea.  WoW is, for many people, a social game.  I want to play it with my friends, even if they all decided to be melee for some damn reason.  Harder is okay, impossible is not–and I have been in a 3 melee heroic and it was well-night impossible.  It sucks that I can’t run with that group of people becuase of the classes that we play.

I had the blessing of a larger guild with a variety of classes and Cranky Tank did not.  I can’t help but be a little bit upset that it seems to have ruined most of his fun and there’s not a damned thing I can do about it. : \

Make Yourself Useful: The CC-less DPS

I have to say it’s a little odd going from playing a hunter to a death knight, in more ways than one.  For one thing I’m used to being able to contribute to CC (yes, used to: I did hunter in BC) and now I suddenly have none!  And now it’s important!

That’s okay, though, because I have many other fun buttons to play with that are still of endless assistance to the group.

Interrupts.  Interrupts interrupts interrupts.  Your tanks and your healers will love you.  The talent to reduce the cooldown on Strangulate is well worth it.  Casters standing in the back?  Shut ’em up and bring ’em over.  Shadowlancers doing their AoE of Healery Doom?  Nope!  Not anymore!

Don’t forget that you have more than Mind Freeze and Strangulate.  Hungering Cold is well-nigh useless as “CC”, although I do use it when I see strays to give the tank a few seconds to get a handle on the situation. It can, however, serve as yet another interrupt.  Is a mob whirlwinding and cutting up both your face and the tanks?  ICE CUBES.

Last but not least is our old friend Death Grip.  This does require some co-ordination with the tank, but I use it to good effect with my Cranky Tank with casters or ranged hunter mobs are misbehaving.

CC is awesome, yes, but so is making the tank’s life easier and reducing damage done to the group!

Frost DK Gear: Pre Heroic & Pre-Raid

This list is available over on EJ, but after they took it off the primary thread and gave me a heart attack, I decided to copy it over her for safe keeping.  It is still on the old thread but it might be harder to find for everyone there. 

[DW Pre-Heroic]

Slot	Item	Gemming	Reforging	Source
Head	[Helm of Easeful Death]	1x Chaotic, 1x 40str	Haste to Hit	Justice Points
Neck	[Gift of Nadun]	None	Haste to Hit	Ramkahen Exalted
Shoulders	[Pauldrons of the High Requiem]	1x 40str	None	Justice Points
Back	[Skin of Stone]	None	Crit to Expertise	Stonecore BoE
Chest	[Breastplate of Raging Fury]	2x 40str	Crit to Expertise	Justice Points
Wrists	[Terborus’s Rotating Bands]	1x 40str	None	Terborus; Deepholm
Hands	[Reaping Gauntlets]	1x 20str/hit	Crit to Expertise	Justice Points
Waist	[Belt of the Ferocious Wolf]	1x 20str/hit	Crit to Expertise	Hyjal Exalted
Legs	[Greaves of Gallantry]	2x 40str	Haste to Expertise	Justice Points
Feet	[Waywatcher’s Boots]	1x 40str	Haste to Expertise	Hyjal Revered
Ring	[Gorsik’s Band of Shattering]	None	Haste to Expertise	Therazane Revered
Ring	[Galrond’s Band]	None	Crit to Expertise	Hyjal Honored
Trinket	[Darkmoon Card: Hurricane]	None	None	BoE Craftable
Trinket	[Impatience of Youth]	None	None	Baradin/Hellscream Exalted
Main Hand	[Dragonscorn Mace]	None	None	Twilight Highlands Quest
Off Hand	[Sun Strike]	None	None	Rajh; Halls
Relic	[Notched Jawbone]	1x 40str	Hit to Crit	Honor Points

Although you can get the pvp rep with the dailies, I remain rather leery of them.  I’ll try them soon and we’ll see how it goes on a pvp server.  If I can’t even do my Therazane dailies unmolested (srsly guys, I just want to save Pebble, leave me alone)…

If you want to know what the ‘pre-raid’ list looks like as well, here you go:

[DW Pre-Raid]

Slot	Item	Gemming	Reforging	Source
Head	[Anomuran Helm]	1x Chaotic, 1x 40str	Crit to Exp	Ghur’sha; H Throne
Neck	[Gift of Nadun]	None	Haste to Mastery	Ramkahen Exalted
Shoulders	[Pauldrons of the High Requiem]	1x 40str	Hit to Haste	Justice Points
Back	[Skin of Stone]	None	Crit to Expertise	H Stonecore BoE
Chest	[Elementium Deathplate]	None	Crit to Expertise	BoE Craftable
Wrists	[Alpha Bracers]	1x 40str	None	Anraphet; H Halls
Hands	[Reaping Gauntlets]	1x 20str/hit	Crit to Expertise	Justice Points
Waist	[Belt of the Ferocious Wolf]	1x 20str/hit	Crit to Expertise	Hyjal Exalted
Legs	[Alpheus Legguards]	2x 40str	Crit to Mastery	H Thrones BoE
Feet	[Greaves of Wu the Elder]	1x 40str	Hit to Mastery	Husam; H Lost City
Ring	[Nova Band]	None	Crit to Hit	Isiset; H Halls
Ring	[Skyshard Ring]	None	Crit to Mastery	Altarius; H Vortex
Trinket	[Darkmoon Card: Hurricane]	None	None	BoE Craftable
Trinket	[Impatience of Youth]	None	None	Baradin/Hellscream Exalted
Main Hand	[Cookie’s Tenderizer]	None	Hit to Expertise	Cookie; H Deadmines
Off Hand	[Cookie’s Tenderizer]	None	Hit to Expertise	Cookie; H Deadmines
Relic	[Conch of Thundering Waves]	1x 40str	Hit to Mastery	Ghur’sha; H Throne

I high reccomend the frost DPS thread over at EJ.  Even though it sometimes gets mathy, it’s answered pretty much all of my questions even for my pre-raiding needs.

Hyjal Highlights

I would write a useful post but my brain is fried on benedryl, you don’t want me thinking that hard.  Or well, I don’t know if I can think that hard.  So, have some random (trying not to be spoilery?) comments on leveling in Hyjal.

So far, Hyjal isn’t bad.  The scene that plays out as you fly in is really cool–even Josh expressed some enjoyment of its awesomeness.

I love Draenei but I am jealous of human rep hax.  Hrmph.

Watching laggy blood elves chase down rabbits is kind of funny.  Sad, but funny.

Josh: Your threat is insane.
Me: AOE ICY DICKPUNCH and proc of OH HELLO TANKING!
Josh:  >:|

I know the plural of deer is deer.  But I’m going to squeal about the BABY DEERS anyway. 

OMG BABY TURTLES.  (Pst: you don’t need the turtle companions to kill Nemesis, btw.  Not in a pair with mostly epics, anyway.  We lost ours and we were too lazy to go back and get them, but it only half healthed us.)

Fuck you horde camping Cinderwhoever.  I may have been the only spawn I saw you being a dick at, but fuck you anyway.

I spent a lot of time getting hit by stray Captain America shields.  I’m sure I clipped more than a few hordies with Howling Blast, though when guards were around I tried REALLY REALLY HARD.  I also ended up with no few hunter and warlock pets attacking me after I clipped them with something.  Oops.  For the most part though, people were leaving each other alone.

Mining nodes are serious business.  If you beat me to it, cool.  If you beat me to it but then aggro something, MINE.  Beat me to it and you’re horde?  MINE.  Or I’m dead, one or the other.  We snagged nodes from under the noses of everyone from guildies (poor Solt) to blog readers that I belatedly recognized (O HAI).   Not nessicarily on purpose, mind (I’d have let Solt have the one if I’d only seen it was him and well…if it hadn’t been Zoja’s turn) but those yellow dots on our maps cause some sort of mindless frenzy.  MINE MINE MINE MINE.

We found a mining spot that seemed good but I can’t remember the name of it. Doesn’t that suck for you?

Also I don’t care how awkward getting around was THE JOUSTING QUEST WAS AWESOME.  You know why it was awesome?

THIS. THIS IS WHY IT WAS AWESOME.

/faceplants in a benedryl haze

The World Really Is Ending

I had a conversation with Josh on the way home where he confessed that for one brief, sliver of a second, he considered resubbing.  Steve has been talking a lot of about WoW lately at work, I guess. 

He spent the rest of the trip bitching about WoW and what he hated about it (other people, mostly) and telling me that he’d never resub ever oh my god no fuck that noise.

At some point last night while I was doing laps of Sholozar trying to get my mining up to Cata-ready levels (fuck you Engineering), he asked me a few questions about JP and how stuff worked now.  I answered distractedly…

…and then I turned around and saw him logged in game.

LOL.

LOLOLOLOLOL.

We are no longer the tank/healer powerhouse, but damn, it’s good to have my cranky bastard tank back.  It was also hilarious to listen to him run around and WTF at all the changes when he’s been gone a solid 8 months.

But now we’re going to compete over mining nodes.  Ffffffffffffffffuuuuu–

Baby Rogues and Awesome People

I rolled a gnome priest.  She was so cute I rolled her again on another (RP) server.  Then I rolled a human hunter.  Then a gnome rogue.  Then a human rogue.  I’m indecisive, have too many servers I want to play on, and love rolling characters.

So far it’s the human rogue that I’m leveling, if by leveling you mean get to level 8.  I’m terrible at rogues because I’m pretty sure I’ve managed to die at least as many times as I’ve dinged.  Cata or not, I’m still reminded of why I quit rogues the FIRST time, 5 years ago!

I might turn the gnome rogue into a PvP twink just for lulz.  That and then I wouldn’t have to level her much.  Duh.  >.>

In other news, I have to say that the WoW community is hilariously awesome.  There’s a bunch of us–some bloggers, some not–who have formed a surprisingly tight knit Twitter community.  Think what you will of Twitter, our little corner of it is…unique.  When the Lil Ragnaros and Baby Moonkin pets were put into the shop yesterday Twitter exploded–both with people squeeing with glee, and with a few sad laments of how some people didn’t have the money to spare right then.

Now Cranky Tank and I extremely lucky these days, and having been kindly gifted with some money lately, I wanted to pass along some cheer by gifting one of the pets to someone.

…the problem is that I keep getting beaten to it.  Everytime I go “oh oh that person, I’ll get them one!” SOMEONE ELSE DOES IT FIRST.

I’m sitting here giggling because my niceness is being thwarted by other people being entirely too nice faster than I can manage.

It’s easy to forget all about asshats today. 

Still have a baby moonkin looking for a home, too! ;)

PSA: Deer Will Eat You

Dear Night Elf Mages,

Your local deer are no longer cuddly critters.  If you attack one, they will turn around and eat your face.

Love,
the DK who has been reading about this rough discovery all over Twitter and LJdom today

I Think I Brokeded It! Cata, Day 1

Okay.  Okay.  Oh my god I need to roll a dwarf warlock.  I don’t know why, I just need to.

/rolls

/sneers at imp name, deletes

/rerolls

Okay this imp is acceptable.    Let’s quest.  La la.  La la.  Oh hey this starter gear kind of makes sense and isn’t ugly.  And I’m level two!  I…

…I really should go work on Vainglory shouldn’t I.  I mean, the World’s Easiest Way To Level Cooking isn’t going to be around forever.  Let’s go do that.  I just need turkeys.

GOD DAMN LEVEL 4 MAGE WHY ARE YOU STEALING MY TURKEYS?  YOU AREN’T EVEN LOOTING THEM.  RAWR.

/HOWLING BLAST

/HOWLING BLAST

Noooo I killed a fawn.  Sorry fawn.  :(

/HOWLING BLAST x 115 becuase there’s a lot of turkeys stuck in trees

OMG MAGE GO STAND IN THE CAMP FIRE OR SOMETHING.

Ahem.  Alright so 350 cooking, blah.  That’s enough for now.  Let’s go MINING!  I need to level engineering even though I hate the process with every fiber of my being.  Let’s go!  Um.  Hm.  Where do I mine now?  Well let’s go to Tanaris.  Taaanaaaariiiiiii-OH GOD WHERE DID STEAMWHEEDLE PORT GO?  Gadget is now a seaside city, lol?

/runs around mining

OH MY GOD WHAT IS THIS OVER HERE?  WHAT HAPPENED?

/runs around mining

I don’t remember these nodes being green to me before.  Hm.  Maybe it’s time to move on.

Some of my old node locations are in the seeeeeaaaaaaaa.

OMG what is this flying fossil thing?  The Brood of Norwhatever dude, he’s not in front of the Caverns anymore!  What!   Oh well off to Un’goro. 

 Oh hey it’s kinda pretty here.  I don’t see things TOO different. 

Bebeh lashers!

OMG node!  OMG node I can’t mine yet FUCK YOU RICH THORIUM VEIN.

OH SHINY.